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MODULE 11.2 451

CONCEPT CHART 11.2 Sexual Response and Behavior

Concept Description Additional Comments

Sexual response cycle The characteristic pattern of bodily re- According to , the sexual response cycle sponses to consists of four phases: excitement, plateau, , and resolution.

Sexual orientation The direction of to The roots of remain obscure, but interest one’s own gender, to the opposite gen- among investigators and theorists has focused on biological der, or to both genders factors (genetics, prenatal sex hormones) and psychosocial factors (self-perceptions in childhood of differentness, relation- ship patterns with parents).

Sexual behavior Includes , sexual inter- Though the human body can respond to many forms of sexual course, , and stimulation, sexual behavior is strongly influenced by cultural learning, personal values, and individual experiences, not sim- ply by biological drives or capacities for sexual response.

Paraphilias Atypical or deviant patterns of sexual Some forms of paraphilia are associated with behaviors that attraction are illegal because of the harm these behaviors cause to others.

had experiences dating back to infancy in which were associated with contact with rubber pants or diapers (Reinisch, 1990). Such experiences might then have led to a conditioned response () connected with touch- ing the object. Concept Chart 11.2 reviews key concepts relating to sexual response and behavior.

Sexual Behavior and STDs: Are You at Risk? Concept 11.20 Many STDs, not just HIV/AIDS, pose AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome) has become one of history’s worst serious threats to our health. epidemics. By 2001, it had taken the lives of more than 438,000 people in the United States and more than 22 million people worldwide (“AIDS Epidemic,” 2001; Altman, 2001; Begley, 2001c; Stolberg, 2001c). Each day, another 15,000 Fact Sheets on STDs/Link people in the world contract HIV (human immunodeficiency virus), the virus that causes AIDS (Wren, 2001). Nowhere has the impact of HIV/AIDS been greater than in sub-Saharan Africa, where more than 23 million people are living with HIV or AIDS (“The Global Plague,” 2000). So many adults have been annihilated by this devastating disease that nearly an entire generation of children are now without parents—some 10 million orphans by recent estimates (Bartholet, 2000; Masland & Nordland, 2000). STD Attitude and Behavior Quiz/Link HIV is transmitted by contact with infected bodily fluids, generally through intimate sexual contact or needle-sharing. HIV attacks and disables the body’s immune system, making the person vulnerable to other infections the body is normally able to fend off. A type of paraphilia involv- HIV/AIDS is the most threatening sexually transmitted disease (STD), but it ing sexual attraction to children. is far from the most common (Sexually Transmitted Disease, 2001). Whereas nearly sexual masochism A type of paraphilia 1 million Americans are infected with HIV, more than one in five adolescents and involving the receipt of painful or adults in the United States—an estimated 45 million people—are infected with humiliating experiences as part of a HSV-2, the virus that causes genital herpes (Tuller, 2001). Human papillomaviruses sexual act. (HPVs) are a group of viruses that cause warts to appear in different parts of the sexually transmitted disease (STD) body, including the genitals. As many as one in three college women and nearly A disease caused by an infectious agent one in ten young men are infected with some form of HPV (Cannistra & Niloff, that is spread by sexual contact. 1996). In addition, 3 million new cases of chlamydia, the most common