This chapter contains sections titled: Notes.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Liberating Sexuality: Justice Between the Sheets by Miguel A. De La TorreSimeiqi HeLiberating Sexuality: Justice Between the Sheets Miguel A. De La Torre SAINT LOUIS: CHALICE PRESS, 2016. 232 pp. $27.99What lies at the heart of Miguel De La Torre's provocative and refreshing collection of essays Liberating Sexuality is his lifelong commitment to a justice-based society. He is deeply concerned with "how oppressive social structures, (...) [End Page 191] rooted in a two-thousand-year-old misunderstanding of Christian sexuality, prevent us from a more just social order" (vii).De La Torre rigorously engages with the biblical literature and considers it a vital ground for ethical reflection. He first returns to Genesis and successfully argues that "God blesses sex and declares it good" (4). He closely examines the story of the first man and woman and proposes the concept of "cleave to" in Genesis 2:24–25 as the guiding definition for a healthy marriage in our modern society. By revisiting and creatively retelling the stories of women in the Bible—Lot's wife, Sarah, Dinah, Rebekah, and Tamar—he restores the humanity and dignity of women and calls for our responsibility to dismantle the patriarchal structures that foster sexual abuse. He also provides alternative interpretations of the troubling biblical texts for LGBTQ communities to consider. After thoroughly surveying the biblical justification of patriarchy and the subjugation of women in the Hebrew Bible, he proposes that "the entire Bible should be read through the lens of the Gospel message, specifically passages like John 10:10" (13). Though a creative attempt to liberate the sacred text from oppression, this approach requires caution, as there may be possible anti-Semitic ramifications for reading the Hebrew Bible through a New Testament lens.One of the major contributions of De La Torre to the field of sexual ethics is the proposal of "orthoeros" through a liberative method that seriously considers liberation theology and goes beyond the inadequate approaches of both conservatives' sexual legalism and liberals' permissiveness toward sexual ethics. "Orthoeros" promotes a "familial relationship based on mutual giving and vulnerability" (21) and is made up of five biblically based principles: safe, consensual, faithful, mutually pleasing, and intimate.As an ethicist who is invested in the public discourse, De La Torre actively and boldly engages with issues of various sexual practices. He critiques Fifty Shades of Grey and envisions an ethical, Christian-based sadomasochism by employing "orthoeros" principles. He also examines the historical reasons against masturbation and argues for its constructive role in the sexuality of Christians.Deeply disturbed by the prevailing injustice that corrupts our society, De La Torre focuses much of the volume on exposing the sources and the detrimental effects of sexism, heterosexism, and racism. He reveals misogynist legislation by mapping out the "war on women," specifically the issues of equal pay, rape, reproduction rights, and global sexism. He reflects on his own "sin of heterosexuality" of being a macho man, conquering, and celebrating cojones. He also examines the Euro-American history of owning black bodies and critiques the stereotyping of Latino bodies in Hollywood.Another major contribution of De La Torre is the indecent approach to justice-based praxis—an ethics para joder—that "screws" with the prevailing power structures by utilizing a nonviolent survival strategy based on love, designed to liberate the abused and the abusers from the death-dealing social structure. [End Page 192]Liberating Sexuality, situated at the intersection between Christian ethics, biblical hermeneutics, and cultural studies, is a successful interdisciplinary endeavor. The essays gathered here remain highly engaged with the public reality and should benefit both general readers and scholars. Furthermore, this volume provides much-needed guidance on how a sexual ethics should be implemented and is, hence, a vital resource for those engaged in the practices of ministry.Simeiqi HeDrew UniversityCopyright © 2018 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

This volume envisions new methodologies for teaching, learning and management of stakeholders in the field of education The book walks us through the observations and experiences the author had during 18 years of teaching at higher education institution with special reference to teacher education. It also examines newly developed theories proposed in the book, Role model theory, theory of contribution, theory of success, Freedom Expression and Creativity approach and generic teaching model in education. The book also includes complementary suggestions (...) for UNESCO terms of teachers' status and rights. The book will be of interest to teachers, students and researchers of B.Ed. and M.Ed. education, sociology, psychology and development studies. It will also be useful for policymakers, academicians, curriculum developers, teachers training courses, and professionals working in the field of education. (shrink)

In this article on Elizabeth Grosz's philosophy and its implications for discussions about feminist theory, I first suggest that Charles Darwin plays a particular role in Grosz's recent ontological thought. This role is to provide help in joining together two incompatible sources in her work: Gilles Deleuze's monistic ontology of a constant flow of new differentiations, on the one hand, and Luce Irigaray's thought of sexual difference as the primary ontological difference, on the other. I argue that Grosz's (...) intellectual project has developed into a grand general theory of change in which both Darwin and Irigaray are turned into ontologists in a Deleuzian vein. I then point out that Grosz's ontology also includes a political aspect, which manifests in the fact that Grosz redescribes Darwin through interpreting him primarily as a theorist of “event” and the unexpected. However, through an analysis of the discussion on Grosz between Luciana Parisi and Jami Weinstein, I speculate whether Grosz's ambition to provide a total and complete explanation of change encourages the tone of feminist discussion toward one of explanation rather than intervention. (shrink)

Providing comprehensive sexuality education in schools is a work in progress in many countries throughout the world. In some countries, the journey is just beginning; in others, investments in this field have been made for many years. It is and has been difficult in Pakistan to implement and promote reproductive health, women’s empowerment, and CSE. In Pakistan, previous implementation efforts revealed the critical role of community influencers in propagating misleading information about the initiatives, inciting organized community resistance, and (...) provoking backlash. This paper looked at several aspects of community resistance, as well as approaches for overcoming the resistance for increasing community engagement in the implementation of CSE in Islamabad, Pakistan. To analyze community perceptions of CSE implementation in Islamabad, the community readiness assessment questionnaire was adapted. Questions and prompts for discussion included leadership, current initiatives, community knowledge, resource availability, community support, and implementation strategies. A total of 35 in-depth interviews were conducted. Data was analyzed and interpreted using qualitative content analysis to explore community perspectives that contribute to resistance around CSE, as well as implementation options. Using inter-code relationship data, network analysis was conducted to provide a graphical representation of the analyzed qualitative data. The study reveals community resistance to CSE being implemented in schools. Misconceptions, a lack of awareness, a lack of priority, and the lack of dedicated resources are just a few of the primary implementation challenges to consider when implementing CSE in practice. Network analysis identified, based on modularity class, five distinct clusters of highly connected nodes/codes: non-governmental organizations, misconceptions, resources and policy, strategies and community support, and personal social and health education and current efforts. In conservative environments and when confronted with resistance, innovative marketing and rebranding are critical for priority setting and community engagement, especially when developing curriculum and implementing CSE. Some of the suggested strategies for implementation include community sensitization through strategic awareness campaigns, involving already established infrastructure and NGOs, endorsement by all major stakeholders, particularly decision-makers, and the use of creative digital platforms for better dissemination. (shrink)

Altruism is a well-established reason underlying research participation. Less is known about altruism in adolescent-parent decision-making about clinical trials enrolling healthy adolescents. This qualitative investigation focused on identifying spontaneous statements of altruism within adolescent-parent (dyadic) discussions of participation in a hypothetical phase I clinical trial related to adolescent sexual health. Content analysis revealed several response patterns to each other’s altruistic reasoning. Across 70 adolescent-parent dyads in which adolescents were 14 to 17 years of age and 91% of their parents (...) were mothers, a majority (61%) of dyadic discussions included a statement reflecting altruism. Parents responded to adolescents’ statements of altruism more frequently than adolescents responded to parents’ statements. Responses included: expresses concern, reiterates altruistic reasoning, agrees with altruistic reasoning, and adds to/expands altruistic reasoning. Since an altruistic perspective was often balanced with concerns about risk or study procedures, researchers cannot assume that altruism will directly lead to study participation. Optimizing the informed consent process for early phase clinical trials involving healthy adolescents may include supporting parents to have conversations with their adolescents which will enhance their capacity to consider all aspects of trial participation. (shrink)

Religion's historical mistrust of sexuality shapes people's behavior by inhibiting liberal sexuality. Still, it is unclear whether this inhibitive role also includes common, normative sexual behavior, particularly in secularized contexts. Moreover, the possible mediating effects emotions, affects, and thoughts have on the association between religiosity and restricted sexuality have never been integrated into a single model. Finally, cross-religious differences in common sexual behavior have still yet to be documented. We addressed these three issues in two studies, (...) with samples of Catholic and Muslim tradition (total N = 446). Consistently across samples, religiosity predicted, either directly or indirectly, less frequent common heterosexual behaviors and masturbation, partly through sexual guilt and inhibition, and/or decreased sexual fantasy and the search for sexual pleasure. However, married Muslims’ religiosity, unlike Catholics’, did not directly undermine fertility-oriented sexuality and the search for pleasure. Religion's role in restricting sexuality seems to be rooted in deep psychological rationale. (shrink)

BackgroundIn recent years, there have been many studies using the Affective Neuroscience Personality Scales (ANPS) to investigate individual differences in primary emotion traits. However, in contrast to other primary emotion traits proposed by Jaak Panksepp and colleagues, there is a considerable lack of research on the LUST (L) dimension – defined as an individual’s capacity to attain sexual desire and satisfaction – a circumstance mainly caused by its exclusion from the ANPS. Therefore, this study aims to take a first step (...) toward the development of a standardized self-rate measurement for the L-disposition. For this purpose, two versions of the L-scales (L-12 and L-5) were developed and evaluated regarding reliability and aspects of validity.Materials and MethodsAfter a pilot study (N= 204; female: 81%) with an initial 20-item pool item reductions were conducted. This led to the construction of a 12-item (L-12) version and a 5-item version (L-5), which were assessed in a second sample consisting of 371 German-speaking healthy adults (58.50% female) aged 18–69 years (M= 28;SD= 9.75). Aspects of external validity were assessed by investigation of correlations with the ANPS, psychiatric symptoms (Brief Symptom Inventory-18), attachment security (Adult Attachment Scales) and personality functioning (Operationalized Psychodynamic Diagnostics Structure Questionnaire). To evaluate structural validity, both L-scales were investigated via confirmatory factor analysis (CFA).ResultsCronbach’s α indicated excellent internal consistency regarding L-12 (α = 0.90), while L-5 showed acceptable reliability (α = 0.82). CFA of a bifactor model of the L-12 indicated excellent model fit. Moreover, an excellent model fit was observed regarding a single factor model of L-5. For both scales small to moderate positive correlations were observed with SEEKING, PLAY, and secure attachment, while they exhibited small to moderate negative correlations with SADNESS, insecure attachment, lower personality functioning, and increased psychiatric symptom load.ConclusionBoth newly developed scales exhibit satisfying psychometric properties, indicating high reliability, good structural validity and plausible correlations with external criteria. Hence, this study poses an important step toward the operationalization of the LUST concept. However, more research is needed in particular with respect to the scale’s external validity and its applicability in clinical populations. (shrink)

BackgroundThe pursuit of sexual pleasure is a key motivating factor in sexual activity. Many things can stand in the way of sexual orgasms and enjoyment, particularly among women. These are essential issues of sexual well-being and gender equality.ObjectiveThis study presents long-term trends and determinants of female orgasms in Finland. The aim is to analyze the roles of factors such as the personal importance of orgasms, sexual desire, masturbation, clitoral and vaginal stimulation, sexual self-esteem, communication with partner, and partner’s sexual (...) techniques.DesignIn Finland, five national sex surveys that are based on random samples from the central population register have been conducted. They are representative of the total population within the age range of 18–54 years in 1971, 18–74 years in 1992, 18–81 years in 1999, 18–74 years in 2007, and 18–79 years in 2015. Another dataset of 2,049 women in the age group of 18–70 years was collected in 201... (shrink)

In spite of the fact that the term ‘sexology’ was popularized in the United States by Elizabeth Osgood Goodrich Willard and that the term ‘sexual science’—which is usually attributed to Iwan Bloch as ‘Sexualwissenschaft’—was actually coined by the American phrenologist Orson Squire Fowler in 1852, the archives of American sexology have received scant attention in the period prior to Alfred Kinsey. In my article, I explore the role of Transcendentalism and phrenology in the production and development of American sexology (...) and sexual science. In particular, I argue that shifting the origins of sexology and sexual science away from Karl Heinrich Ulrichs and Karl-Maria Kertbeny and the more familiar narratives of the German invention of sexuality furnishes a radically different account of early sexology and sexual science. Rather than the unevenly homophilic sympathies of early German activists, their American counterparts promote marital, reproductive, loving sex and vilify prostitution, polygamy, masturbation, contraception, sex for pleasure, and, if they think to mention it, sodomy. In addition to this less progressive story, however, I argue that early American sexologists provide the first theories of gender and help to provide a fuller description of the politics of sexology and sexual science. (shrink)

What sort of ethics do we need? Rosalyn Diprose argues that the usual approaches to ethics both perpetuate and remain blind to the mechanisms of the subordination of women. In _Bodies of Women: Ethics, Embodiment and Sexual Differences_, she claims that injustice against women is found in the social discourses and practices which both evaluate and constitute their modes of embodiment as improper in relation to men. Diprose critically analyses the attempts in both feminist and non-feminist ethics to recognise the (...) role of sexual difference and the biomedical discourses whose descriptions mask a constitution and regulation of the 'body'. Her critiques draw on insights from Anglophone feminist theory and continental philosophy, and are supported by critical readings of Irigaray, Cornell and Fraser, Hegel, Nietzsche, Merleau-Ponty, Derrida and Foucault. What emerges is a new ethics of sexual difference which not only better locates the mechanisms of discrimination but also provides the means to subvert them. (shrink)

Obesity continues to be a global issue. In recent years, researchers have started to question the role of our novel yet ubiquitous use of digital media in the development of obesity. With the recent COVID-19 outbreak affecting almost all aspects of society, many people have moved their social eating activities into the digital space, making the question as relevant as ever. The bombardment of appetizing food images and photography – colloquially referred to as “food porn” – has become (...) a significant aspect of the digital food experience. This review presents an overview of whether and how the viewing, creating, and online sharing of digital food photography can influence consumer eating behavior. Moreover, this review provides an outlook of future research opportunities, both to close the gaps in our scientific understanding of the physiological and psychological interaction between digital food photography and actual eating behavior, and, from a practical viewpoint, to optimize our digital food media habits to support an obesity-preventive lifestyle. We do not want to rest on the idea that food imagery’s current prevalence is a core negative influence per se. Instead, we offer the view that active participation in food photography, in conjunction with a selective use of food-related digital media, might contribute to healthy body weight management and enhanced meal pleasure. (shrink)

In this article, we argue that there is an essential difference between social intelligence and creative intelligence, and that they have their foundation in human sexuality. For sex differences, we refer to the vast psychological, neurological, and cognitive science research where problem-solving, verbal skills, logical reasoning, and other topics are dealt with. Intelligence tests suggest that, on average, neither sex has more general intelligence than the other. Though people are equals in general intelligence, they are different in special forms (...) of intelligence such as social intelligence and creative intelligence, the former dominant in women, the latter dominant in men. The dominance of creative intelligence in men needs to be explained. The focus of our research is on the strictly anthropological aspects, and consequently our explanation for this fact is based on the male-female polarity in the mating systems. Sexual dimorphism does not only regard bodily differences but implies different forms of sex life. Sex researchers distinguish between two levels of sexual intercourse: procreative sex and recreational sex, and to these we would add “creative sex.” On all three levels, there is a behavioral difference between men and women, including the subjective experience. These differences are as well attributed to culture as genetically founded in nature. Sexual reproduction is only possible if females cooperate. Their biological inheritance makes females play a decisive role in mate choice. Recreational sex for the purpose of pleasure rather than reproduction results from female extended sexual activity. Creative sex, on the contrary, is a specifically male performance of sexuality. We identify creative sex with eroticism. Eroticism evolved through the transformation of the sexual drive into a mental state of expectation and fantasizing. Hence, sex differences (that nowadays are covered up by cultural egalitarianism) continue to be the evolutionary origin of the difference between social and creative intelligence. (shrink)

Healthy Eating Policy and Political Philosophy: A Public Reason Approach by Barnhill and Bonotti is a terrific effort to provide a systematic method for appraising the ethical aspects, broadly understood, of regulations and policies connected to food, diet, and eating. In this commentary I purport to highlight the originality and the merits of the volume by considering what it doesn’t accomplish in three of its parts. I first call attention to the specific construction of the subject matter, namely (...) on the question whether to be at stake are eating behaviors, dietary patterns, or certain food items; while Barnhill and Bonotti do not problematize it, this question is arguably pivotal to design effective policies and to adequately assess them. Second, I discuss the technical concept of “constitutive evaluative standards,” used by Barnhill and Bonotti to lay out their view, as this part of their work calls for an alignment with research on the philosophy of nutritional science and, more generally, philosophy of science. Finally, I take up the technical concept of “accessible reason,” which plays a central role in ascribing the public status to reasons, advocating for a more thorough determination of this concept based on recent work in epistemology. (shrink)

There seems to be something self-evident—irresistibly so, to judge from its gleeful propagation—about the use of the phrase, “Jane Austen and the Masturbating Girl,” as the Q.E.D. of phobic narratives about the degeneracy of academic discourse in the humanities. But what? The narrative link between masturbation itself and degeneracy, though a staple of pre-1920s medical and racial science, no longer has any respectable currency. To the contrary: modern views of masturbation tend to place it firmly in the framework (...) of optimistic, hygienic narratives of all-too-normative individual development. When Jane E. Brody, in a recent “Personal Health” column in the NewYork Times, reassures her readers that, according to experts, it is actually entirely possible for people to be healthy without masturbating; “that the practice is not essential to normal development and that no one who thinks it is wrong or sinful should feel he or she must try it”; and that even “’those who have not masturbated … can have perfectly normal sex lives as adults,’” the all but perfectly normal Victorianist may be forgiven for feeling just a little—out of breath.3 In this altered context, the self-evidence of a polemical link between autoeroticism and narratives of wholesale degeneracy 4 draws on a very widely discredited body of psychiatric and eugenic expertise whose only direct historical continuity with late twentieth-century thought has been routed straight through the rhetoric and practice of fascism. But it now draws on this body of expertise under the more acceptable gloss of the modern, trivializing, hygienic-developmental discourse, according to which autoeroticism not only is funny—any sexuality of any power is likely to hover near the threshold of hilarity—but also must be relegated to the inarticulable space of infantility. 3. Jane E. Brody, “Personal Health,” New York Times, 4 Nov. 1987.4. Rosenblatt, “The Universities,” p. 3. Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick is professor of English at Duke University and the author of Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire and Epistemology of the Closet. (shrink)

Se realizó un estudio de intervención con el objetivo de elaborar una estrategia educativa para incrementar conocimientos sobre sexualidad sana en un grupo de adolescentes de la escuela Secundaria Básica Alfredo Gómez del Municipio Camagüey entre octubre de 2012 y febrero de 2013. La muestra fue de 37 estudiantes. Se aplicó una encuesta que se convirtió en el registro primario de datos, confeccionada según criterios de expertos y la bibliografía. Una vez analizados los resultados se procedió a diseñar la estrategia (...) educativa y posteriormente a su evaluación. Los datos se procesaron de forma automatizada. Antes de aplicar la estrategia educativa se comprobó que los adolescentes no tenían un adecuado conocimiento sobre la sexualidad sana. Los resultados demuestran la importancia de los estudios de intervención. An interventional study was developed with the objective of designing an educational strategy to increase the knowledge about healthy sexuality in a group of teenagers from Alfredo Gómez Secondary School in Camagüey municipality between October 2012 and February 2013. The sample included 37 students. The applied survey became the primary data register. It was designed according to the experts´ criteria and the bibliography. Once the results were analyzed the educative strategy was designed and evaluated. The data was computerized. Before applying the educative strategy it was evident that the students did not have an appropriate knowledge about healthy sexuality. The results show the importance of interventional studies. (shrink)

The metamorphosis of human beings into wolves is well known in mythology, legend, and scripture, and has been extensively surveyed in history, theology, and literature. Werewolf cases have attracted the attention of both ancient and modern physicians, particularly during the development of modern psychiatry and behavioral neurology. Some writers have suggested that lycanthropes suffered from schizophrenia or had intentionally or involuntarily ingested hallucinogens. Hysteria and affective disorder, either mania or intense depression, could also be invoked as causes. Lycanthropy has often (...) been linked with, and sometimes treated by, henbane and nightshade, and its manifestations could be explained in terms of atropinic delirium. Discoloration of teeth and urine, bizarre behavior, nocturnal wandering, and episodic skin and facial changes have suggested a role for porphyria in the werewolf transformation. Through many historical periods and cultures, persons believed to be werewolves have reportedly exhibited alterations in consciousness, depersonalization and derealization, acute anxiety and agitation, preoccupation with demonic possession, and compulsive or perseverative behavior, sometimes of a violent, sexually deviant or impulsive nature. Such features of werewolf behavior might also be explained by ictal and interictal manifestations of complex partial seizures, or as symptoms of the episodic dyscontrol syndrome associated with frontal lobe or limbic system disease or injury. Lycanthropy was often considered a manifestation of demonic possession or a consequence or indication of participation in necromancy. As such, self-proclaimed or suspected werewolves were often persecuted along with other practitioners of the black arts. It is generally believed that such persecution represented the last efflorescence of medieval demonology, but it has also been suggested that clinical description of illnesses of diabolical origin was part of the evolution of Renaissance medicine from the Galenic past toward the scientifically-based future. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Narcissism A Focal Point for Examining the Interrelatedness of Psychology and PhilosophyLydia Amir, PhD (bio)In a groundbreaking article, Aleksandar Fatic challenges the view that mental health is to be dissociated from morality or ethics. His argument targets cluster B personality disorders, such as Borderline and Narcissistic Personality Disorders, but focuses mainly on narcissistic disorders, whether diagnosed or not. Although these persons are not exempt of moral and legal (...) responsibility, they are diagnosed by and relegated to the mental health system, which is often ineffective in treating them. Fatic suggests that addressing their faulty morality is the best policy. In my commentary of his article, I further probe the viability and desirability of doing so. I point to narcissism as a focal point for examining the necessary impact of psychology and philosophy insofar as psychologists may be considered experts in emotions and philosophers in normative ethics. I question the interest in any ethics that does not also supply the means of its implementation and suggest that narcissists may have a morality of their own, ethical egoism.As psychiatrist Bennett Simon notes, Socrates did not inquire into the mental health field; his presence is missed as the questions, “what is mental illness?” and “what are psychiatry and psychiatrists?” are not addressed. It follows that it is up to us, as Simon attempts to do in the first chapter of Mind and Madness in Ancient Greece: The Classical Roots of Modern Psychiatry (1978), to define the psychiatrist’s proper area of professional competence (p. 28). That which makes matters even more confusing, he notes, is that psychiatrists are only one group of professionals who deal with the “mentally ill” and that they are “far from unanimous” about which problems “pertain to their particular sphere” (Simon, 1978, p. 29). He thus lists a variety of problems which “a glance at both popular and professional literature…reveals that at one time or another, psychiatrists have claimed [End Page 169] (sometimes by public demand) for their proper sphere” (Simon, 1978, p. 29). Among them is the issue that Fatic’s break grounding article tackles: “Psychiatrists at times consider it their proper task to deal with people who are excessively selfish and self-centered (narcissistic personality disorder)” (Simon, 1978, p. 29).Thus, Simon sees as a matter of controversy whether narcissism is a psychiatric issue, and defines the disorder in moral terms (“selfish,” “self-centered”). Fatic broadens the argument: he questions the validity of the psychological approach not only to narcissism as a personality disorder, but also to narcissistic traits, and the effectivity of this approach given that this is an area in which therapists usually do not have much success even if the patients look for help, which is rare. Fatic suggests that these personalities, either those with narcissistic traits or those with full-fledged narcissistic personality disorder, should be better understood (and maybe also addressed, although this point is not explicitly made) when viewed through moral lenses. In doing so, Fatic not only questions the validity of one form of personality disorder––still a controversial category––but re-kindles the view that correlates aspects of mental health with virtue, a view that was valid up until the nineteenth century and that made of philosophers (and priests) doctors of the soul.1That which made of philosophers’ teachings an important part of one’s life before the advent of scientific psychology has been often associated with this view, that the virtuous are also the healthy. Without going as far as to suggest that philosophers should teach virtue to narcissists, which could be a further argument in favor of the new field of philosophical practice and a broadening of its legitimate concerns, Fatic notes that moral categories are better suited to approach those who are plagued by narcissism.One way to explain the historical role that psychology played in relation to the traditional one upheld by morality is that psychology stepped in to explain the origins of failures in morality. If the narcissist is to be judged according to moral categories (a judgment that he necessarily fails in so far as right emotions as relevant to morality), what might be the consequences?Ascribing... (shrink)

Objectives: The objective of this post hoc exploratory analysis was to examine the relationship between age and measures of cortical excitability and inhibition. Methods: Forty-six participants (24 with major depressive disorder and 22 healthy controls) completed MT, SICI, ICF, and CSP testing in a cross-sectional protocol. Of these 46 participants, 33 completed LICI testing. Multiple linear robust regression and Spearman partial correlation coefficient were used to examine the relationship between age and the TMS measures. Results: In the overall sample (...) of 46 participants, age had a significant negative relationship with motor threshold in both the right (rs = -0.49, adjusted p =.007; β= -0.08, adjusted p=.001) and left (rs = -0.42, adjusted p =.029; β= -0.05, adjusted p=.004) hemispheres. This significant negative relationship of age with motor threshold was also observed in the sample of depressed youth in both the right (rs = -0.70, adjusted p =.002; β= -0.09, adjusted p=.001) and left (rs = -0.54, adjusted p =.034; β= -0.05, adjusted p=.017) hemispheres, but not in healthy controls. In the sample of the 33 participants who completed LICI testing, age had a significant negative relationship with LICI (200 millisecond interval) in both the right (rs = -0.48, adjusted p =.05; β= -0.24, adjusted p=.007) and left (rs = -0.64, adjusted p =.002; β= -0.23, adjusted p=.001) hemispheres. This negative relationship between age and LICI (200 millisecond interval) was also observed in depressed youth in both the right (rs = -0.76, adjusted p =.034; β= -0.35, adjusted p=.004) and left (rs = -0.92, adjusted p =.002; β= -0.25, adjusted p=.001) hemispheres. Conclusion: These findings suggest that younger children have higher motor thresholds. This is more pronounced in depressed youth than healthy controls. LICI inhibition may also increase with age in youth. (shrink)

This study investigates the role of locality (a task/material-related variable), demographic factors (age, education, and sex), cognitive capacities (verbal working memory [WM], verbal short-term memory [STM], speed of processing [SOP], and inhibition), and morphosyntactic category (time reference and grammatical aspect) in verb-related morphosyntactic production (VRMP). A sentence completion task tapping production of time reference and grammatical aspect in local and nonlocal configurations, and cognitive tasks measuring verbal WM capacity, verbal STM capacity, motor SOP, perceptual SOP, and inhibition were administered (...) to 200 neurotypical Greek-speaking participants, aged between 19 and 80 years. We fitted generalized linear mixed-effects models and performed path analyses. Significant main effects of locality, age, education, verbal WM capacity, motor SOP, and morphosyntactic category emerged. Production of time reference and aspect did not interact with any of the significant factors (i.e., age, education, verbal WM capacity, motor SOP, and locality), and locality did not interact with any memory system. Path analyses revealed that the relationships between age and VRMP, and between education and VRMP were partly mediated by verbal WM; and the relationship between verbal WM and VRMP was partly mediated by perceptual SOP. Results suggest that subject-, task/material- and morphosyntactic category-specific factors determine accuracy performance on VRMP; and the effects of age, education, and verbal WM on VRMP are partly indirect. The fact that there was a significant main effect of verbal WM but not of verbal STM on accuracy performance in the VRMP task suggests that it is predominantly the processing component (and not the storage component) of verbal WM that supports VRMP. Lastly, we interpret the results as suggesting that VRMP is also supported by a procedural memory system whose efficiency might be reflected in years of formal education. (shrink)

Better memory, greater motivation and concentration lead to greater productivity, efficiency and performance, all of which are features that are highly valued in a modern society focused on productivity. In the effort for better cognitive abilities, otherwise healthy individuals use cognitive enhancers, medicines for the treatment of cognitive deficits of patients with various disorders and health problems, such as Alzheimer’s disease, schizophrenia, stroke, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder or ageing. The use of these is more common in professions with emphasised (...) cognitive abilities, or in occupations that require more attention, focus and alertness. Their use is also associated with the general working population, in that they are supposed to use them to alleviate the effects of sleep deprivation and to cope with increasing workloads. In the paper, we are addressing the ethical issue and the dilemmas of the use of pharmaceutical enhancements by healthy people who have no medical reason for taking such substances, in the context of improving their cognitive functions. (shrink)

Identifying the role of opioids in the mediation of learned sexual behaviors has been complicated by the use of differing methodologies in the investigations. In this review addressing multiple species, techniques, and pharmaceutical manipulations, several features of opioid mediation become apparent. Opioids are differentially involved in conditioned and unconditioned sexual behaviors. The timing of the delivery of a sexual reinforcer during conditioning trials, especially those using male subjects, acutely influences the role that opioids have in learning. Opioids may (...) be particularly important in the maintenance of conditioned sexual behaviors during periods of non-reinforcement. This appears to be true both for probe trials and procedures designed explicitly to extinguish a sexual conditioned response. These features of opioid mediation of learning do not appear to be restricted to sexual conditioning paradigms. This suggests that, as for other aspects of sexual learning that despite distinctive features conform to underlying behavioral principles, the mediation of conditioned sexual behavior by opioids relies on processes common across reinforcement systems. Keywords: opiate; conditioning; extinction; persistence; naloxone; learning (Published: 15 March 2012) Citation: Socioaffective Neuroscience & Psychology 2012, 2 : 14874 - DOI: 10.3402/snp.v2i0.14874. (shrink)

Nurses play a key role in the provision of services in relation to sexuality in both primary and sexual and reproductive health‐care. Given the intersection of sexualities with a range of social injustices, this study reviews research on nursing practice concerning sexuality from an emancipatory/social justice perspective. A systematic review of English articles published in nursing journals appearing on the Web of Science database from 2009 to 2014 was conducted. Thirty‐eight articles met the inclusion criteria. Analysis consisted (...) of a descriptive phase (types and location of studies, aspects of sexualities focused on, target health users and aspects of nursing practice focused on) and a critical/emancipatory phase. In terms of practice, our analysis revealed that: barriers exist to the integration of issues relating to sexuality in nursing practice; the social location of nurses and their personal feelings regarding sexuality influence their practice; content that addresses gendered norms and media that assist in communication underpin some emancipatory practices. Few studies locate analyses of nursing practice within gendered, cultural and social norms; consider advocacy as part of the practice of nurses; or analyse the promotion of health user participation in health services and structures. The implications for emancipatory practice are drawn out. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:464 Feminist Studies 44, no. 2. © 2018 by Feminist Studies, Inc. Claire Raymond and Sarah Corse A Distorting Mirror: Educational Trajectory After College Sexual Assault This article focuses on the broad and specific impacts of college sexual assault on student-survivors’ academic performance, academic trajectory, and their sense of self in relation to the university community. We frame this study with, and relate our findings to, the historic and (...) theoretical literatures that provide the context for this essay, including the large and burgeoning literature on the sexual assault of women college students and recent studies analyzing the role of fraternities in sexual assault, students’ fears and perceptions about college assault, bystander intervention training, and survivors’ grade-point averages after assault.1 Our study also builds on the history of feminist resistance to rape, feminist writings about rape, and campus activism against rape, with the 1. Cortney Franklin, Leana Allen Bouffard, and Travis C. Pratt, “Sexual Assault on the College Campus: Fraternity Affiliation, Male Peer Support, and Low Self-Control,” Criminal Justice and Behavior 39, no. 11 (2012): 1457– 80; Christine A. Gidycz, John R. McNamara, and Katie M. Edwards, “Women ’s Risk Perception and Sexual Victimization: A Review of the Literature,” Aggression and Violent Behavior 11, no. 5 (2006): 441–56; Jennifer Katz and Jessica Moore, “Bystander Education Training for Campus Sexual Assault Prevention: An Initial Meta-Analysis,” Violence and Victims 28, no. 6 (2013): 1054–67; Douglas W. Pryor and Marion R. Hughes, “Fear of Rape among College Women: A Social Psychological Analysis,” Violence and Victims 28, no. 3 (2013): 443–65; Carol E. Jordan, Jessica L. Combs, and Gregory T. Smith, “An Exploration of Sexual Victimization and Academic Performance among College Women,” Trauma, Violence, & Abuse 15, no. 3 (2014): 191–200. Claire Raymond and Sarah Corse 465 goal of shedding light on one aspect of the problem. Groundbreaking (and in some cases controversial) works analyzing the cultures of rape, such as Susan Brownmiller’s Against Our Will and Peggy Sanday’s “The Socio-Cultural Context of Rape” (in which Sanday creates the concept of the rape-producing culture—a concept that is central to our argument in this essay), found immediate reception with feminist activists of the 1970s and early 1980s.2 Mary Koss’s work regarding the scope of rape in college settings is also foundational to our study of campus rape.3 Susan Estrich, Catharine MacKinnon, and other feminist theorists in the mid-1980s developed critical apparatuses to shift the understanding of rape, providing a feminist framework wherein rape is interpreted as violence committed against a woman—in opposition to the patriarchal argument that rape is caused by a woman’s actions or is the product of her distortion of events after the fact.4 Angela Davis and bell hooks were deeply influential in framing understandings of the racial and racist aspects of feminist discussions of rape, while legal scholar Sarah Deer has more recently broadened understandings of the racialized discourse of rape, and Lisa Wade has written on twenty-first century hookup culture and the ways that this social landscape promulgates rates of maleon -female rape that are significantly higher on college campuses than in the general population.5 2. Peggy Reeves Sanday, “The Socio-Cultural Context of Rape: A Cross-Cultural Study,” Journal of Social Issues 37, no. 4 (1981): 5–27; Susan Brownmiller, Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape (New York: Penguin Books, 1976). 3. Mary P. Koss, Christine A. Gidycz, and Nadine Wisniewski, “The Scope of Rape: Incidence and Prevalence of Sexual Aggression and Victimization in a National Sample of Higher Education Students,” Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 55, no. 2 (1987): 162–70. 4. Susan Estrich, Real Rape: How the Legal System Victimizes Women Who Say No (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988); Duncan Chappell, Robley Geis, and Gilbert Geis, eds., Forcible Rape: The Crime, the Victim and the Offender (New York: Columbia University Press, 1977). 5. Angela Davis, “Rape, Racism, and the Myth of the Black Rapist,” in her Women, Race, and Class (New York: Vintage Books, 1983), 172–201; bell hooks, Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center (Boston: South End Press, 1984); Sarah Deer, The Beginning and End... (shrink)

Our research project will investigate the virtue of humility among real world humanitarian exemplars, such as holocaust rescuers and hospice workers. We will use computer technology to analyze interviews with these types of populations to understand the different factors involved in the virtue of humility. Following the work of Aristotle, we believe this virtue is formed as a kind of habit that becomes a natural extension of one’s character. We aim to operationalize and empirically evaluate aspects of the virtue (...) of humility through the computational analysis of implicit semantic processing embedded in the narratives of real world humanitarians. Latent semantic analysis, multi-dimensional scaling, and hierarchical cluster analysis will be used to map self-understanding schemas in these populations and its role in humility while serving others. (shrink)

In the last decade, fierce controversy has arisen over the nature of sexual orientation. Scientific research, religious views, increasingly ambiguous gender roles, and the growing visibility of sexual minorities have sparked impassioned arguments about whether our sexual desires are hard-wired in our genes or shaped by the changing forces of society. In recent years scientific research and popular opinion have favored the idea that sexual orientations are determined at birth, but philosopher and educator Edward Stein argues that much of what (...) we think we know about the origins of sexual desire is probably wrong. Stein provides a comprehensive overview of such research on sexual orientation and shows that it is deeply flawed. Stein argues that this research assumes a picture of sexual desire that reflects unquestioned cultural stereotypes rather than cross-cultural scientific facts, and that it suffers from serious methodological problems. He considers whether sexual orientation is even amenable to empirical study and asks if it is useful for our understanding of human nature to categorize people based on their sexual desires. Perhaps most importantly, Stein examines some of the ethical issues surrounding such research, including gay and lesbian civil rights and the implications of parents trying to select or change the sexual orientation of their children. The Mismeasure of Desire offers a reasoned, accessible, and incisive examination of contemporary thinking about one of the most hotly debated issues of our time and adds a compelling voice of dissent to prevailing--and largely unexamined--assumptions about human sexuality. (shrink)

IntroductionElements mark the reality of reading the female body in symbolic constructions and social symbols in the exercise of their reproductive health. The study aims to identify elements that characterize the female condition while analyzing the reproductive health of Brazilian and French women.Materials and MethodsA qualitative, multicenter, international study was conducted in Brazil and in France between 2016 and 2019. Data were produced through the use of semi-structured scripts. Focus group discussions and individual interviews were conducted with women who gave (...) birth, hetero-female couples who lived the experience of gestation and birth of a baby, and professionals of maternal and childcare services or members of the associations concerned with the health of mothers and babies. It was guided by the theoretical-methodological framework of institutional analysis in line with the French Institutional Socioclinics.ResultsSexual and reproductive health in the realities researched in Brazil and France are sometimes close and sometimes far apart. In what involves the Brazilian health system, abortion is criminalized and often performed illegally. Furthermore, pregnancy, childbirth, and the postpartum period are highly medicalized. In addition, childbirth is not assured as an experience for a woman and her family. This aspect is confirmed by high numbers of cesarean sections performed or by maternal and infant mortality indicators. The French health system prioritizes vaginal deliveries and seems to assure more autonomy to women, but at the same time, it is worn out by the logic of profit, the efficiency of actions, and the rationalization of practices. In association with these, there are other intrinsic elements in the functioning of the institution that delineates the format of each country: notion of women's rights, violence against women, and discussion regarding the oppression markers of race, gender, sexuality, and social class.ConclusionsBoth countries reveal aspects related to the social role of women's bodies. The established logic reflects in the decision to have children, motherhood, women's autonomy over their own bodies, and in the core values linked to the termination of pregnancy and the professional practices developed in prenatal care, childbirth, and postpartum. (shrink)

The largest group of transcription factors in higher eukaryotes are C2H2 proteins, which contain C2H2‐type zinc finger domains that specifically bind to DNA. Few well‐studied C2H2 proteins, however, demonstrate their key role in the control of gene expression and chromosome architecture. Here we review the features of the domain architecture of C2H2 proteins and the likely origin of C2H2 zinc fingers. A comprehensive investigation of proteomes for the presence of proteins with multiple clustered C2H2 domains has revealed a key (...) difference between groups of organisms. Unlike plants, transcription factors in metazoans contain clusters of C2H2 domains typically separated by a linker with the TGEKP consensus sequence. The average size of C2H2 clusters varies substantially, even between genomes of higher metazoans, and with a tendency to increase in combination with SCAN, and especially KRAB domains, reflecting the increasing complexity of gene regulatory networks. (shrink)

Background: Healthcare providers who are accountable for patient care safety and quality but who are not empowered to actualize them experience moral distress. Interventions to mitigate moral distress in the healthcare organization are needed. Objective: To evaluate the effect on moral distress and clinician empowerment of an established, health-system-wide intervention, Moral Distress Consultation. Methods: A quasi-experimental, mixed methods study using pre/post surveys, structured interviews, and evaluation of consult themes was used. Consults were requested by staff when moral distress was present. (...) The purpose of consultation is to identify the causes of moral distress, barriers to action, and strategies to improve the situation. Intervention participants were those who attended a moral distress consult. Control participants were staff surveyed prior to the consult. Interviews were conducted after the consult with willing participants and unit managers. Moral distress was measured using the Moral Distress Thermometer. Empowerment was measured using the Global Empowerment Scale. Results: Twenty-one consults were conducted. Analysis included 116 intervention and 30 control surveys, and 11 interviews. A small but significant decrease was found among intervention participants, especially intensive care staff. Empowerment was unchanged. Interview themes support the consult service as an effective mode for open discussion of difficult circumstances and an important aspect of a healthy work environment. Conclusions: Moral distress consultation is an organization-wide mechanism for addressing moral distress. Consultation does not resolve moral distress but helps staff identify strategies to improve the situation. Further studies including follow up may elucidate consultation effectiveness. (shrink)

Introduction. Healthcare workers (HCWs) should theoretically have the necessary education and environment to adopt a healthy lifestyle, and they supposedly also should have a higher participation rate in WHP programmes. HCWs are, for several reasons, considered to be a key group in health promotion, especially due to the fact that the healthcare system reaches a substantial number of people in need of lifestyle changes such as increased physical activity (PA) [5]. Furthermore, healthcare professionals are considered to be the most (...) credible source of health information [6]. HCWs' lifestyles can play an important role in increasing awareness among patients regarding lifestyle changes, because HCWs' own lifestyle habits and interests in lifestyle behaviour have been shown to positively influence their counselling practices and attitudes [6–7]. The international movement 'Health Promoting Hospitals and Health Services', which was initiated by the World Health Organization (WHO), highlights the importance of also focusing on the health and lifestyle of the employees. Methods. We conducted survey based on a standardized and adapted questionnaire that included socio-demographic data and points related to healthy lifestyle. We adhered to the latest recommendations on designing and reporting survey studies. Before conducting the study, the questionnaire was pretested among 5 experts and revised twice. The survey was conducted in Kazakh / Russian for respondents who speak two languages fluently at the choice of participants. The filling of the questionnaire took on average 45 minutes. We reported absolute numbers and percentages. Chi-square tests were used to compare responses between groups. Results were considered significant at a P value of < 0.05. Statistical analyses were performed using the application SAS OnDemand for academia (version 3.81, Carry, North Carolina, USA). Results. Our data revealed that nurses were more likely to adhere to healthy eating principles and to have a regular diet at home. GPs were more likely to consume fast food and add salt when food is not salted enough. Nurses were more likely to eat greens regularly. GPs had a stronger belief in the impact of diet on health. More nurses rated their diet as healthy. Media promotion significantly influenced GPs for changing diet towards healthier options. Eating patterns vary according to the risk of stress. Research shows that chronic stress influences the amount and types of consumed food, contributing to both overeating and malnutrition, and that stress hormones can lead to the development of obesity. GPs are more likely to have used tobacco products compared to nurses. GPs are more likely to smoke more than 10 cigarettes per day. GPs have a slightly higher belief in the necessity of a healthy lifestyle compared to nurses. GPs and nurses have different testing frequencies for Hepatitis B and C, with nurses testing more frequently. GPs are more likely to have sexual activity after drinking alcohol. Conclusion. It is known that a healthy lifestyle of doctors affects the attitude of patients and their motivation to change their lifestyle. Thus, the lifestyle patterns of health workers, as well as the understanding of the motivation of these patterns, are more likely to affect public health. (shrink)

IntroductionSymptoms of schizophrenia are closely related to aberrant language comprehension and production. Macroscopic brain changes seen in some patients with schizophrenia are suspected to relate to impaired language production, but this is yet to be reliably characterized. Since heterogeneity in language dysfunctions, as well as brain structure, is suspected in schizophrenia, we aimed to first seek patient subgroups with different neurobiological signatures and then quantify linguistic indices that capture the symptoms of “negative formal thought disorder”.MethodsAtlas-based cortical thickness values of 66 (...) patients with first-episode psychosis and 36 healthy controls were analyzed with hierarchical clustering algorithms to produce neuroanatomical subtypes. We then examined the generated subtypes and investigated the quantitative differences in MRS-based glutamate levels [in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex ] as well as in three aspects of language production features: fluency, syntactic complexity, and lexical cohesion.ResultsTwo neuroanatomical subtypes among patients were observed, one with near-normal cortical thickness patterns while the other with widespread cortical thinning. Compared to the subgroup of patients with relatively normal cortical thickness patterns, the subgroup with widespread cortical thinning was older, with higher glutamate concentration in dACC and produced speech with reduced mean length of T-units and lower repeats of content words, despite being equally fluent.ConclusionWe characterized a patient subgroup with thinner cortex in first-episode psychosis. This subgroup, identifiable through macroscopic changes, is also distinguishable in terms of neurochemistry and language behavior. This study supports the hypothesis that glutamate-mediated cortical thinning may contribute to a phenotype that is detectable using the tools of computational linguistics in schizophrenia. (shrink)

Medical professionals, including mental health professionals, largely agree that moral judgment should be kept out of clinical settings. The rationale is simple: moral judgment has the capacity to impair clinical judgment in ways that could harm the patient. However, when the patient is suffering from a "Cluster B" personality disorder, keeping moral judgment out of the clinic might appear impossible, not only in practice but also in theory. For the diagnostic criteria associated with these particular disorders (Antisocial, Borderline, Histrionic, (...) Narcissistic) are expressed in overtly moral language. I consider three proposals for dealing with this problem. The first is to eliminate the Cluster B disorders from the DSM on the grounds that they are moral, rather than mental, disorders. The second is to replace the morally laden language of the diagnostic criteria with morally neutral language. The third is to disambiguate the notion of moral judgment so as to respect the distinction between having morally disvalued traits and having moral responsibility for those traits. Sensitivity to this distinction enables the clinician, at least in theory, to employ morally laden diagnostic criteria without adopting the sort of morally judgmental (and potentially harmful) attitude that results from the tacit presumption of moral responsibility. I argue against the first two proposals and in favor of the third. In doing so, I appeal to Grice's distinction between conventional and conversational implicature. I close with a few brief remarks on the irony of retaining overtly moral language in an ostensibly medical manual for the diagnosis of mental disorders. (shrink)

BackgroundMediation analysis is important to test the theoretical framework underpinning an intervention. We therefore aimed to investigate if the healthy body image intervention’s effect on eating disorder symptomatology and use of muscle building supplements was mediated by the change in risk and protective factors for ED development and muscle building supplement use.MethodsThis study used data from the HBI intervention: a cluster randomized controlled universal intervention aiming to promote positive body image and embodiment and reduce the risk for ED (...) development including 30 schools in Norway. A total of 1,713 participants were included in the analyses. Conditional latent growth curve analyses were performed to test for indirect effects on ED symptomatology and weekly frequency of protein and creatine supplement use measured at the 12-month follow-up via change in the proposed mediators.ResultsIn girls, the reduction in ED symptomatology was mediated by positive changes in protective factors and reductions in risk factor scores. Comparable changes in protective and risk factors among boys played no mediating role.ConclusionInterventions aiming to reduce the risk of ED development in girls may benefit from aiming to enhance self-esteem and body image flexibility and reduce perceived media pressure and thin appearance internalization. Future studies should investigate the casual relationship between muscle building supplement use and risk and protective factors for ED development in both girls and boys. (shrink)

While pornography addiction currently circulates as a comprehensible, diagnosable, and describable way to make sense of some people’s ostensibly problematic relationship with pornography, such a comprehensive description of this relationship has only recently been made possible. The current analysis makes visible pornography addiction as situated within a varied history of concerns about pornography, masturbation, fantasy, and technology in an effort to bring to bear a conceptual critique of the modern concept of pornography addiction. Such a critique in turn works (...) to offer an alternative to treating the study of pornography addiction as the discovery of a new disease, instead conceiving it as the propagation of old forms of knowledge under a new moniker. (shrink)

Child trauma plays an important role in the etiology of Bordeline Personality Disorder. Of all traumas, sexual trauma is the most common, severe and most associated with receiving a BPD diagnosis when adult. Etiologic models posit sexual abuse as a prognostic factor in BPD. Here we apply machine learning using Multiple Kernel Regression to the Magnetic Resonance Structural Images of 20 BPD and 13 healthy control to see whether their brain predicts five sources of traumas: sex abuse, emotion (...) neglect, emotional abuse, physical neglect, physical abuse. We also applied the same analysis to predict symptom severity in five domains: affective, cognitive, impulsivity, interpersonal for BPD patients only. Results indicate that CTQ sexual trauma is predicted by a set of areas including the amygdala, the Heschl area, the Caudate, the Putamen, and portions of the Cerebellum in BPD patients only. Importantly, interpersonal problems only in BPD patients were predicted by a set of areas including temporal lobe and cerebellar regions. Notably, sexual trauma and interpersonal problems were not predicted by structural features in matched healthy controls. This finding may help elucidate the brain circuit affected by traumatic experiences and connected with interpersonal problems BPD suffer from. (shrink)

Darwin’s Cirripedia project was an exacting exercise in systematics, as well as an encrypted study of evolution in action. Darwin had a long-standing interest and expertise in marine invertebrates and their sexual arrangements. The surprising and revealing sexual differentiation he would uncover amongst barnacles represented an important step in his understanding of the origins of sexual reproduction. But it would prove difficult to reconcile these findings with his later theorizing. Moreover, the road to discovery was hardly straightforward. Darwin was both (...) helped and hindered by the tacit expectations generated by his transformist theorizing, and had to overcome culturally-embedded assumptions about gender and reproductive roles. Significant observational backtracking was required to correct several oversights and misapprehensions, none more so than those relating to the chronically misunderstood “Mr. Arthrobalanus.” With careful attention to chronology, this paper highlights some curious and overlooked aspects of Darwin’s epic project. (shrink)

The article presents the sexuality education work of pro familia. Against the background of human rights, sexuality education is always to a high degree ethical-philosophical education. It is discussed with which methods and which attitude ethical questions are dealt with in sexuality education (youth) groups and how students, teachers and professionals can be sensitized for a boundary-preserving, self-determined handling of sexuality.

This article explores how older adults negotiate and partially counter normative expectations of “health citizenship” that stress individual responsibility for maintaining health and preventing health problems. Based on interviews with 55 participants in Canada and the U.K. about what healthy living means to them in their everyday lives, we examine how the dominant discourse of personal responsibility in participants’ responses is counterpointed by a more muted, yet significant, alternative critical perspective on the relative roles and responsibilities of government and (...) citizens in making healthy living possible. Drawing on Hauser’s (1999) concept of vernacular rhetoric along with recent theories of environmental citizenship, we analyze how participants exercise their civic-political judgment by using a logic of dissociation to argue that what government says about the importance of healthy living is incompatible with what government does to support citizens’ abilities to eat healthily and live actively. By deploying this technique of argumentation to address structural-political-economic dimensions of healthy living, participants enact, in modest ways, an alternative, critical-collective mode of health citizenship that complicates and, at least partially, disrupts neoliberal constructions of the individually responsible, “good” health citizen. (shrink)

The social construction of reality is influenced extensively by the mass media. Commercialised images of masculinity, including discourses to interpret it, are continuously reflected and/or created by sources of mass media, in a myriad of ways. These images are subjectively loaded, but still effectively communicate to us, and even entice and persuade us. It furthermore wields extensive power over men - especially over their self-images, passions, and egos. In this article, dominating images and discourses concerning manhood and male identity - (...) particularly those displayed in men's health magazines - were critically examined. This was done through a thematic analysis of 123 issues of MHM cover pages. The investigation showed that MHM is infused with traditional masculine ideology. Moreover, MHM fails to confront discourses that endorse hegemonic masculinity, for the sake of holistic health. It was suggested that a sober, precautionary, health strategy should challenge men to critically engage with MHM's reigning creed: 'big, hard and up'. This creed incites a utilitarian view of sexuality within a culture of performance-driven masculinity, which subsequently fuels anxieties that can lead to unhealthy issues, such as body image dissatisfaction. From a pastoral care perspective, it was asserted that Christian men need to search for alternative ways to instigate their capacity to experience and facilitate authentic intimacy, in order to work toward the social construction of more balanced and healthy discourses on male identity. (shrink)

This article aims to clarify the relationship between human rights and the environment, as it results from the jurisprudence of the two supranational institutions at the level of the European Union. It can be said that, to date, the jurisprudence covered by this article reflects the most important principles that the Court has applied in environmental case law. The article sets out the three most important principles regarding the individual rights that could be affected by environmental damage. On the one (...) hand, the human rights that are protected by the Convention may be directly affected by harmful environmental factors, which may lead to a substantial violation of those rights. On the other hand, harmful environmental factors can lead to procedural violations of these rights. It is important to note here that the procedural aspects of these rights relate to the information and communication duties that national authorities have in the event of any damage brought to the environment. Finally, national authorities may also use environmental protection as a legitimate aim to justify possible interference with certain individual human rights. (shrink)

Background: Studies of sexual conditioning typically focus on the development of conditioned responses to a stimulus that precedes and has become associated with a sexual unconditioned stimulus (US). Such a sexually conditioned stimulus (CS) provides the opportunity for feed-forward regulation of sexual behavior, which improves the efficiency and effectiveness of the sexual activity. Objective and Design: The present experiments were conducted to provide evidence of such feed-forward regulation of sexual behavior in laboratory studies with domesticated quail by measuring how many (...) fertilized eggs were produced by the female after the sexual encounter. During the conditioning phase, male and female quail received a conditioned stimulus paired with the opportunity to copulate with each other. Results: Sexual conditioning increased the number of eggs that were fertilized as a consequence of copulation, especially if both the male and the female were exposed to the sexual CS. This conditioned fertility effect occurred with a range of CS durations and CS types. The conditioned fertility effect also occurred in situations involving sexual competition. When two males copulated with the same female, DNA fingerprinting showed that the male whose sexual encounter was signaled by a sexual CS was responsible for most of the resulting offspring. Sexual conditioning also reduced the first-male disadvantage in fertilization that occurs when two males copulate with the same female separated by several hours. Another significant finding was that sexual conditioning attenuated the usual drop in fertilization rate that occurs when the same male copulates with two females in succession. Conclusion: These results show that sexual conditioning increases the number of offspring that are produced in both isolated male-female encounters and in situations that involve two males copulating with the same female or one male copulating with more than one female. By increasing fertilization rates, sexual conditioning can alter genetic transmission across generations and shape evolutionary change. Keywords: sexual conditioning; sexual learning; conditioned fertility; sexual competition; quail; pavlovian conditioning (Published: 15 March 2012) Citation: Socioaffective Neuroscience & Psychology 2012, 2 : 17333 - DOI: 10.3402/snp.v2i0.17333. (shrink)

While the common law may result in justice between heterosexual intimate partners in particular claims for a beneficial interest in the family home, it does so on its own terms—terms drawn up according to contractarian principles reflecting male sex-right, that subsist even as the world and the institution of marriage (and marriage-like relationships) have changed. This paper uses examples from the case law across four common law jurisdictions to expose the terms on which the contractarian nature of intimate partner trusts (...) permits claims for a distribution of intimate partners’ property, and how it excludes. In particular, it identifies the pervasiveness of the sexual contract in subsuming women’s expression of individualism to those of her intimate partner, and the implications of this for the derivation of a property interest in the family home. (shrink)

In this paper, we explore the role of emotion in the interpretation and memory of sexual encounters. We consider situations likely to generate negative emotions during sex, and the mechanisms through which the experience of negative emotions can lead to false memories of coercion and mislabeling of an encounter as sexual assault. Specifically, we consider the role of emotion in directing attention during a sexual encounter and the effects of emotion as context for interpretation at the time of (...) the encounter, and for retrieval and interpretation when the encounter is later recalled and reported. Our intent is to provide a greater understanding of the processes of interpretation and memory through which false claims of sexual assault might arise, if and when they do arise. (shrink)

Feminist scholarship highlighting the importance of sexuality suggests the utility of studying beliefs about gender and sexuality, but the public opinion literature on gender-related attitudes has paid almost no attention to this issue. This research report addresses U.S. men's and women's beliefs about several aspects of sexuality: gender differences in sexual drives, gender inequalities in sexual power, and sexual orientation. The results suggest that men and women tend to share similar beliefs about sexual drives and sexual (...) orientation but disagree notably on issues of sexual power. In addition, naturalization of sexuality is associated with greater acceptance of the sexual status quo, suggesting that naturalizing beliefs play a role in maintaining sexual inequality. (shrink)

Sexual objectification, in the broadest terms, involves treating people as things. Philosophers have offered different accounts of what, more precisely, this involves. According to the conjoint view of Catherine Mackinnon and Sally Haslanger, sexual objectification is necessarily morally objectionable. According to Martha Nussbaum, it is not: there can be benign instances of it, in the course of a healthy sexual relationship, for instance. This is taken to be a serious disagreement, both by Nussbaum and by recent commentators such as (...) Lina Papadaki. However it isn't a serious disagreement, for the two theories have different aims and methodology, and are not rivals. They both could be apt, simultaneously. (shrink)

As there is a growing trend for people to work from home, precipitated by the COVID-19 pandemic, this research examines the impact of blurred work-life boundaries on lifestyle and subjective well-being. Our cross-sectional study in the Netherlands demonstrates that heightened levels of blurred work-life boundaries predict negative changes in happiness through enhanced emotional exhaustion. In addition, the findings point to a dual role of lifestyle in this process. On the one hand, we observed that healthy overall lifestyle patterns (...) buffered employees against the detrimental effects of blurred work-life boundaries and emotional exhaustion on happiness. On the other hand, employees who experienced increases in blurring of work-life boundaries reported a deterioration in healthy lifestyle behaviors, which in turn was related to reduced happiness. Paradoxically, it seems that those who would benefit the most from a healthy lifestyle are less able to sustain health-promoting behaviors. A case for shared responsibility between employers and employees is built as we discuss the practical implications of the current research. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 12.4 (2005) 335-342 [Access article in PDF] Psychoanalysis as a Hybrid of Religion and Science Quinton Deeley Keywords Freud, psychoanalysis, religion, science, evolution Introduction De Block's paper, "Freud as an Evolutionary Psychiatrist," discusses Freud's writ-ings—including a recently discovered paper on the evolution of psychopathology—to establish the Freudian "philosophy of man" that human beings are "ill to the core" (i.e., that mental illness is an inevitable (...) byproduct of human psychological processes). This perspective is then used as a basis for proposing a way in which psychoanalysis can be integrated with contemporary evolutionary psychology. However, this undertaking raises fundamental questions about psychoanalysis itself, which are addressed in this commentary. First, to what extent is a systematic theoretical unity imposed on, rather than discovered in, Freud's writings? Also, has De Block succeeded in grounding the Freudian philosophy of man in evolutionary theory, and how is this ambition affected by general questions about the scientific status and evidence for psychoanalytic conceptions? Further, if there is only limited experimental evidence for psychoanalytic concepts, how are claims to knowledge justified in psychoanalytic discourse, and how does this relate to the forms of epistemic justification found in religion and science? Finally, is psychoanalysis closer to religious or scientific discourse, and if it combines features of both, what kind of activity is it? The Exposition of the Freudian Philosophical Project The key claim of De Block's paper is that any evolutionary psychology faithful to Freud's account of human nature must be constrained by a fundamental premise: the psychological organization of human beings is such that "there is a quantitative, but not a structural, difference between psychiatric patients and so-called healthy or normal individuals" (2005, 323). From De Block's perspective, this reflects the Freudian perspective that the normal operation of psychological processes inevitably results in some degree of mental distress: "every repression produces symptoms, every defense mechanism produces more suffering than is strictly necessary" (2005, 321). As a result, "when Freud writes that there is only a gradual difference between neurotics and normals, he does not mean the normals are non-neurotic, but only that they suffer less under their neurosis" (2005, 318). This Freudian perspective is variously summarized throughout the paper; for example, "we think there is only one underlying motive of Freud's research, which [End Page 335] could also function as a cornerstone of a 'Freudian' philosophy. This underlying motive is the intuition that there is no substantial difference between the so-called normal human being and the mentally insane" (2005, 315).De Block's exposition of the Freudian account of human nature also emphasizes the doctrine of psychosexuality: "the Freudian philosophy of man presumes primarily that every human being has to react in some way of another to sexual problems" (2005, 317). One of the problems confronting any expositor of Freud is the fact that his voluminous writings show considerable development in his thought. This heterogeneity raises the question of the extent to which the coherence of Freudian theory as a systematic whole is imposed by expositors, rather than lying in the corpus itself. De Block's approach to this heterogeneity is to extract different kinds of relations between sexuality and psychopathology from Freud's writings (e.g., neurosis and the Oedipal instincts, psychosis and narcissism), and then to argue that they explain Freud's interest in less obviously sexual aspects of mind, behavior, and society. As De Block comments after his exegesis of different connections between sexuality and psychopathology: but probably, he [Freud] only meant that in neurosis, people wrestle first and foremost with love, in perversion with sex and violence, and in psychosis with identity and issues related to identity, such as death and "the meaning of life." At least, such an interpretation can explain why Freud—in some of his works—recognized the importance of problems like aggression, love, and death for the human psyche and human psychopathology...; he nevertheless refused to modify the primacy of sexuality in psychopathology. (2005, X) Whether all of Freud's explanations of psychological phenomena involve... (shrink)