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bard of aven

At the request of a member, we are starting this thread to list medical/legal/other citations to matters asexual. This thread will only be a list of references.

In order to keep it to a list of references and free of comment, it will be locked. If you want to add a citation to the thread, pm me or any admin with the information, and we will add it as soon as possible. If you want to comment on a particular citation, please start a new thread dedicated to that.

And in order to keep this at the top of the page, it's a sticky.

boa, library mod

----------------------------------------------------

Links:

National responses:
http://www.ilo.org/public/english/dialogue/ifpdial/downloads/lc_02/germany_2.pdf (2014 Mod Edit: New Link)
http://www.ilo.org/public/english/dialogue/ifpdial/downloads/lc_02/denmark_2.pdf (2014 Mod Edit: New Link)

The WHO
http://www.paho.org/english/sha/be_v23n2-glossary.htm

2014 Mod Edit - For future reference:

—from Epidemiological Bulletin, Vol. 23 No. 2, June 2002


A Glossary for Social Epidemiology

Nancy Krieger, PhD
Harvard University School of Public Health
Boston, Massachussets, United States

Part II

Race/ethnicity and racism
Race/ethnicity is a social, not biological, category, referring to social groups, often sharing cultural heritage and ancestry, that are forged by oppressive systems of race relations, justified by ideology, in which one group benefits from dominating other groups, and defines itself and others through this domination and the possession of selective and arbitrary physical characteristics (for example, skin colour).(6, 13) Racism refers to institutional and individual practices that create and reinforce oppressive systems of race relations (see “discrimination”, above).(6, 15, 41) Ethnicity, a construct originally intended to discriminate between “innately” different groups allegedly belonging to the same overall “race”,(42, 43) is now held by some to refer to groups allegedly distinguishable on the basis of “culture”(44); in practice, however, “ethnicity” cannot meaningfully be disentangled from “race” in societies with inequitable race relations, hence the construct “race/ethnicity”.(6, 42)
Two diametrically opposed constructs are thus relevant to understanding research on and explaining racial/ethnic disparities in health.(6, 45) The first is: racialised expressions of biology, whereby measured average biological differences between members of diverse racial/ethnic groups are assumed to reflect innate, genetically determined differences (premised, in the first instance, on the arbitrary phenotypic characteristics seized upon to define, tautologically, racial categories). The second is: biological expressions of racism (see “biological expressions of social inequality”, above). For example, following dominant ideas construing “race” as an innate biological characteristic, epidemiological research has been rife with studies attempting to explain racial/ethnic disparities in health in relation to presumed genetic differences, absent consideration of effects of racism on health.(6, 45–46, 47) Alternatively, considering lived experiences of racism as real but the construct of biological “race” as spurious, social epidemiological research investigates health consequences of economic and non-economic expressions of racial discrimination.(6, 13, 45–48)
Sexualities and heterosexism
Sexuality refers to culture bound conventions, roles, and behaviours involving expressions of sexual desire, power, and diverse emotions, mediated by gender and other aspects of social position (for example, class, race/ethnicity, etc).(49) Distinct components of sexuality include: sexual identity, sexual behaviour, and sexual desire. Contemporary “Western” categories by which people self identify or can be labelled include: heterosexual, homosexual, lesbian, gay, bisexual, “queer”, transgendered, transsexual, and asexual. Heterosexism, the type of discrimination related to sexuality, constitutes one form of abrogation of sexual rights(50) and refers to institutional and interpersonal practices whereby heterosexuals accrue privileges (for example, legal right to marry and to have sexual partners of the “other” sex) and discriminate against people who have or desire same sex sexual partners, and justify these practices via ideologies of innate superiority, difference, or deviance. Lived experiences of sexuality accordingly can affect health by pathways involving not only sexual contact (for example, spread of sexually transmitted disease) but also discrimination and material conditions of family and household life.(49, 50)
Society, social, societal, and culture
Society, originally meaning “companionship or fellowship”, now stands as “our most general term for the body of institutions and relationships within which a relatively large group of people live and as our most abstract term for the condition in which such institutions and relationships are formed”.(51) Social, as an adjective, likewise has complex meanings: “as a descriptive term forsociety in its now predominant sense of the system of common life”, and also as “an emphatic and distinguishing term, explicitly contrasted with individual and especially individualist theories of society” [italics in the original].51 Societal, in turn, serves as a “more neutral reference to general social formations and institutions”.(51)
By this logic, social epidemiology and its social theories of disease distribution stand in contrast toindividualistic epidemiology, which relies on individualistic theories of disease causation (see “theories of disease distribution”, below).
Culture, originally a “noun of process” referring to “the tending of something, basically crops or animals,”(51) presently has three distinct meanings: “(i) the independent and abstract noun which describes a general process of intellectual, spiritual, and aesthetic development . . .; (ii) the independent noun, whether used generally or specifically, which indicates a particular way of life, whether of a people, a period, a group, or humanity in general; and . . . (iii) the independent and abstract noun which describes the work and practices of intellectual and especially artistic activity”.(51) In social epidemiology, meaning (ii) predominates, with “culture” typically conceptualised and operationalised in relation to health related beliefs and practices, especially dietary practices. By this logic, “acculturation” (or, perhaps more accurately “deculturation” (45)) refers to members of one “culture” adopting beliefs and practices of another (and typically dominant) “culture”.(52, 53) Related, examples abound (44, 53) in epidemiological literature whereby the construct of “culture” is conflated with “ethnicity” (and “race”) and together are inappropriately invoked to explain socioeconomic and health characteristics of diverse population groups on the basis of “innate” qualities, rather than as a consequence of inequitable social relationships between groups.(52)
Social class and socioeconomic position
Social class refers to social groups arising from interdependent economic relationships among people.(51, 54–56) These relationships are determined by a society’s forms of property, ownership, and labour, and their connections through production, distribution, and consumption of goods, services, and information. Social class is thus premised upon people’s structural location within the economy—as employers, employees, self employed, and unemployed (in both the formal and informal sector), and as owners, or not, of capital, land, or other forms of economic investments. Stated simply, classes—like the working class, business owners, and their managerial class—exist in relationship to and co-define each other. One cannot, for example, be an employee if one does not have an employer and this distinction—between employee and employer—is not about whether one has more or less of a particular attribute, but concerns one’s relationship to work and to others through a society’s economic structure.
Class, as such, is not an a priori property of individual human beings, but is a social relationship created by societies. As such, social class is logically and materially prior to its expression in distributions of occupations, income, wealth, education, and social status. One additional and central component of class relations entails an asymmetry of economic exploitation, whereby owners of resources (for example, capital) gain economically from the labour or effort of non-owners who work for them.
Socioeconomic position, in turn, is an aggregate concept that includes both resource-based and prestige-based measures, as linked to both childhood and adult social class position.(54-56) Resource-based measures refer to material and social resources and assets, including income, wealth, and educational credentials; terms used to describe inadequate resources include “poverty” and “deprivation” (see “poverty”, above). Prestige-based measures refer to individuals’ rank or status in a social hierarchy, typically evaluated with reference to people’s access to and consumption of goods, services, and knowledge, as linked to their occupational prestige, income, and educational level. Given distinctions between resource-based and prestige-based aspects of socioeconomic position and the diverse pathways by which they affect health, epidemiological studies should state clearly how measures of socioeconomic position are conceptualised. The term socioeconomic status” should be eschewed because it arbitrarily (if not intentionally) privileges “status”—over material resources—as the key determinant of socioeconomic position.(54)
Social determinants of health
Social determinants of health refer to both specific features of and pathways by which societal conditions affect health and that potentially can be altered by informed action. (4, 24, 57) As determinants, these social processes and conditions are conceptualised as “essential factors” that “set certain limits or exert pressures”, albeit without necessarily being “deterministic” in the sense of “fatalistic determinism”.(51) Historically contingent, social determinants of health, broadly writ, include:
(a) a society’s past and present economic, political, and legal systems, its material and technological resources, and its adherence to norms and practices consistent with international human rights norms and standards; and
(b) its external political and economic relationships to other countries, as implemented through interactions among governments, international political and economic organisations (for example, United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund), and non-governmental organisations.
One term appearing in social epidemiological literature to summarise social determinants of health is “social environment”.(4, 7, 57) This metaphor invokes notions of “environment”, a term literally referring to “surroundings” and initially used to denote the physical, including both “natural” and “built”, environment. Both “social environment” and the related metaphor “social ecology” are problematic in that they can conceal the role of human agency in creating social conditions that constitute social determinants of health.(1)
Social inequality or inequity in health and social equity in health
Social inequalities (or inequities) in health refer to health disparities, within and between countries, that are judged to be unfair, unjust, avoidable, and unnecessary (meaning: are neither inevitable nor unremediable) and that systematically burden populations rendered vulnerable by underlying social structures and political, economic, and legal institutions.(21, 58, 59) As such, social inequalities (or inequities) in health are not synonymous with “health inequalities”, as this latter term can be interpreted to refer to any difference and not specifically to unjust disparities.(58, 59) For example, recently proposed measures of “health inequalities” deliberately quantify distributions of health in populations without reference to either social groups and or social inequalities in health.(59–62)
Social equity in health, in turn, refers to an absence of unjust health disparities between social groups, within and between countries.(58) Promoting equity and diminishing inequity requires not only a “process of continual equalization” but also a “process of abolishing or diminishing privileges”.(51) Thus, pursuing social equity in health entails reducing excess burden of ill health among groups most harmed by social inequities in health, thereby minimising social inequalities in health and improving average levels of health overall.(21)
Social production of disease/political economy of health
Social production of disease/political economy of health refers to related (if not identical) theoretical frameworks that explicitly address economic and political determinants of health and distributions of disease within and across societies, including structural barriers to people living healthy lives.(1, 63–66) These theories accordingly focus on economic and political institutions and decisions that create, enforce, and perpetuate economic and social privilege and inequality, which they conceptualise as root—or “fundamental”(67)—causes of social inequalities in health. Although compatible with the ecosocial theory of disease distribution, they differ in that they do not systematically seek to integrate biological constructs into explanations of social patternings of health.(1, 2)
Social production of scientific knowledge
Social production of scientific knowledge refers to ways in which social institutions and beliefs affect recruitment, training, practice, and funding of scientists, thereby shaping what questions we, as scientists, do and do not ask, the studies we do and do not conduct, and the ways in which we analyse and interpret data, consider their likely flaws, and disseminate results.(68–71)
That scientists’ ideas are shaped, in part, by dominant social beliefs of their times is well documented.(3, 72–74) Relevant to social epidemiology, a substantial body of literature demonstrates how scientific knowledge and, more importantly, real people, have been harmed by scientific racism, sexism and other related ideologies, including eugenics, which justify discrimination and discount the importance of understanding and ameliorating social inequalities in health.(6) Tellingly, as of the year 2000, only 0.05% of the approximately 34 000 articles indexed in Medline by the keyword “race” had explicitly investigated racial discrimination as a determinant of population health.(6)
Stress
Stress, a term widely used in the biological, physical, and social sciences, is a construct whose meaning in health research is variously defined in relationship to “stressful events, responses, and individual appraisals of situations”.(75) Common to these definitions is “an interest in the process in which environmental demands tax or exceed the adaptive capacity of an organism, resulting in psychological or biological changes that may place persons at risk for disease” [italics in original].75 An “environmental stress perspective” focuses on “environmental demands, stressors, or events”(75); a “psychological stress perspective”, on “an organism’s perception and evaluation of the potential harm posed by objective environmental exposures”(75); a “biological stress perspective”, on “activation of the physiological systems that are particularly responsive to physical and psychological demands”.(75) Whether social epidemiological research conceptualises stress in relation to structural, interpersonal, cognitive, or biological parameters, and whether it uses “environment” as a term or metaphor that reveals or conceals the role of human agency and accountability in determining distributions of “stress”, depends on the underlying theories of disease distribution guiding the research (see “theories of disease distribution”, below, and “social determinants”, above).
Theories of disease distribution
Theories of disease distribution seek to explain current and changing population patterns of disease across time and space and, in the case of social epidemiology, across social groups (within and across countries, over time).(1) Using—like any theory(51, 71)—interrelated sets of ideas whose lausibility can be tested by human action and thought, theories of disease distribution presume but cannot be reduced to mechanism oriented theories of disease causation.(1) Explicit attention to aetiological theory is essential, because shared observations of social disparities in health do not necessarily translate to common understandings of causes.(1) Excess risk of HIV/AIDS among poor women of colour, for example, is attributed to social inequity by ecosocial and social production of disease theories of disease distribution, but is attributed to “bad behaviours” by biomedical lifestyle theories of disease causation.(1, 76)
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(3) Krieger N. Epidemiology and social sciences: towards a critical reengagement in the 21st century. Epidemiol Rev 2000;11:155–63.
(4) Berkman L, Kawachi I, eds. Social epidemiology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
(5) Yankauer A. The relationship of fetal and infant mortality to residential segregation: an inquiry into social epidemiology. Am Sociol Review 1950;15:644–8.
(6) Krieger N. Discrimination and health. In: Berkman L, Kawachi I, eds. Social epidemiology.Oxford:Oxford University Press, 2000:36–75.
(7) Sydenstricker E. Health and environment. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1933.
( 8) Morris JN. Uses of epidemiology. Edinburgh: Livingston, 1957.
(9) Jary D, Jary J, eds. Collins dictionary of sociology. 2nd ed. Glasgow, UK: HarperCollins Publishers, 1995.
(10) Marshall G, ed. The concise Oxford dictionary of sociology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994.
(11) Susser M, Susser E. Choosing a future for epidemiology: II. from black boxes to Chinese boxes and eco-epidemiology. Am J Public Health 1996;86:674–7.
(12) McMichael AJ. Prisoners of the proximate: loosening the constraints on epidemiology in an age of change. Am J Epidemiol 1999;149:887–97.
(13) Krieger N, Rowley DL, Herman AA, et al. Racism, sexism, and social class: implications for studies of health, disease, and well-being. Am J Prev Med 1993;9 (suppl):82–122.
(14) Fausto-Sterling A. Sexing the body: gender politics and the construction of sexuality. New York: Basic Books, 2000.
(15) Essed P. Diversity: gender, color, and culture. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts, 1996.
(16) Ruiz MT, Verbrugge LM. A two way view of gender bias in medicine. J Epidemiol Community Health 1997;51:106–9.
(17) Kravdal O. Is the relationship between childbearing and cancer incidence due to biology or lifestyle? Examples of the importance of using data on men. Int J Epidemiol 1995; 4:477–84.
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(19) Gruskin S, Tarantola D. Health and human rights. In: Detels R, McEwen J, Beaglehole R, et al, eds. The Oxford textbook of public health. 4th ed. New York: Oxford University Press (in press).
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(21) UNDP 2000: United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Human development report 2000:Human rights and human development. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.
(22) Boucher D, Kelly P, ed. Social justice: from Hume to Walzer. London: Routledge, 1998.
(23) Krieger N, Birn A-E. A vision of social justice as the foundation of public health: commemorating 150 years of the Spirit of 1848. Am J Public Health 1998;88:1603–6.
(24) People’s Health Assembly 2000. People’s charter for health. Gonoshasthaya Kendra, Savar, Bangladesh December 4–8, 2000. At: http://www.pha2000.org [last accessed: 11 Feb 2001].
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(26) Davey Smith G, Gunnell D, Ben-Shlomo Y. Life-course approaches to socio-economic diVerentials in causespecific adult mortality. In: Leon D, Walt G, eds. Poverty, inequality, and health: an international perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001:88–124.
(27) Barker DJP. Mothers, babies, and health in later life. 2nd ed. Edinburgh: Churchill Livingston, 1998.
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(31) Macintyre S, Ellaway A. Ecological approaches: rediscovering the role of the physical and social environment. In: Berkman L, Kawachi I, eds. Social epidemiology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000:332–48.
(32) Spicker P. Definitions of poverty: eleven clusters of meaning. In: Gordon D, Spicker P, eds. The international glossary on poverty. London: Zed Books, 1999:150–62.
(33) Gordon D, Spicker P, eds. The international glossary on poverty. London: Zed Books, 1999.
(34) Townsend P. The international analysis of poverty. New York: Harvester/Wheatsheaf, 1993.
(35) Shaw M, Dorling D, Davey Smith G. Poverty, social exclusion, and minorities. In: Marmot M, Wilkinson RG, eds. Social determinants of health. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999:211–39.
(36) Elstad JI. The psycho-social perspective on social inequalities in health. In: Bartley M, Blane D, Davey Smith G, eds. The sociology of health inequalities. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998: 39–58.
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(39) Lynch JW, Davey Smith G, Kaplan GA, House JS. Income inequality and mortality: importance to health of individual incomes, psychological environment, or material conditions. BM J 2000;320:1200–4.
(40) Kunitz SJ. Accounts of social capital: the mixed health effects of personal communities and voluntary groups. In: Leon D, Walt G, eds. Poverty, inequality, and health: an international perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001:159–74.
(41) Essed P. Understanding everyday racism: an interdisciplinary theory. London: Sage, 1992.
(42) Statistics Canada and US Bureau of the Census. Challenges of measuring in an ethnic world: Science, politics, and reality. Washington, DC: US Government Printing OYce, 1993.
(43) Hobsbawm EJ. Nations and nationalism since 1780: programme, myth, reality. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
(44) Haynes MA, Smedley BD, eds. The unequal burden of cancer: an assessment of NIH research and programs for ethnic minorities and the medically underserved. Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1999.
(45) Krieger N. Refiguring “race”: epidemiology, racialized biology, and biological expressions of race relations. Int J Health Services 2000;30:211–16.
(46) Williams DR. Race, socioeconomic status, and health. The added effects of racism and discrimination. Ann NY Acad Sci 1999;896:173–88.
(47) Lillie-Blanton M, LaVeist T. Race/ethnicity, the social environment, and health. Soc Sci Med 1996;43:83–92.
(48) Davey Smith G. Learning to live with complexity: ethnicity, socioeconomic position, and health in Britain and the United States. Am J Public Health 2000;90:1694–8.
(49) Parker RG, Gagnon JH, eds. Conceiving sexuality: approaches to sex research in a post-modern world. New York: Routledge, 1995.
(50) Miller AM. Sexual but not reproductive: exploring the junction and disjunction of sexual and reproductive rights. Health and Human Rights 2000;4:68–109.
(51) Williams R. Keywords: a vocabulary of culture and society. Revised ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1983.
(52) Kunitz SJ. Disease and social diversity: the European impact on the health of non-Europeans. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.
(53) Lin SS, Kelsey JL. Use of race and ethnicity in epidemiologic research: concepts, methodologic issues, and suggestions for research. Epidemiol Rev 2000;22:187–202.
(54) Krieger N, Williams D, Moss N. Measuring social class in US public health research: concepts, methodologies and guidelines. Annu Rev Public Health 1997;18:341–78.
(55) Wright EO. Class counts: comparative studies in class analysis. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
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(57) Marmot M, Wilkinson RG, eds. Social determinants of health. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.
(58) Whitehead M. The concepts and principles of equity and health. Int J Health Services 1992;22:429–45.
(59) Leon DA, Walt G, Gilson L. International perspectives on health inequalities and policy. BMJ 2001;332:591–4.
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Source: This article was initially published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health (J Epidemiol Community Health 2001;55:693-700). It is reproduced with permission of the British Medical Journal Publishing Group. The first part was published in the Epidemiological Bulletin2002;23(1):7-11



Scientific
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6533 (2014 Mod Edit: see here for discussion)

Popular Press
http://edition.cnn.com/2004/TECH/science/1.../asexual.study/ (2014 Mod Edit: see here for discussion)
http://news.scotsman.com/uk.cfm?id=1194862004

2014 Mod Edit - For future reference:


Sex? No thanks

Published 14/10/2004 01:22


THE sexual revolution of the 1960s gave rise to a generation who fought with the law to sleep with men, women or both at the same time. Today, a new generation are fighting for the right to sleep alone.

People who are glad to be "A" are coming out of the closet to declare they have no interest in sex, according to a new study.

Some research suggests there are almost as many asexuals as there are gay individuals.

A report in the journal New Scientist reveals they are starting to insist on their right not to have sex. Many adherents now believe asexual activism could soon mirror the gay revolution.

Although some might simply have low libidos, others claim to represent a new category of sexual orientation.

Despite having sex drives, these people are not remotely attracted to either gender.

Brian, an asexual navy veteran from Virginia, USA, said: "The place where we draw the line is the desire to interact sexually with other people."

Although such a category of sexual identity has never before been claimed, certain historical figures could have fitted the "type" without themselves being aware of it.

PG Wodehouse was married to his wife Ethel for 60 years, but the couple never had children. His biographer, Joseph Connolly, recently wrote: "I think it is entirely possible that he was asexual, as indifferent to the whole business as he was to anything that did not involve books, writing, cricket, golf, television soap operas and Pekingese dogs."

David Hume, the Scottish philosopher, never married. There are no records of any romantic relationships in his life, and biographers instead refer to his preference for engaging in debates at Edinburgh’s Select Society.

Dr Anthony Bogaert, a psychologist at Brock University in Canada, has just published the first study to try to estimate the prevalence of asexuality.

He drew on a survey of sexual practices among more than 18,000 people in the UK published in 1994.

The survey did not specifically focus on the issue of asexuality, but did include questions about sexual attraction.

One option offered was: "I have never felt sexually attracted to anyone at all." One per cent of participants chose this option. The figure was not far behind the rate for same-sex attraction, now believed to be running at 3 per cent.

Another American researcher, Nicole Prause, a PhD student at Indiana University, recruited asexuals via the internet to ask them about their sexual experience, arousability and desire levels.

She found that people who describe themselves as asexuals are often having sex when they do not really want to.

Her study suggests that asexuality is not a kind of illness. "People are using it as their sexual orientation," she told New Scientist.

As one T-shirt puts it: "Asexuality: it’s not just for amoebas any more."

... While the 'promiscuous' 10% contribute to a crisis

ONE in ten adult women and one in eight adult men have two partners concurrently, according to a medical study that calls for tough new measures to combat the UK’s sexual health crisis.

The report, published in the BMA specialist publication, the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, also highlights Britain’s problem with the seedy side of sex, with surveys revealing that up to 5 per cent of adult men have paid for sex, increasing the chances of contracting a sexual disease.

According to Professor Mark Bellis, who compiled the study with colleagues from the Centre for Public Health at Liverpool John Moores University:

"By and large our attempts to avoid a sexual health crisis and, more recently, to manage it, have failed. At the core of this crisis is an unwillingness to deal with the ‘promiscuous’ 10 per cent: a significant group of people who have multiple sexual partners."

ROB TOMLINSON

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  • 5 months later...

Well, given the overwhelming response to that, I'm going to de-sticky it and let it die.

boa

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  • 1 month later...

maybe we just need to start a refworks or similar account for this information and then it may not need to be a thread. or perhaps we could use the wiki... btw i've never seen this thread before...

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Silly Green Monkey

This looks like a good place for this.

Sexual Orientation

Sexual orientation refers to a person's habitual sexual attraction to, and sexual activities with, persons of the opposite sex, heterosexuality; the same sex, homosexuality; or both sexes, bisexuality. Asexuality, the indifference toward, or lack of attraction to, either sex, is also a sexual orientation. All four of these forms are found in contemporary North America and throughout the world. But each type of desire and experience holds different meanings for individuals and groups. For example, an asexual disposition may be acceptable in some places but may be percieved as a character flaw in others. Male-male sexual activity may be a private affair in Mexico, rather than public, socially sactioned, and encouraged as among the Etoro of Papua New Guinea [in-text references removed]

Recently in the United States there has been a tendency to see sexual orientation as fixed and biologically based. There is not enough information at this time to determine the extent to which sexual orientation is based on biology. What we can say is that, to some extent at least, all human activities and preferences, including erotic expression, are learned, malleable, and culturally constructed.

In any society, individuals will differ in the nature, range, and intensity of their sexual interests and urges. No one knows for sure why such individual sexual differences exist. Part of the answer may be biological, reflecting genes or hormones. Another part may have to do with experiences during growth and development. But whatever the reasons for individual variation, culture always plays a role in molding individual sexual urges toward a collective norm. And such sexual norms vary from culture to culture.

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