Abstract
The American College of Sexologists includes within the purview of sexology “all those aspects, anatomical, physiological, psychological, medical, sociological, anthropological, historical, legal, religious, literary and artistic, that contribute to our understanding of what it means to develop as healthy sexual persons with a positive image of our sexuality in a particular social milieu” (Francoeur, Cornog, Perper, & Scherzer, 1995, p. 588). In this chapter, our perspective is biopsychosociocultural, starting with the biological origins of psychosexual development—the effects of genetics on anatomy and hormones and of hormonally differentiated neural tendencies on behavior. Several aspects of the psychological, sociological, and cultural aspects of humans linked with this biological foundation are discussed here because they involve areas of great public concern and present fertile areas for researchers.
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Francoeur, R.T., Hendrixson, L.L. (1999). Human Sexuality. In: Sussman, M.B., Steinmetz, S.K., Peterson, G.W. (eds) Handbook of Marriage and the Family. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-5367-7_28
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