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Abstract
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When Alfred Kinsey published his pioneering research on human sexuality in the middle of the twentieth century, it immediately became the subject of great controversy, with many of his findings provoking significant resistance and backlash. Kinsey's work made a lot of people uncomfortable because it challenged their preconceived notions about sex and sexual desire. This was especially true with respect to the release of his 1953 volume, Sexual Behavior in the Human Female. It was the first book of its kind to investigate women's sexual attitudes and behaviors from a scientific perspective. Over time, it helped to fundamentally reshape the way female sexuality was understood.
In the decades since, the field of sex research has grown significantly; however, little has changed with respect to public reaction to sex research that challenges widely held beliefs. The unfortunate reality is that when research on sex and gender conflicts with people's assumptions - and especially when it reveals inconvenient truths - the findings have a tendency to be ignored, misconstrued, or attacked, and the researchers who uncovered them are sometimes smeared in the process (see Dreger, 2016). This is true today more than ever. Indeed, this era of identity politics and social media echo chambers has fueled a growing divide between public opinion and scientific consensus on numerous sexuality issues - a divide that has implications not just for the advancement of science, but also for our health and happiness.
It is this disconnect between popular belief and science that the current special issue is devoted to exploring. I invited contributions from an international team of experts to highlight the state of the science behind some of the most controversial and widely misunderstood aspects of human sexuality with the goal of challenging researchers, educators, and therapists to revisit some of their own assumptions. These articles offer insight into (1) the nature of sexual desire and arousal in women, (2) treatment of sexual difficulties in women, (3) typologies and subtypes of transsexualism, and (4) the outcomes associated with consensually non-monogamous relationships. Certainly, these topics do not represent the only controversial areas in modern sexuality research; however, they are among the most significant for psychologists to attend because, as you will see below, they have implications for both research and practice.
Language: en |