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The Reproductive Rights Movement
In 1915, Mary Ware Dennett founded the National Birth Control League. It was the first birth control organization in the country. The league worked to repeal the Comstock laws. Dennett believed that information about sexuality and contraception was crucial to the health and happiness of the American family.
Dennett wrote The Sex Side of Life, a sexuality information guide for young people. She was charged with obscenity under the Comstock laws in 1929 and was found guilty and jailed. When the verdict was reversed in 1930, Dennett won one of the first victories against Anthony Comstock. Despite her efforts, however, the National Birth Control League was short-lived.
Margaret Sanger and America’s First Birth Control Clinic
The reproductive rights movement was firmly established on October 16, 1916, in the Brownsville community of Brooklyn, New York, when Margaret Sanger, her sister, Ethel Byrne, and an associate, Fania Mindell, opened the first birth control clinic in America. They provided contraceptive advice to desperately poor, immigrant women who lined up hours before the clinic doors opened.
Less than a month later, all three women were charged with violating New York’s antiobscenity statutes. They were arrested, indicted, and sent to prison for discussing and distributing contraceptives. The resulting publicity caused great widespread anger against the injustice of forcing women to bear children they could not afford and did not want.
In 1923, Sanger founded the Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau. The bureau treated patients and kept comprehensive records that would demonstrate the need to broaden the interpretation of federal and state Comstock laws and allow women to contracept for health reasons.
In 1936, the birth control movement achieved one of its greatest victories. Judge Augustus Hand, writing for the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in the case of U.S. v. One Package of Japanese Pessaries, ordered a sweeping liberalization of federal Comstock laws as applied to the importing of contraceptive devices.
Federal agents, acting under the Comstock laws, had seized a shipment of contraband diaphragms—Japanese pessaries—that was addressed to Sanger’s Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau. Judge Hand decided that birth control could no longer be classified as obscene in his jurisdiction—New York, Connecticut, and Vermont. He cited contemporary data on the health consequences of unplanned pregnancy and the benefits of contraception.
In the years following One Package, the ideas that had made Sanger controversial ceased to be shocking and gradually became entrenched in American public life. In 1939, the two organizations Sanger had founded—the American Birth Control League and the Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau—merged to become the Birth Control Federation of America, which was later renamed the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
Advances in Contraceptive Research
Sanger avidly supported the development of a “magic pellet”—an inexpensive, medically safe, completely reliable contraceptive that could be taken orally or by injection. Years of scientific and advocacy efforts were rewarded in the early 1950s, when Dr. Gregory Pincus demonstrated that injections of the steroid progesterone could stop ovulation in laboratory animals. In 1960, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the sale of oral steroid pills—”the Pill”—for contraceptive use.
Shortly thereafter, the first IUDs (intrauterine devices) became available. While later findings revealed that neither the Pill nor the IUD was problem-free for all users, they heralded major advances both in science and in attitudes about sexual and reproductive freedom. The advent of safe, effective, and inexpensive contraception helped propel the contemporary women’s liberation movement.
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Many teachings in the Eastern world emphasize the naturalness of sexuality and its spiritual potential. Sexual ecstasy is often seen as a way to spiritual awakening, understanding of self, and transcendence. Sexual pleasure and ecstasy are celebrated by both women and men. Human sexuality is regarded as an integrated part of the daily life of the whole person. It is considered a necessary element of good health.
Many women and men are looking for ways to explore the spiritual potential of their sexuality. The ancient East offers us some models for human sexuality that are different from those that have become familiar in the West.
The Kama Sutra
In ancient India, the Hindus believed that there were three aims in life: virtue (dharma), prosperity (artha), and love (kama).The Dharma Shastra is a compilation of teachings on ethics; the Artha Shastra is a treatise on politics and economy; and the Kama Shastra is a discourse on love, eroticism, and the other pleasures of life. The Kama Shastras were first compiled into a written text, the Kama Sutra, nearly 2,700 years ago, when they were already 1,000 years old.
The Kama Sutra is an instructional work that describes various ways of obtaining pleasure. It describes the duties of lovers and marriage partners, whether of the same or other gender, and extols the virtues of marriage for love and the advantages of having only one wife. Much of the text describes various lovemaking techniques, but the fundamental message is that “friendship and love must be practiced between equals, neither with superiors nor with inferiors.”
The first English version of the Kama Sutra was first widely published in 1960. It became a kind of handbook for the sexual revolution of the 1960s. Written and rewritten throughout the long history of India, however, the version that was popularized in the We: reflects Moslem attitudes of the tenth century more than the origin; Hindu views that inspired it. In the popular version, gender roles are much more delineated, women are subordinate to men, marriage an childbirth are the assumed goals of lovemaking, and same-sex love and marriage have been edited from the text.
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Being sexually active brings with it many responsibilities. This includes helping to protect ourselves and our romantic partners, both physically and emotionally. Three of the most important ways to attend to each other’s health and welfare are to prevent sexual abuse, to prevent sexually transmitted infections, and to prevent unintended pregnancy.
Preventing Sexual Abuse
An important part of being sexually healthy and responsible is never forcing anyone to engage in any sexual activity that she or he doesn’t want to do or hasn’t consented to. People who do this are sexual abusers. Some people may even try to force themselves on people who are young or on those who find it difficult to defend themselves. Often sexual abusers are well known to the people they hurt. They may be their friends. They may even be members of their families.
Sexual abuse is not limited to forcing someone to have sexual intercourse. It also includes unwanted touching, fondling, watching, talking, and giving baths, douches, or enemas. And it includes forcing someone to look at one’s sex organs. It happens whenever sexual privacy is not respected.
When someone is forced to have sexual intercourse, it is called rape. If someone’s husband, friend, or date forces him or her to have sexual intercourse, it is called acquaintance rape. If people within the same family have sexual intercourse, it is called incest. Sexual abuse, rape, acquaintance rape, and incest are all serious crimes that are punishable under law.
Preventing Sexually Transmitted Infection and Unwanted Pregnancy
Not only do we have to be sure that all our sexual activity is consensual, we also need to protect ourselves and our sex partners from sexually transmitted infection and unintended pregnancy. Half of the 31 million women aged 13 to 44 in the United States are at risk of unintended pregnancy.
More than half of the 6.3 million pregnancies that occur in the United States every year are unintended. Forty-four percent of these end in abortion, 43 percent in birth, 13 percent in miscarriage.
Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are spread through sexual contact, including vaginal, anal, and oral intercourse. Some can be spread through touching and kissing. Approximately 12 million new cases of STIs are diagnosed each year in the United States. Most of these infections have dangerous consequences and require professional medical treatment. Some can cause sterility. Some increase the risk of getting certain cancers. And others, such as HBV (hepatitis В virus), syphilis, and HIV (human immunodeficiency virus), can be fatal.
Nobody is immune to sexually transmitted infections. But most people who have one don’t know it because they don’t notice the symptoms or they don’t have any symptoms. Millions of people don’t know they’re infected until serious and often permanent damage has occurred or they pass the infection to someone else.
Being sexually healthy is more than preventing infections, abuse, and unintended pregnancy. It involves developing fulfilling and responsible relationships, enjoying satisfying sex lives, becoming comfortable with our bodies, planning our families, and understanding our sexuality in relationship to our society. In the following chapters we will look at all of these elements of human sexuality.
The basics for sexually healthy relationships
Sex partners should always:
• have one another’s consent
• be honest with one another
• treat one another as equals
• accept responsibility for their actions
• be attentive to one another’s pleasure, comfort, and health
• protect one another against emotional and physical harm, including unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infection
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Everyone is sexual—young or old, woman or man, straight or gay, married or single, rich or poor, abled or disabled. Being a sexual person does not necessarily include having sex. It means that we all have sexual feelings about ourselves and other people, whether we act on those feelings or not.
Sometimes these feelings include sexual desire. Sexual desire is a strong physical attraction. We could be attracted to someone we just see on TV or on the street, but whom we never meet. Or perhaps it is someone we talk to every day, at work or at the gym. Sometimes our attractions are just passing flirtations. Sometimes they may be all we can think about. Or sometimes the people we are attracted to are only fantasies we create in our minds.
There are many personal qualities that can attract us. We may be attracted to people because of their intelligence or ambition. We may be attracted to people who have an interest or sense of humor similar to our own. We may be attracted to people who treat us with kindness, sensitivity, and respect. Or we may be attracted to people simply for the way they smile.
Sexual desire and love are not the same thing. Love is a strong caring for someone else. It comes in many forms. There can be love for romantic partners, for close friends, for parents and children, for God, and for humankind. Love can exist without sexual desire, and sexual desire can exist without love. Many people are happiest when both love and sexual desire are shared between both partners.
When Does Sexuality Start?
We begin learning about sexuality as infants and never stop learning. As our bodies, minds, and social environments change during our lifetimes, so do our feelings, beliefs, behaviors, and sexual knowledge. Here is a brief guide to show how sexuality is experienced at different ages and what role parents and other caregivers can play in developing their child’s healthy sexuality. But remember, everyone is sexually unique! People can grow and change in very different ways— physically, mentally, and emotionally. So if we or people we know experience this process differently, that is perfectly normal, too.
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HUMAN SEXUALITY: DIVERSITY IN GENDER
Author: admin
Most people deal with their gender by accepting the social expectations associated with their biological gender. Others deal with their gender in less common ways. Here are some examples of gender diversity.
Cross-Dressers
Many people enjoy experimenting with their gender roles. People of one gender may like to occasionally wear various articles of clothing identified with the other gender simply to mock or defy society’s rules of what is considered “normal.” For others, cross-dressing can turn into a career. Many cross-dressers become professional entertainers. Men who cross-dress are commonly referred to as female impersonators or drag queens. Women who cross-dress are called male impersonators or drag kings.
Transvestites
Some people dress in the clothes of the other gender because it gives them sexual pleasure. Such people are usually referred to as transvestites.
Sometimes they cross-dress publicly, sometimes only in private. For example, a transvestite man may enjoy wearing women’s panties and stockings under his business suit. Many transvestites are heterosexuals who have no interest whatsoever in sexual encounters with people of the same gender.
Transgender
Some people dress in the clothing of the gender other than their biological one because they enjoy being treated as someone of the other gender. This is not done for sexual thrill. These people consider themselves transgender. Transgender people typically have two different identities, and even two names for themselves—one female and one male. For them, cross-dressing is like acting, playing a role, trying to see what it’s like to walk in a woman’s, or a man’s, shoes. How often a transgender person plays this role depends on the individual. Many transgender people are also heterosexual and have no desire to actually change their biological anatomy.
Transsexual
A transsexual is someone who fully identifies with the gender other than her or his biological one. Most transsexual people remember feeling, from a very early age, that they have been trapped inside the wrong body. Oftentimes transsexual people are unhappy with their female or male anatomy Most like to live full-time as the other gender. Many use hormone therapy and surgery to change their sexual anatomy so it matches their gender identity.
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