Course Description

This essential book explores how women experience and express their sexuality from childhood through old age. Moving beyond a traditional focus on sexual functioning, the book emphasizes the complex interaction of psychological, social, cultural, and biological influences on the creation of individual sexual meanings? meanings central to each woman’s experience of herself as a sexual person. The author shows how these meanings are often problematic and contradictory, causing many women to feel disconnected from their bodies and form their needs and desires. Demonstrating how problematic myths and messages can be challenged, the book outlines ways that women can be empowered to create a more comfortable and self-defined sexuality throughout life.

About the Author

Judith C Daniluk, PhD, is professor and Director of Training in the Counseling Psychology Program at the University of British Columbia.

Learning Objectives

1. Discuss the various ways sexuality may be defined and constructed using a developmental perspective.
2. Explain how sexual meanings can be problematic, and how they may be challenged and changed in the therapeutic setting.
3. List behaviors and experiences that constitute “normal” sexual exploration and development for children ages infant to 12 years old.
4. Assess the meanings children derive from others’ reactions to their developing sexuality.
5. Summarize basic issues regarding body image, gender identity, and sexual identity formation commonly faced by adolescent girls.
6. Describe some of the messages about sexuality girls receive during adolescence from significant others and their cultures.
7. Discuss the impact of often-contradictory messages on girls’ perceptions and experiences of their developing bodies and evolving sexual self-constructions.
8. Utilize various activities and interventions to help adolescent girls create new meanings and a sense of joy regarding their sexuality.
9. List the typical biological changes and psychological issues that characterize young adulthood.
10. Assess the interaction between women and their reproductive decision-making, roles, and losses.
11. Explain exercises and activities that can be used to help young women navigate through the physical changes and transitions they experience.
12. Describe factors that shape and define the commitments young women make to intimate roles and relationships.
13. Predict the normative biological changes and psychological issues women face during middle age (40-65 years old).
14. Discuss problematic meanings and messages faced by women experiencing menopause.
15. Help women adapt to body changes and body image as they relate to the aging process.
16. Describe methods for dealing with midlife women’s needs, desires, and expectations in their intimate relationships.
17. Summarize how sexuality is defined, lived and expressed by women in later life.

Course Contents

I THE ENIGMA OF WOMEN'S SEXUALITY
  1 Opening Pandora's Box
  Everyone Knows What Sex Is, Don't They?
      If It's Not Just Intercourse, What Is It?
      The Meaning of Sexual Meanings
      The Construction of Sexual Meanings
      Problematic Meanings
      Conclusion
II CHILDHOOD AND ADOLESCENCE
  2 Teaching the Children
      “Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice": Biological Development
      Girls' Psychological Development
      Messages and Meanings
      Summary and Recommendations
  3 Adolescence: Biological and Psychological Development
      Biological Development
      Psychological Development
      Conclusion
  4 Menstruation: Initiation into Womanhood
      The Things We Needed Mother "and Dad" to Tell Us: Parental Messages
      A Friend in Need: Messages of Peers
      Of Cleanliness and Womanliness: Media Messages
      Religious and Medical Messages
      Summary: Problematic Meanings
      Challenge and Change: Creating New Meanings
      Conclusion
  5 "Bawdy" Image: From Subject to Object
      Changing Roles and Expectations: Messages of Significant Others
      Objects of Desire: Media Messages
      Summary: Problematic Meanings
      Challenge and Change: Creating New Meanings
      Conclusion
  6 Who Loves Ya, Babe?: Sexual Intimacies and Expression
      Sex as Love: Parental Messages
      Sex as. Status: The Messages of Peers
      "Intimate" Partners: Mixed Messages
      Sex as Surrender: Media Messages
      Sex as Weapon: Sexual Violence
      Summary: Problematic Meanings
      Challenge and Change: Creating New Meanings
      Conclusion
III YOUNG ADULTHOOD
  7 Biological and Psychological Development
      Biological Development
      Psychological Development
      Conclusion
  8 Creating a Life
      Sexual Invisibility: Messages to Mothers
      Sexuality as Loss: Messages to Infertile Women
      Incomplete Sexuality: Messages to the Voluntarily Childless
      Summary: Problematic Meanings
      Challenge and Change: Creating New Meanings
  9 In the Prime of Life: Living in Our Bodies
      Have You Gained a Little Weight Lately?: Messages of Friends and Lovers
      One Standard of Beauty-Tight, Light, and White: Media Messages
      Summary: Problematic Meanings
      Challenge and Change: Creating New Meanings
      Conclusion
  10 Fanning the Flames of Desire
      He Shoots, He Scores: The Male Model of Sexual Expression
      Too Hot to Handle: Media Portrayals of Sex
      Sexologists: The Purveyors of Scientific "Truths"
      Intimate Partners: Myths and Miscommunications
      Summary: Problematic Meanings
      Challenge and Change: Creating New Meanings
      Conclusion
IV THE MIDDLE AND LATER YEARS
  11 Biological and Psychological Development
      Biological Development during the Middle Years
      Psychological Development during the Middle Years
      Biological Development in Later Life: "You're as Young as You Feel”
      Psychological Development in Later Life: Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained
  12 When Being “Hot” Takes on New Meaning: Menopause
      All “Dried” Up: Medical Messages
      All “Used” Up: Media Messages
      Secret Shame: Messages of Significant Others
      Summary: Problematic Meanings
      Challenge and Change: Creating New Meanings
      Conclusion
  13 The Festival of Lipid Migration: Bodily Changes and Body Image
      Forever Young: Media Messages
      Hourglass Figures, or “Time Is Running Out”: Messages of the Beauty Industry
      Between Lovers: Messages of Significant Others
      Between Women
      Summary: Problematic Meanings
      Challenge and Change: Creating New Meanings
      Conclusion
  14 Intimate Connections: Sexual Expression and Relationships
      The Serviceable Vagina: Medical Messages
      On the Downhill Slide: Media Images
      Lovers and Other Strangers: Messages of Significant Others
      Summary: Problematic Meanings
      Challenge and Change: Creating New Meanings
      Conclusion
  15 Coming Full Circle
      Over the Hill: Medical Messages
      Rocking Chairs and Apple Pies: Media Messages
      Intimate Relationships: Messages of Significant Others
      Intimate Partners: Myths and Miscommunication
      Summary: Problematic Meanings
      Challenge and Change: Creating New Meanings
      Conclusion
Epilogue
Appendix A: The Sexual Development of Children and Adolescents
Appendix B: Body Image and Struggles with Weight
Appendix C: The Aftermath of Sexual Violence
Appendix D: Lesbian Identity and Sexual Orientation
Appendix E: Reproductive Health and Decision Making
Appendix F: Disability and Illness
Appendix G: Issues for Women in the Middle and Later Years
References
Index
Post Test

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