ISBN13: 9780072917116 ISBN10: 0072917113 Condition: Standard All Product Details
Former United States Surgeon General David Satcher outlines his call to action to promote sexual health and responsible sexual behavior. Dr. Satcher expresses support for a comprehensive approach to sexuality education, inclusive of teaching about abstinence, contraception, and safer sex to help young people avoid unplanned pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections. Editorialist Don Feder argues that comprehensive sexuality education is not effective, and criticizes the methods used to compile the surgeon generals report, which includes interviews with commercial sex workers.
Researchers Sally Guttmacher et al. maintain that their study of New York City high school students who received both condoms and an HIV/AIDSeducation program versus Chicago high school students who received only HIV/AIDS education proves that distributing condoms in schools does notincrease sexual activity but does result in students using condoms more often when they are sexually active. Professor of education Edwin J. Delattre rejects the argument that there is a moral obligation to save lives by distributing condoms in schools. Heasserts that distributing condoms in schools promotes morally unacceptable casual sexual relationships.
Stephanie Ann Sanders, a director and scientist with the Kinsey Institute and a contributing author to the Encarta Online Encyclopedia, summarizes Masters and Johnsons Human Sexual Response Cycle. Paul Joannides, author of the popular book The Guide to Getting It On!, says that the Human Sexual Response Cycle is a “one-size-fits-all” model that does not account for individual variations.
Sexuality educator Rhonda Chittenden says that it is important for young people to expand their narrow definitions of sex and understand that oral sex is sex. Chittenden offers additional educational messages about oral sex. Sexuality trainer Nora Gelperin argues that adult definitions of oral sex are out of touch with the meaning the behavior holds for young people. Rather than impose adult definitions of intimacy, educators should be seeking to help young people clarify and understand their own values.
New York Times columnist Jane E. Brody believes that politics, not science, drove the FDAs decision not to allow emergency contraception to be made available over the counter. The Food and Drug Administration, responsible for regulating all drugs dispensed in the United States, says that its decision was not political, and that it would reconsider its decision if presented with evidence that girls under age 16 could take it safely without parental supervision.
Psychologist Terence M. Hines says that the widespread acceptance of the G-spot as being real conflicts with available evidence. Hines explains that the existence of the G-spot has never been verified by empirical, objective means and that women may have been misinformed about their bodies and their sexuality. Sexologist Gary Schubach responds to Hines critique of research on the G-spot. He states that what is commonly referred to as the G-spot is actually a female prostate gland. Renaming the G-spot the "female prostate" may help clear up misconceptions about the location and physiology of this controversial spot.
Columnist Carolyn Susman comments favorably on Intrinsa, a testosterone patch intended to treat low female desire in women. Susman outlines research findings that say the patch could improve sexual desire in women. Iver Juster, a family practitioner, Gary Schubach, a sex researcher and educator, and Patricia Taylor, a sex researcher and sexual enhancement coach, reject the idea that female sexual desire is hormonally driven, and say that the testosterone patch should not be regarded as a cure-all.
Diane D. Aronson, executive director of RESOLVE, the National Infertility Associations consumer-advocacy and patient-support organization,argues that infertility is a disease of the reproductive system that strikes people in all walks of life. She concludes that requiring insurancecompanies to pay for proven medical treatments for infertility is the right thing to do in a country that places great value on healthy families. Merrill Matthews, Jr., a medical ethicist and vice president of domestic policy at the National Center for Policy Analysis, maintains that requiringall health insurance plans to pay for infertility treatments could significantly increase insurance costs for everyone.
Loretta M. Kopelman, a professor of medical humanities, argues that certain moral absolutes apply to all cultures and that these, combined withthe many serious health and cultural consequences of female circumcision, require that all forms of female genital mutilation be eliminated. P. Masila Mutisya, a professor of multicultural education, contends that we should allow the simplest form of female circumcision, nicking theclitoral hood to draw a couple of drops of blood, as part of the rich heritage of rite of passage for newborn and pubertal girls in those cultureswith this tradition.
In a dissenting opinion, United States Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer argues that the Child Online Protection Act does not impose an unreasonable burden on free speech, and should have been upheld by the high court. Explaining the Supreme Courts decision to strike down the Child Online Protection Act, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy says that filtering software is a better and less restrictive alternative for protecting children from sexual content on the Internet.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), a U.S. government agency charged with regulating the content of the broadcast airways, including television and radio, outlines what it defines as “indecent” broadcast material, and describes its enforcement policy. Author Judith Levine traces the history of censorship in the United States, and argues that much of what the FCC has determined is “indecent” sexual speech is not, in fact, harmful to children.
Researchers Elizabeth Cramer et al. state that their study of abused women shows that the use of pornography by males is directly linked withthe physical and sexual abuse of women. Professor of law Nadine Strossen argues that misguided assaults on pornography have resulted in the naive belief that pornography is a major weaponthat men use to degrade and dominate women.
Radio commentator Laura Schlessinger denounces a study, published by the American Psychological Association (APA), that reexamined the results and conclusions from 59 earlier studies of child sexual abuse (CSA) in more than 35,000 college students. Schlessinger views this study as a "pseudo-scientific" attempt to convince people to accept pedophilia as normal. Author David L. Riegel summarizes the major findings of the research in question, and criticizes the dismissal of scientific research that challenges common assumptions about CSA and its effects on children.
President George W. Bush explains his decision to permit limited federal funding of embryonic stem cell research for the purpose of seekingtreatments for serious diseases. Douglas F. Munch, a management consultant to the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, criticizes President Bushs decision for not fullyreflecting the will of the people and for being too restrictive to have any meaningful impact on medical science and the lives of people affected byserious diseases.
John Bancroft, a medical doctor, sexologist, and director of the University of Indianas Alfred Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender,and Reproduction, argues that public funding for scientific research on sexuality issues is vital in order to solve some of the major sexual problemsthat plague the United States. Beverly R. Newman, a counselor of sexual abuse survivors and a teacher at Ivy Tech College in Indianapolis, Indiana, opposes any public funding ofsexuality research by the Kinsey Institute or any other alleged scientific research group because she fears that researchers will follow Alfred Kinsey(1894–1956), whom she calls "a callous, maniacal scientist."
Janice Weinman, executive director of the American Association of University Women (AAUW), states that, while there has been some progresssince the AAUW published its study entitled How Schools Shortchange Girls in 1991, its 1998 review of 1,000 research studies entitled GenderGaps: Where Schools Still Fail Our Children found that girls still face a gender gap in math, science, and computer science. Psychologist and author Judith Kleinfeld argues that despite appearances, girls still have an advantage over boys in terms of their future plans,teachers expectations, and everyday school experiences. Furthermore, minority males in particular are at a disadvantage educationally.
Dorian Solot and Marshall Miller, founders of the Alternatives to Marriage Project (www.unmarried.org), describe some of the challenges faced by people who choose to live together without marrying, and offer practical advice for couples who face discrimination. David Popenoe and Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, directors of the National Marriage Project (marriage.rutgers.edu), contend that living together before marriage is not a good way to prepare for marriage or avoid divorce. They maintain that cohabitation weakens the institution of marriage and poses serious risks for women and children.
The Human Rights Campaign (HRC), Americas largest gay and lesbian organization, explains why same-sex couples should be afforded the same legal right to marry as heterosexual couples. John Cornyn, U.S. Senator from Texas, says a constitutional amendment is needed to define marriage as permissible only between a man and a woman. Senator Cornyn contends that the traditional institution of marriage needs to be protected from activist courts that would seek to redefine it.
Author James Bovard asserts that legalizing sex work would help stem the spread of AIDS and free up the police to focus on controlling violentcrime. Anastasia Volkonsky, founding director of PROMISE, an organization dedicated to combating sexual exploitation, maintains that decriminalizingprostitution would only cause more social harm, particularly to women.
Bernice Sandler, a senior scholar at the National Association for Women in Education, maintains that schools should pay damages forstudent-on-student sexual harassment. She cites several cases in which school authorities ignored blatant and pervasive sexual harassment of studentsby other students until the parents of the harassed students forced action by filing lawsuits seeking compensation for damages. Author Sarah J. McCarthy objects to schools paying damages for student-on-student sexual harassment, stating that Congress and lawmakers often jump tolegislation as a quick-fix solution. She asserts that new laws authorizing the filing of lawsuits would empty taxpayers pockets, bankrupt schooldistricts, and lead to centralized thought control, an Americanized version of Chairman Maos cultural revolution in China.