Sexual science: Emerging discipline or oxymoron?
- 1 May 1990
- journal article
- editorial
- Published by Taylor & Francis in The Journal of Sex Research
- Vol. 27 (2) , 147-165
- https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499009551550
Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to argue for the necessity of a rigorous sexual science. The consequences of the absence of a sexual science and data on human sexual behavior are noted. Similarly, the obstacles which prevent a rigorous sexual science are also discussed. Finally, suggestions for the future of sexual science are introduced. Sexual science is defined, simple goals are described, measurement issues are examined, and theoretical objectives are suggested. The paper concludes with the following statement: “Future generations will find it incomprehensible—and perhaps unconscionably negligent—that so little effort was marshalled to obtain data on, and establish a science of, human sexual behavior.”Keywords
This publication has 33 references indexed in Scilit:
- Theories of gender transpositions: A critique and suggestions for further researchThe Journal of Sex Research, 1989
- Homosexual role separation and AIDS epidemics: Insights from elementary modelsThe Journal of Sex Research, 1989
- A Heritage of Science: The Commonwealth of Science . ANZAAS and the Scientific Enterprise in Australasia, 1888-1988. Roy MacLeod, Ed. Oxford University Press, New York, 1988. xvi, 417 pp. + plates. $45.Science, 1989
- Can bad models suggest good policies? Sexual mixing and the AIDS epidemicThe Journal of Sex Research, 1989
- Sexual assessment and the epidemiology of AIDSThe Journal of Sex Research, 1988
- Sex, drugs and matrices: Mathematical prediction of HIV infectionThe Journal of Sex Research, 1988
- An assessment of the impacts of feminism on sexual scienceThe Journal of Sex Research, 1988
- Negative attitudes toward masturbation and pelvic vasocongestion: A thermographic analysisJournal of Research in Personality, 1981
- Experimenter effects on responses to explicitly sexual stimuliJournal of Research in Personality, 1975
- The Problem of MeasurementAmerican Journal of Physics, 1963