A New Understanding Of Sexuality - 1813 Words

In studying sexuality Reiss spent several months living in Sweden where he compared this culture to our own and formed a new understanding of teenage sexuality. The Swedish view sexual experiences during the teen years as a natural expected occurrence, thus they are a society that choses to prepare their children rather than leave them in the dark. Sexual education in Sweden occurs as early as preschool and the goal of these programs are to instill a comprehensive knowledge and appreciation of various sexual behaviors. As a result of this pluralistic tactic the rates of sexual consequences in Sweden are significantly less than those of the United States. In addition to this the Swedish have employed an educational perspective that falls in†¦show more content†¦The findings of this early study indicated that the act of sexual intercourse served as a means of pleasure for these women rather than the traditional view that sex in marriage was a duty of the wife. In the 1920†™s scholars noted the increase in premarital intercourse for the means of pleasure, this which was controversial compared to the pleasure seeking married women years before. This time would come to be known as the first sexual revolution, in which these revolutionary individuals developed a more egalitarian view of sexuality. This set the stage for the second sexual revolution that developed in the late 1960’s, both revolutions were similar in that they involved one major war, a rise in divorce and witnessed an increase in equality between women and men (85). Reiss argues that although these two sexual revolutions have tipped the scale toward greater equality between the two sexes there are still gapes to fill before we as a nation can declare full equality. In the wake of the second sexual revolution and at a time of national celebration a silent killer was making its way through the bloodstream of homosexuals and intravenous drug users in the year of 1976. This would come to be known as Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), which developed after becoming infected with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). Early reports of this disease documented the reactions that occurred in response to the initial