Sexuality Explained

Sexuality Explained: a guide for parents and children underpins parents in their role as first educators of their children. It draws on the latest knowledge of the human body to show how mind, heart and body interplay in our sexual makeup, and how the life-giving and love-making aspects of the sexual act are each designed for permanence. The Guide works at many levels. By drawing the reader into a succession of conversations between a mother and her daughter, her father and her brother, a full picture of the biology of reproduction is created in a friendly way. The stories give parents ideas on how they might converse with their own children. The text is necessarily comprehensive, to answer possible questions, and to make sure that the parents know more than what is now taught in school biology, which can be checked for accuracy. Children vary enormously in their maturity, which is one reason why it is best that they are taught about sex and sexuality individually and, if possible, by members of their own family who know and love them. The age range set against each chapter is for guidance only. Parents may use the Guide in a variety of ways. They can let the Guide do most of the work for them, reading it out loud with their children. They can give a chapter to older children to read on their own, being ready for questions. Or they can absorb ideas to speak in their own words as occasion arises. To aid discussion and to give a framework for homemade lessons, each chapter ends with a glossary and a list of points to remember. The hand-drawn biological drawings, all of which have been specially commissioned, have been reproduced at the back of the book to be cut out and arranged in any order. The Guide is principally designed for parents, but it can also be read by young people on their own, and later chapters might be used by teachers and youth leaders for student workshops. There is no religious teaching but the Guide starts from the premise that all human life is of equal dignity and worthy of respect.

From the author of Out of a Far Country, which details his dramatic conversion from an agnostic gay man who put his identity in his sexuality to a Bible professor who now puts his identity in Christ alone, comes a gospel-centered discussion of sex, desire, and relationships. Dr. Christopher Yuan explores the concept of holy sexuality--chastity in singleness or faithfulness in marriage--in a practical and relevant manner, equipping readers with an accessible yet robust theology of sexuality. Whether you want to share Christ with a loved one who identifies as gay or you're wrestling with questions of identity yourself, this book will help you better understand sexuality in light of God's grand story and realize that holy sexuality is actually good news for all.

Is love “blind” when it comes to gender? For women, it just might be. This unsettling and original book offers a radical new understanding of the context-dependent nature of female sexuality. Lisa M. Diamond argues that for some women, love and desire are not rigidly heterosexual or homosexual but fluid, changing as women move through the stages of life, various social groups, and, most important, different love relationships.This perspective clashes with traditional views of sexual orientation as a stable and fixed trait. But that view is based on research conducted almost entirely on men. Diamond is the first to study a large group of women over time. She has tracked one hundred women for more than ten years as they have emerged from adolescence into adulthood. She summarizes their experiences and reviews research ranging from the psychology of love to the biology of sex differences. Sexual Fluidity offers moving first-person accounts of women falling in and out of love with men or women at different times in their lives. For some, gender becomes irrelevant: “I fall in love with the person, not the gender,” say some respondents.Sexual Fluidity offers a new understanding of women’s sexuality—and of the central importance of love.

Why we are so fascinated with sex and sexuality—from the preeminent philosopher of the 20th century. Michel Foucault offers an iconoclastic exploration of why we feel compelled to continually analyze and discuss sex, and of the social and mental mechanisms of power that cause us to direct the questions of what we are to what our sexuality is.

A Critical Analysis of Sexuality Education in the United States explores the development of sexuality education in North America and uses economic, legal, and psychological paradigms to identify and trace exclusionary programming and practices in schools. By analyzing legal and political documents, as well as state and private curricula, this insightful text considers the historical and contemporary experiences of adolescents in connection to the social structures of sexuality education. Challenging the current state of sex education in the United States, in terms of both content and delivery, the chapters succinctly illustrate how schools are failing to meet the developmental needs of all students. Student perspectives and evidence-based research demonstrate that an exclusionary curriculum is failing to equip students with the knowledge and understanding they require to undergo a process of empowerment about their sexuality, and engage in safe, informed, and consensual sexual activity. Finally, by employing a rights-based approach to sexuality education, the author offers important recommendations for change in state and federal curricula. Offering unique and comprehensive insight into the state of sex education in the United States, this text will be of great interest to graduate and postgraduate students, academics, researchers, policy-makers, and libraries in the fields of sexuality education, education policy and politics, sociology of education, gender studies, and curriculum studies.

This book takes the head-scratching out of human sexuality. Personal construct theory provides the foundation for a psychosocial explanation of sexuality that views everyday social interaction as key to the development of sexual identity and desires. The theory developed here accounts for stability and change in sexual identity through an understanding of the importance of experience and the importance of meaning in everyday life. The potential impact of erotica and pornography on sexual desire is discussed, as is the role of social power on sexual behaviour. The variation of sexual expression among individuals—everything from asexuality and sado-masochism to sexual assault—is examined and explained. Formal techniques for changing sexual desires are also presented.

Sexuality remains a neglected and largely taboo area within practice, but it can be a demanding aspect of social work. Social workers may be familiar with the importance of issues such as racism and ethnicity, but sexuality is also a very significant part of people′s lives, closest relationships and sense of identity. This valuable resource introduces the topic, using a combination of perspectives to consider sexual diversity and examining related issues across the life course, including sexual orientation, disability, HIV, sexual abuse, mental health and sexual exploitation.