Invitation to Psychology

496 Chapter 14 The Major Motives of Life: Food, Love, Sex, and work

people’s motivations for sexual activity are by

no means always and only for intrinsic pleasure.

Human sexuality is influenced by a blend of bio-

logical, psychological, and cultural factors.

The Biology of Desire LO 14.7, LO 14.8

In the middle of the last century, Alfred Kinsey and

his associates (1948, 1953) published two pioneer-

ing books on male and female sexuality. Kinsey’s

team surveyed thousands of Americans about their

sexual attitudes and behavior and reviewed the ex-

isting research on sexual physiology. At that time,

many people believed that women were not as

sexually motivated as men and that women cared

more about affection than sexual satisfaction, no-

tions soundly refuted by Kinsey’s interviews.

Kinsey was attacked not only for his findings,

but also for even daring to ask people (especially

female people) about their sexual lives. The national

hysteria that accompanied the Kinsey Reports seems

hard to believe today: “Danger Lurks in Kinsey

Book!” screamed one headline. Yet it is still difficult

for social scientists to conduct serious, method-

ologically sound research on the development of

human sexuality. As John Bancroft (2006), a leading

sexologist, has observed, because many American

adults need to believe that young children have no

sexual feelings, they interpret any evidence of nor-

mal sexual expression in childhood (such as mastur-

bation or “playing doctor”) as a symptom of sexual

abuse. And because many adults are uncomfortable

about sexual activity among teenagers, they try to

restrict or eliminate it by promoting abstinence and

It is certainly true that in most other spe-

cies, sexual behavior is genetically programmed.

Without instruction, a male stickleback fish knows

exactly what to do with a female stickleback, and a

whooping crane knows when to whoop. But as sex

researcher Leonore Tiefer (2004) has observed,

for human beings “sex is not a natural act.” Sex,

she argues, is more like dancing than digestion,

something you learn and can be motivated to im-

prove rather than a simple physiological process.

For one thing, the activities that one culture con-

siders “natural”—such as mouth-to-mouth kissing

or oral sex—are often considered unnatural in

another culture or historical time. Second, people

have to learn from experience and culture what

they are supposed to do with their sexual desires

and how they are expected to behave. And third,

Desire and sensuality are lifelong pleasures.

The “Kinsey Report on American women” (though the book was actually titled Sexual Behavior in the Human Female)

was not exactly greeted with praise and acceptance, let alone clear thinking. Cartoonists made fun of its being a

“bombshell,” and in this 1953 photo, two famous jazz singers and an actress spoofed women’s shock about the

book—and their eagerness to read it.