Sex

Sexual experiences and freedom are basic human rights that people with disabilities are often denied. Society and those considered to be within the general public, including caregivers, family members, and professionals that work with people with disabilities, contribute to the lack of sexual experiences and opportunities people with disabilities have throughout their lifetime. This study examined the attitudes of males and females from the general public toward sexual lives for people with disabilities. Further, it explored the difference in attitudes based on disability condition, examining attitudes toward a sexual life for those with a physical disability, intellectual disability, and general or non-specified disability.
Results showed that female respondents reported more positive attitudes toward females with disabilities and females without disabilities having a sex life in comparison to the attitudes male respondents reported toward males with disabilities and males without disabilities having a sex life. Additionally, respondents felt the least positive toward adults with intellectual disabilities having a sex life. Limitations of this study and implications for further research are discussed.

This thesis explores how gender and sexuality are expressed in southern Manabí Province, Ecuador. The study employs ethnographic methods to recruit local people who identify as LGBTQ (called LGBTI regionally) to participate in interviews on sexuality and gender identity/expression. Based on this research, I explore the construction of “gay” in this part of Ecuador as identity and performance; additionally, reflective viewpoints of those who self-identify as “gay” are thematically incorporated. The term “gay” is used to describe a spectrum of identities that include: homosexual, transformista, travestí, transexual, and transgénero. These identities are not necessarily static, as many individuals traverse categories in a culturally specific progression that I describe. I propose that coastal Ecuadorians utilize a structuring of sexualities and genders within the region that challenges Western LGBTQ+ labels. This research suggests a new regional depiction of non-conforming identities and their manifestations through language, shared strife, communal beliefs, and individual experience.

Action identification theory asserts that people undertake action with a particular identity for what they are doing, and that this identity is resistant to change. Emergence of a new understanding of action occurs when the person thinks about some detail of the action and is then exposed to a new higher level identity for the act. To test the emergence hypothesis with respect to sexual behavior, subjects were asked to think about having sex and list either the high level aspects (i.e., consequences and implications of having sex) or lower level aspects (i.e., details of having sex). Subjects then read an article identifying sex as responsible behavior or physical pleasure. As predicted, subjects induced to think about the act of having sex in terms of its details expressed their cognitive representation of the act in a way which conformed with the target emergent identity (pleasure or responsibility) to which they were exposed.

This is an ethnographic study of a self-regulated Internet site that facilitates illegal female prostitution in South Florida. The purpose is to identify the social and economic characteristics of the site that can contribute to acceptable prostitution reform. The members of the site appear to sustain an orderly and mutually respectful exchange of sexual services for money, suggesting that certain social and economic features of this form of transaction diminish barriers otherwise present in typical forms of contemporary prostitution exchange. The study evaluates the thesis that when commercial sex is conducted in an open atmosphere of respect, trust and mutual understanding, within certain economic parameters, the beliefs and practices that stigmatize prostitutes and prostitution are neutralized. Evidence was generated through extensive observation of an online venue that approximates what prostitution would be like if open market exchange in sexual labor did exist. These data are supplemented by interviews with participants of the online community. Features of mutual respect, trust, and understanding, characteristically absent in traditional prostitution venues, appear to be part of an emerging community phenomenon that facilitates prostitution online. Thus, this study engages with the larger scholarly position that normalization of sex work is necessary for successful prostitution reform. This community utilizes a non-legal enforcement mechanism to facilitate cooperative exchanges based on establishing trust between participants. At the center of the cooperation system is a reputation mechanism that fosters trust between potential partners by encouraging participants to post honest reviews of their encounters with each other.