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In the article, the author discusses the assessment of evidential value in sex research. Also cited are the disadvantages of using single-study papers in research like they maximize the danger of false positives and they undermine the critical test of theoretical and conceptual patterns, as well as the dangers of false positive psychology in psychological science.

This literature review presents a critical appraisal of the dominant approaches toward the sexuality and relationships of people with acquired brain injury. In particular, we sought to identify and review existing programs focusing on sexuality and relationships which use an educational and/or peer–peer approach. A systematic and comprehensive search of the EBSCOHOST database was conducted within an unlimited time-frame to yield the highest number of relevant results possible, along with hand-searching of key journals and databases. Reports, papers and webpages, documents commonly referred to as 'grey literature' that are not published in peer-reviewed journals, were also hand searched as a part of this review. The database search yielded 862 results, 14 of which were found to be relevant to our research interests. All of the sexuality education programs identified in this review were experienced positively by participants, families, caregivers, and professionals working with people with acquired brain injury. No peer–peer sexuality and relationships programs were identified. However, we found strong support for the use of peer–peer approaches in other programs for people with acquired brain injury. This literature review provides strong support for the development peer–peer sexuality and relationships programs for people with acquired brain injury. However, any future programs would have to overcome the limitations of existing sexuality and relationships programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The reasons for the persistence of risky sexual behaviours among adolescents and young adults in sub-Saharan Africa despite the increasing knowledge about the associated risks continue to attract scholarly debates. Drawing from a cross-sectional study conducted among male and female Nigerian university students, we examined the relationship between family structure, family support and transactional sex. Methods: A pre-validated questionnaire was administered to 800 male and female students selected using stratified sampling; however, we performed the analysis on 630 participants who had ever engaged in sex. Transactional sex was operationalised as self-reporting of giving or receiving money, gifts or favour in exchange for sex. We fitted a list-wise logistic regression model to examine the relationship between family structure, family support and transactional sex while controlling for essential covariates. Results: Of the 630 participants included in the analysis, 17.9% had given and 23.8% had received money, gift or favour in exchange for sex. Our bivariate analysis shows that individuals from polygamous families had higher odds of reporting that they have ever given (AOR: 1.89; CI: 1.05–3.39) or received (AOR: 1.85; CI: 1.85–3.19) money, gift or favour in exchange for sex; however, the relationship was not statistically significant after controlling for relevant covariates. After controlling for essential covariates, the odds of giving or receiving money, gift or favour in exchange for sex was 56% lower in individuals who received adequate family support compared to those who received no or insufficient family support. Conclusion: In conclusion, this paper lends support to the assertion that family structure and family support are protective factors against transactional sex among adolescents and young adults. Future surveys need to include a larger sample in order to explore the effect of single-parent and polygamous family on transactional sex in Nigeria where family formation is changing rapidly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper defines and explores reproductive loss and, drawing on a social sciences perspective, reflects on the lack of attention that has been given to the subject within the study of human fertility. The authors argue that whilst reproductive loss (broadly defined) is exceptionally common, scholars have - with some exceptions - focused on the study of reproductive 'success', and continue to do so. The paper examines the implications of this for policy, practice and the role of healthcare professionals and focuses on the significance of appreciating difference and diversity in the study of reproductive loss and the importance of placing such experiences within the social structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses data from twenty-one online and in-person qualitative interviews to examine the meaning and use of chat rooms located on men for men (M4M) websites from the perspectives of men seeking men on the Internet. This research is inspired by recent public health and social sciences literature on gay websites and chat rooms. The data indicate that these online sites help expedite learning about sex and sexuality and, for men who are shy or geographically isolated, to interact with metropolitan gay communities. There is, however, a measure of stigma associated with use of these chat rooms, particularly by men who are older or in coupled relationships. Using these data, the paper argues that M4M chat rooms play a vital role in fostering the sexual autonomy of many men who frequent these venues and that sociologists should devote more study to the complexity of online social interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers a brief review of cross-cultural human sexuality and the concerns anthropologists have highlighted in the study of sexual practices. The paper is divided into a discussion of the topics heterosexual behavior and homosexual behavior. Focus is given on cross-cultural studies of sexual practice that attempt to deal with human sexual arousal, attraction, and customary means of dealing with sexuality in non-Western cultures. The paper excluded discussions of human biology and evolution, reproductive health and hygiene, gender role and status, the psychodynamic approach to understanding human sexual behavior, and historical surveys of Western sexual practice.

This paper seeks to analyze the construction of ethics in sexuality research in which qualitative methods are employed in the field of social sciences. Analyses are based on a bibliographic review of current discussions on research methods of queer theory and on the authors' own experiences of past research on sexuality. The article offers a theoretical perspective on the ways ethnography and in-depth interviews become methods that can rely on a consensual method and create a politics of intimacy between the researchers and research participants. The politics of intimacy may contribute to the production of a politically engaged knowledge while escaping from the moral matrix that usually governs the relationship between researchers and research participants. It is argued here that the researcher's sexed and gendered body matters for fieldwork; that the consensual method among participants may be employed in sexuality research as a fruitful tool; and that the relationships created among researchers and participants can pose a challenge to predetermined ethical guidelines in research. As a result, discussions problematize the existence of a politics of intimacy in sexuality research that is characterized by ethical relations among research participants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of passionate love has a long history, yet it was not until the 1940s that social scientists created tools designed to measure this emotion. Over the next 60 years, numerous scales of romantic and passionate love were created and tested. Currently, however, there exists no single compendium of existing scales. This paper attempts to fill in the missing information on existing love scales by providing a list of 33 different measures and indicating where each scale’s reliability and validity information can be found. We close by attempting to explain how scholars’ conceptions of the nature of love have changed over the years, and how these historical and scientific changes are reflected in the scales designed to measure passionate love. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

By investigating the intergenerational consequences of multiple aspects of family experiences across the life course this paper advances what we know about the forces shaping children’s initiation of sexual and contraceptive behaviors. Our aim is to advance the scientific understanding of early sexual experiences by explicitly considering contraceptive use and by differentiating between the consequences of parental family experiences during childhood and those during adolescence and young adulthood. Thanks to unique, highly detailed data measuring parental family experiences throughout the life course and sexual dynamics early in life it is possible to provide detailed empirical estimates of the relationship between parental family experiences and contraceptive use at first sex—a relationship about which we know relatively little. Findings reveal (1) significant simultaneous consequences of many different dimensions of parental family experiences for the timing of first sex and the likelihood of using contraception at first sex, but the specific dimensions of family important for the specific behavior vary across racial groups; and (2) that parental family experiences influence the timing of sex and contraceptive use differently. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The Beijing Platform for Action (1995) and its companion documents – those of the Vienna Conference on Human Rights (1993) and the International Conference on Population and Development (1994) – took important steps toward securing recognition for what we might call human rights of the body. These are affirmative rights relating to sexual expression, reproductive choice and access to health care and negative rights pertaining to freedom from violence, torture and abuse. But ten years later, the violated male bodies of Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo, and Gujarat seem to mock certain of Beijing's most basic premises: that women are primarily the victims rather than the perpetrators of bodily abuses; and that, as such, women are, or should be, the privileged beneficiaries of bodily integrity rights. This paper re-examines these premises in the shadow of the “war on terrorism”, religious extremism, and practices of racialised, sexual, and often homophobic violence against men that emerge in wars and ethnic conflicts. In particular it looks at the war in Iraq and how that war configures such practices in both old and new ways. My purpose is not to repudiate feminist visions but rather to challenge the exclusive privileging of women as the bearers of sexual rights and to open up discussion of new, more inclusive coalitions of diverse social movements for rights of the body. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the use of the Internet as a data collection method for sexuality research. Benefits, such as larger, more representative samples, and risks to validity, such as lying and sabotage, are discussed in the context of a large Internet-based study of how "having sex" is defined by gay, lesbian, and bisexual college students. Suggestions for how to maximize utility as well as combat potential risks and ethical dilemmas are offered. Special attention is paid to the use of the Internet to collect data from traditionally underrepresented groups. The article ends with a look to the future of sex research over the Internet, exploring the collection of nonsurvey data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the connections between ethnicity and sexuality. Racial, ethnic, and national boundaries are also sexual boundaries. The borderlands dividing racial, ethnic, and national identities and communities constitute ethnosexual frontiers, erotic intersections that are heavily patrolled, policed, and protected, yet regularly are penetrated by individuals forging sexual links with ethnic "others." Normative heterosexuality is a central component of racial, ethnic, and nationalist ideologies; both adherence to and deviation from approved sexual identities and behaviors define and reinforce racial, ethnic, and nationalist regimes. To illustrate the ethnicity/sexuality nexus and to show the utility of revealing this intimate bond for understanding ethnic relations, I review constructionist models of ethnicity and sexuality in the social sciences and humanities, and I discuss ethnosexual boundary processes in several historical and contemporary settings: the sexual policing of nationalism, sexual aspects of US-American Indian relations, and the sexualization of the black-white color line. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years writers in the field of the sociology of gender have turned to psychoanalysis for insights into the psychological dimensions of female sexuality. The same insights are now being applied to the analysis of masculinity. This paper argues that the full advantages of this are undermined by the adoption of an object-relations perspective which restores the social determinism from which many such writers seek to escape. This argument is pursued through a detailed analysis of one recent text in the field -- The Sexuality of Men (eds) A. Metcalf and M. Humphries (1985) -- but is applied more widely to the treatment of sexuality in the sociology of gender. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]