1) Outline the evolution of sexuality from primitive man to our present understanding of sexual growth.
According to the text, sexuality for primitive man related to a physical power struggle in which the male viewed his greater physical strength as a sign of superiority over females. Based strictly on ego considerations, the primitive man viewed sex as a drive to be expressed in an overtly aggressive manner with the "inferior" female assuming a passive role.
However, in the twentieth century, this notion of the female role as passive has been successfully challenged on intellectual grounds; further, the birth-control pill has freed females from focusing their sexual concerns primarily on the possibility of becoming pregnant. As a result of both of these events, women have become more sexually assertive and more grounded in the value of femininity and female self-actualization.
Today we understand that sexuality is not a function that flows forth from male/female physical dimorphism, but rather it is the result of interactions and relationships, especially the parent-child relationship in which affection, physical contact, and other qualities and characteristics are taught through processes such as modelling, conditioning and reinforcement mechanisms present in their interactions and interrelating.
Of these relationships, the most important is the parent-child relationship in which sexuality is said to be formed on the basis of the relative amount of physical affection and touching which the father shows to the child.
2) List and explain fully the two categories of sexuality as described by the author of the course text.
The two categories of sexuality (defined as the manifestation of sexual personality or the manner in which one organizes experimental and relational perceptions) discussed in the text are dominant (physical) sexuality and subdominant (emotional) sexuality. People with dominant/physical sexuality ar...