Lecture Notes

Instead of classifying sexual behaviors according to the traditional sexual dichotomies of natural/ unnatural, normal/abnormal, moral/immoral, and good or bad, sexual researchers view human sexuality as characterized by sexual variation, that is, sexual variety and diversity. The best way to understand our sexual diversity is to view our activities as existing on a continuum. On this continuum, the frequency with which individuals engage in different sexual activities ranges from never to always. The most that can be said of a person is that his or her behaviors are more or less typical or atypical of the group average. Activities diverging from the norm are usually thought of as deviant or dysfunctional sexual behavior. However, these variations, such as exhibitionism and fetishism, are engaged in by most of us to some degree. For example, some people may enjoy sleeping with an article of clothing that belonged to a love interest. This is a degree of fetishism. Additionally, most of the time these feelings or activities are only one aspect of our sexual selves. Behaviors that are not the statistical norm are considered atypical behaviors. Atypical behaviors represent nothing more than sexual nonconformity when they occur between mutually consenting adults and do not cause distress.