50 Great Myths of Human Sexuality E-Book

Pepper Schwartz

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 764

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

50 Great Myths of Human Sexuality seeks to dispel commonly accepted myths and misunderstandings surrounding human sexuality, providing an enlightening, fascinating and challenging book that covers the fifty areas the author's believe individuals must understand to have a safe, pleasurable and healthy sex life. * Dispels/Explores commonly accepted myths and misunderstandings surrounding human sexuality * Includes comparisons to other countries and cultures exploring different beliefs and how societies can influence perceptions * Areas discussed include: pre-marital sex, masturbation, sexual diseases, fantasy, pornography, relationships, contraception, and emotions such as jealousy, body image insecurity, passionate love and sexual aggression * Covers both heterosexual and same-sex relationships

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

Cover

Title page

Copyright page

Preface

1 Body Parts

Myth #1 Bigger Penises Are Better

Myth #2 Vaginas Are Dirty, Ugly, and Smell Bad

Myth #3 Male Circumcision Is Dangerous and Completely Unnecessary

Myth #4 The G-spot Is the Most Orgasmic Part of a Woman’s Body

Myth #5 Testosterone Is the Main Predictor of Sex Drive in Men, and You Can Always Add More

Myth #6 Everyone Is Born Either Male or Female

2 Orientation and Identity

Myth #7 You Can Tell If Someone Is Gay Just by Looking at Him/Her

Myth #8 No One Is Really Bisexual

Myth #9 Most Transgender Individuals Get Surgery

Myth #10 Homosexuality Can Be Cured

Myth #11 Same-Sex Relationships Are Inherently Different from Those Between One Man and One Woman

Myth #12 Children of Same-Sex Parents Have Psychological Issues and Usually End Up Gay

Myth #13 Most Child Molesters Are Gay Men

3 Sexual Stats

Myth #14 Single People Have the Best Sex Life Since They’re Not Tied Down

Myth #15 Married Sex Is Boring, and Boring Sex Is Bad

Myth #16 Grandma Doesn’t Have Sex (and I Doubt that Mom Does Either)

Myth #17 Young People Are Sexually Wild, Promiscuous, and Irresponsible

Myth #18 Anal Sex is Not Normal

4 Performance

Myth #19 The First Time You Have Sex Is One of the Best and Most Meaningful Events of Your Life

Myth #20 Good Sex Always Ends With Simultaneous Orgasms

Myth #21 No Partner of Mine Has Ever Faked an Orgasm

Myth #22 Women Want to Be Dominated in Bed, Rough Sex Is the Most Fun

Myth #23 Only People Who Aren’t Getting Any Masturbate

Myth #24 Not Horny? Horny Goat Weed Can Help

5 Conception and Contraception

Myth #25 She’s Not Going to Get Pregnant if We Just Do It This Once

Myth #26 The Pill and Other Birth Control Methods Are Actually Dangerous to a Woman’s Health

Myth #27 Withdrawal Is Just as Good as Any Other Contraceptive Method

Myth #28 Condoms Don’t Work Very Well, Plus They Take All the Fun Out of Sex Anyway

Myth #29 Abortion Causes Breast Cancer and a Host of Mental Health Issues

6 STIs and Protection

Myth #30 There’s a Cure for HIV and AIDS

Myth #31 STIs Are No Big Deal as Long as You Take Your Medicine

Myth #32 HPV Vaccines (and Other Prevention Methods) Turn Girls into Sluts

7 Relationships

Myth #33 Hooking Up Never Leads to a Relationship

Myth #34 If You Feel Attracted to Someone Else, There Must Be Something Wrong With Your Relationship

Myth #35 Most Female Fantasies Revolve Around a Love Story

Myth #36 Men Cheat, Women Rarely Do

Myth #37 Most Couples have Matched Sexual Appetites

8 When Sex Is Unhealthy

Myth #38 Jealousy Is Romantic

Myth #39 Alcohol Makes Sex Better

Myth #40 Alcohol and Sex Are a Harmless Combination

Myth #41 For Girls, Sometimes Sex Just Hurts

Myth #42 Men Under 40 Rarely Have Trouble With Erections

Myth #43 People Can Get Addicted to Sex, Just Like They’re Addicted to Alcohol or Drugs

Myth #44 She Was Asking For It, and Other Common Myths About Sexual Assault

Myth #45 Pornography Is Dangerous

9 The Not-So-Private Side of Sex

Myth #46 Sex Education Makes Kids More Sexually Active

Myth #47 Men Who Have a Lot of Sex Are Studs, Women Are Sluts

Myth #48 Sexting is a Dangerous Epidemic Among Teens

Myth #49 If Sex Is Consensual, It Can Never Be Illegal

Myth #50 The Struggle for Gay Rights Is Over

Index

End User License Agreement

Guide

Cover

Table of Contents

Begin Reading

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50 Great Myths in Human Sexuality

Pepper SchwartzandMartha Kempner

This edition first published 2015© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Registered OfficeJohn Wiley & Sons, Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester,West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, UK

Editorial Offices350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148-5020, USA9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UKThe Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, UK

For details of our global editorial offices, for customer services, and for information about how to apply for permission to reuse the copyright material in this book please see our website at www.wiley.com/wiley-blackwell.

The right of Pepper Schwartz and Martha Kempner to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, without the prior permission of the publisher.

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Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and authors have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. It is sold on the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services and neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for damages arising herefrom. If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Schwartz, Pepper. 50 great myths of human sexuality / Pepper Schwartz, Martha Kempner.  pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index.

 ISBN 978-0-470-67433-8 (hardback) – ISBN 978-0-470-67434-5 (paper)1. Sex–Miscellanea. 2. Sex customs–Miscellanea. 3. Man-woman relationships–Miscellanea. I. Kempner, Martha. II. Title. III. Title: Fifty great myths of human sexuality. HQ21.S327 2015 306.7–dc23

    2014037290

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Preface

Not so long ago, a member of the US House of Representatives said that he knew that a woman could not get pregnant if she was raped against her will. He explained that there was some sort of organic process in the body that would prevent conception under “legitimate rape” conditions. We can’t imagine where he learned this. He claims doctors told him but unless they were lying or joking we can’t imagine anyone who had gone to medical school actually believing it. It so ridiculous that it would never have occurred to us to include it as a myth in this book. And yet a grown, well-educated man—a member of Congress, no less—believed it firmly enough that he was comfortable repeating it as fact to a television reporter.

We don’t think that this myth is sweeping the nation but it reminds us that there are some amazing misconceptions about human sexuality out there, many of which are certified by self-anointed “experts” and passed on as gospel, and some of which are even taught in our schools. Some are so misleading as to be dangerous while others may cause needless worry and anxiety.

We are all victims of swallowing a myth or two during some point of our lives; nobody gets all the right information, and sometimes early information sounds right until we learn it was actually quite inaccurate, but possibly not before we’ve told others what we first thought.

During Pepper’s freshman year of college, she was in a suite with a number of women, most of whom were virgins when they arrived. One by one, most of the young women acquired boyfriends or entered into an intense dating relationship, and got physical. One of the girls got pregnant the first time. She was shocked. She was sure that “you could not get pregnant the first time you had sex,” or that the odds against it were so great that she didn’t need to worry. Like there was a sex-freebie, and after that things got serious. (That myth was very common in those days and still tossed around often enough that we did include it in the book along with the much newer myth that the soda Mountain Dew could prevent pregnancy when drunk in large quantities or used as a douche (see Myth # 25).

Myths have consequences. If we believe that a woman can’t get pregnant the first time or during her period, some of us won’t bother with contraception at those times. Even seemingly innocuous myths can change our behavior. If we believe, say, that red-haired girls are naturally hornier, some shy redhead is going to get come-ons that she doesn’t like, and feel like she has to live up to expectations that she can’t, or doesn’t want to, fulfill.

It gets even more difficult because many beliefs about sexuality are based on personal or societal values and not scientific fact. And values changes. A couple of generations ago, mothers would tell their daughters to stay virginal until marriage because, as the saying went “He’s not going to buy the cow if he can get the milk for free.” That may not have been bad advice before the sexual revolution started to change women’s behavior in the late 1960s and 1970s. It might not even be bad advice now, but it doesn’t reflect today’s reality in which virginity, not sexual experience, is often more of a cultural burden to women. Despite this reality and the fact that today’s teens have sex earlier and get married later, the abstinence-only-until-marriage movement of the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s told young people in no uncertain terms that premarital sex was harmful. While some may continue to value premarital virginity and should be allowed to act on their beliefs, it is inaccurate to say that not doing so is harmful.

Other myths were just never true. Sometimes the facts are distorted because of political agendas. For example, some antiabortion activists have literally made up physical and emotional consequences for abortion (see Myth # 29) because they want to scare women enough so that they will not have an abortion. And still others have some basis in historical fact but are no longer true today. It is no longer true, for example, that young women and teens should avoid IUDs out of fear of their future fertility. The newest versions of this contraceptive method are safe for women of all ages.

For this book we picked 50 myths about sex. We admit it was hard to narrow them down. We picked them first if we thought that a lot of people believed them and might never know the truth unless we put them in this book. Second, we picked ones that had misinformation that was so dangerous that we were worried that people’s reliance on them could seriously hurt them (emotionally or physically) or others (through discrimination). Finally, we picked ones that had good research to the contrary; we didn’t want to be guilty of the same thing our book is trying to address! You can probably think of a lot more. And we’d be delighted if you wrote us and suggested others (there’s always the second edition!).

We do want to address a few things before we delve into correcting misinformation. For the most part we focused on research from the United States and the cultural issues that are specific to this country. Attitudes about human sexuality are so different around the world that it would have been impossible to address each myth on a global scale. That said, we do include comparisons with other countries and cultures in some of our myths to help explain how variable beliefs can be and how societies can influence perceptions.

We also tried to be inclusive of same-sex couples wherever possible. Obviously, certain myths—like those about getting pregnant—are exclusive to heterosexual couples. Others are dedicated to correcting misunderstandings about gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender individuals and couples. Many myths, however, like those about faking orgasms or the importance of simultaneous orgasms, probably originated with heterosexual couples but can be applied to anyone. In these myths we tried to include research on same-sex couples wherever possible. Unfortunately, for many aspects of sexuality and sexual behavior, there has not been nearly enough research done on lesbian and gay couples. We are hopeful that as same-sex marriage and relationships become more open and accepted in our society, more researchers will begin to look closely at same-sex couples. (Perhaps that second edition we were talking about can include more information.)

Finally, we want to make sure that our readers understand that because beliefs on human sexuality are so often grounded in personal values and opinions, some of what you read will reflect our beliefs. Our opinions are grounded in science and we present that science to you throughout the book. Of course, we think it is only fair that you know that our opinions are also grounded in our collective years of experience working in the field of human sexuality, writing, researching, and teaching. And given this experience, sometimes we just couldn’t help adding a little advice into our entries.

Ultimately, we hope these pages clarify, enlighten, and entertain you. Just because these are serious matters doesn’t mean we can’t have a little fun with them.

1Body PartsWho Has What and How It Works

Myth #1 Bigger Penises Are Better

How many jokes have we all heard about how much “size matters?” And how many retorts “It’s not the meat, it’s the motion?” There are so many penis jokes and so much bragging, it isn’t funny. No, it really isn’t. Because the fact is that men with smaller penises worry that they will not be virile enough, it may make them avoid sexual interaction or even peeing in a public urinal, and, even more importantly, some of those men will buy various fake products that will supposedly make them longer, stronger, or wider. Distraught men may even opt for surgery, and these implants can cause nerve damage and even impotence. Even if successful, these are serious operations which include cutting the suspensory ligament, followed by weeks of traction that include hanging weights on the penis (Vardi et al., 2008). This results in added length, but only in the flaccid state! (So who is this operation really for? Could it be really to see other guys enviously ogle the longer penis in the men’s room?) Attempts to add girth have even more problems, often resulting in uneven distribution of the added fat tissue which can have an overall lumpy effect. Most men who have the procedure are not happy with the result (Li et al., 2006).

So How Big Are They Usually?

There are differences in penis size. There are wide ones that are short, long, and in between. There are long ones and short ones of different girth. The best study on penis size (Wessells et al., 1996) found that the mean size of flaccid penises was about 3.5 inches and about 5.1 inches erect. When they measured against the pubic pad, it was about 6.2 inches. Mean circumference of the erect penile shaft was about 4.8 inches. Two-thirds of the men were within 1 inch of these measurements. Other studies also arrive at similar measurements (Templer, 2002). Interestingly, these studies found no correlation between the flaccid and erect state, so next time you sneak a glance at the guy at the next urinal just remember—you don’t really know much.

There have been quite a few studies searching for whether a man’s height has any positive correlation with penis size. Taller men certainly think their penises are bigger. An internet survey of 52,031 heterosexual men and women found taller men estimated they were larger while shorter men estimated they were smaller (Lever et al., 2006). They may be right. Researchers in Iran actually studied the external genital dimensions of 1500 men and concluded that length had a significant positive correlation with height (Mehraban et al., 2007). A study from the Department of Urology through the Athens Naval and Veterans Hospital measured 52 men under 40 and found that the penile shaft length, and total length, was correlated positively to height (Spyropoulos et al., 2002).

Body mass also has had some correlation with penis size but most researchers feel that the correlation is because the penis of obese men retreats under the belly and so seems smaller than it is. Ultimately, researchers conclude that “fat level is a good predictor of when a man rates his penis as small versus large” (Lever et al., 2006, p. 135).

People often joke that the larger the hand and feet the larger the schlong, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Urologists at St Mary’s Hospital and the University College Hospital in London studied the stretched penile length of 104 men and found that there was not a “statistically significant relationship between stretched penile length and shoe size” (Shah and Christopher, 2002, p. 586). No one else has found such a link either.

While hands might not tell us anything, it turns out that the index finger can. The study of Iranian men found a positive correlation between the parameters of an index finger and the size of a man’s penis (Mehraban ., 2007). Another study on a small sample of men found the same thing (Spyropoulos ., 2002). Voracek and Manning (2003) offered an explanation for this: “Homeobox (Hox) genes regulate limb development, including fingers and toes, as well as urogenital system development, including the penis. Therefore morphological patterns of the fingers may be related to morphological patterns of the external genitalia” (p. 201).