What is human sexuality? Human sexuality is the broad term to describe how individuals experience and express themselves as sexual beings physically, mentally, emotionally, and psychologically. Human sexuality can affect your biological and psychological well-being, while also impacting your social and cultural life. Here are three dimensions of human sexuality. Biological; this includes things such as the anatomy: the penis, vagina, vulva, or intersex, who are people born with sexual characteristics that do not fit typical binary notations of male or female bodies. Reproduction; sexual arousal and response, like an orgasm, and sexual health. Psychological, this may include gender equality, sexual expression, ways we communicate and present ourselves to the world as a sexual being; attraction and romance; non normative sexuality and paraphilias; engaging in activities or exhibitionism or masochism in which sexual gratification is derived from activities or fantasies that are generally regarded as atypical, extreme or dangerous. Finally, we need to consider social and cultural implications. Sexual stereotypes; sexual scripts; medicalization of sex, such as a medication to treat impotence. Cultural attitudes on sex and gender identity, sexual victimization of people with disabilities. Now we're going to look at five areas of human sexuality. These are sexual behavior, sexual anatomy and reproduction, sexual health, sexual orientation, and gender identity, and expression. Let's look into them one-by-one. Firstly, we have sexual behavior. Sexual behavior is the way in which a person acts out their sexuality and sexual wants and needs. Typically, sex is defined as penetrative. Vaginal sex is biologically for reproduction; however, it is most commonly engaged in for pleasure and partner intimacy. Oral sex, using the mouth to pleasure a partner's genitals; anal sex, penetrative sex in the anus; masturbation, touching one's own genitals for pleasure and orgasm. Societal and cultural expectation in sexual behavior results in sexual scripts or rules to how people are expected to act, speak, and feel during sexual activity. Think of sexual scripts as the stereotypes made by the media, school and education, medical professionals, and even friends and family. An example of this could include the stereotype that male partners or dominant partners are the ones who are supposed to start sex and even end sex. Sexual behavior typically matches someone's sexual orientation, whether it's heterosexual, straight female having sex with a male or a gay female having sex with another gay female. However, this is not always the case. For example, some people engage in sexual activity that is not typical of their orientation. Many people have experiences that are for exploration alone. It's a great way to find out what sexual activities you like and don't like. Sexual and reproductive anatomy. Sexual and reproductive anatomy consists of sex organs located on the outside of the body, external genitals, and internal reproductive organs located inside of the body. These are all different for male, female, and intersex individuals. Female sex organs include external: labia majora/minora, bartholin glands, clitoris, clitoral hood. Internal: vagina, cervix, uterus, ovaries, and fallopian tubes. Male sex organs are the penis, shaft head glands, foreskin, testicles, scrotum, epididymis, vas deferens, this is a narrow tube of the male reproductive system that carries sperm from the epididymis into the body. Intersex: a condition that causes individuals to be born with ambiguous sexual and reproductive anatomy. This means that someone may be born with what appears to be a female external organ, but have male sex organs on the inside. Intersex individuals can also have genitalia in between female and male, such as enlarged clitoris or an abnormally small penis. The clitoral hood, part of the female genitals, is made of the same tissues that develop into the male foreskin. The female clitoris is also made of the same tissues as the male penis. If someone with the clitoris were to take a high level of testosterone, the clitoris would enlarge like the male penis, does that male puberty, it is possible to fracture the penis. This typically occurs during penis and vagina penetrative sex. When engaged in more adventurous sex positions. It is a medical emergency which requires surgical repair. The clitoris has approximately 8,000 nerve endings, while the head of the penis only has a mere 4,000. This makes the clitoris two times as sensitive as the penis. Bacteria inside the vagina fight off infection of external harmful bacteria's and make the vagina slightly acidic. Let's move on to sexual health. Sexual health covers the general safety and well-being around sexual activity and sexual functioning, including knowing how to practice safe sex, risks of pregnancy and sexual transmission and sexually transmitted diseases and infections. Having access to contraception and maintaining sexual satisfaction and pleasure through personal hygiene. STI's sexually transmitted infections are vital part of sexual health and can be passed through the vaginal and oral sex. Some are treatable and preventable using condoms. Methods of birth control contraceptives like male condoms and female dental dams. Regular STI testing can help individuals keep a happy and healthy sex life. Moving on to sexual orientation. Sexual orientation refers to each person's capacity for profound emotional, affectional, and sexual attraction to, as well as intimate and sexual relations with individuals of a different gender, the same gender, or more than one gender. Sexual orientation is the gender or genders that someone is emotionally, mentally, sexually attracted to. Which includes orientations such as straight, heterosexual referring to the attraction to the other sex or gender. Gay, homosexual, which refers to the attraction to the same sexual gender. Bisexual, which refers to the attraction to people with the same sex and gender and to people with a sex gender other than your own. This is not any relating to male and female genders. Pansexual is the attraction of all genders regardless of sex. Asexual, this refers to anyone with no sexual attraction to any sex or all genders. This is not to say they still cannot experience romantic or emotional attraction, however. It's important to realize that sexual orientation is separate from a person's gender identity, and can change or evolve over a person's lifetime. For example, just because someone identifies as a man does not mean that, that man is automatically straight or just attracted to women. They can identify with any of the above orientations. Lastly, gender identity and expression. Gender Identity refers to how an individual expresses themselves and experiences life in terms of femininity and masculinity. Typically, gender identity aligns with biological anatomy. In other words, those born with a penis often feel and express themselves as masculine men. Those born with a vagina and valva feel and express themselves as a feminine woman. These individuals are called Cisgender, and is what the majority of the world's population identify with. However, this isn't always the case. The times people may feel a disconnection between their biological anatomy and their gender identity. These people may be called transgender, gender-nonconforming or non-binary. Transgender identified with a different gender that was assigned to them at birth. For example, a transgender female was assigned to be male at birth, but identifies and serves as a female, and vice versa for transgender males. Gender-nonconforming are those that identify with a mixture of femininity or masculinity. Non-binary refers to those who identify with having no gender, will have no feelings of masculinity or femininity. As you can imagine, there are so many misconceptions and myths surrounding this topic. Here are few to be aware of. Sexual activity needs to be natural and spontaneous. Talking and planning sexual activity takes away the mood. Penile-vaginal penetration is the only worthwhile form of sexual experience. Maleness and femaleness are linked to sexual competence, attractiveness and roles. Urinary incontinence equals genital and competence. Absence of sensation equals absence of feelings. People who live with a disability are sexual and cannot enjoy sex, love or intimacy. It is wrong for people to masturbate, and or use sex aids. Female sexuality is passive, and male sexuality is active. These are all misconceptions. Hopefully this has given you a broad overview of what human sexuality is, what it consists of, and how it varies. Throughout this program, we will be exploring how human sexuality affects people who are disabled or differently disabled, and how these factors should not deter them or anyone from being sexually active. Our next lesson, we'll look at these physical disabilities in much more detail. See you there.
