2.4.10

Keyword Search: S-e-x

For my ethics project, I am studying sex education. Spring Break seemed like a prime time to do some research, especially with the resources of the Lancaster Library System within my reach, and this weekend I have plenty of time because I'm not working and we have our family celebration tomorrow, rather than Sunday. So I thought I would stock up on books.

If you ever want to do an interesting cultural study, type the word "sex" into a keyword search on a library catalog. Here is a selection of the returns:
- How Sex Works: Why We Look, Smell, Taste, Feel, and Act The Way We Do
-The East, The West, and Sex: A History of Erotic Encounters
-Asking About Sex & Growing-Up: A Q&A Book for Kids
-Sex, Love, and Fashion: A Memoir of a Male Model
-Sex, Science, and Stem Cells: Inside the Right Wing Assault on Reason
-Sex God: Exploring the Endless Connections Between Sexuality & Spirituality (I liked this one, actually)
-The Busy Couple's Guide to Great Sex: The Medically Proven Program to Boost Low Libido
-How To Choose The Sex of Your Baby: The Method Best Supported By Scientific Evidence
-The Myth of Male Power: Why Men Are The Disposable Sex
-and so on...

In the course of looking over the offerings, I discovered that apparently we can inspire feelings of romance simply by looking someone in the eyes for an extended period of time. That's interesting. As is the fact that men are more attracted to women with large pupils while women are more likely to be attracted to men with medium-sized pupils. But I have discovered that even though I enjoy psychology a lot, I don't entirely trust it. We have bought into the behaviorists' myth that everything is a matter of causation. Nobody wants to talk about the perfect line of dominos falling in their deterministic precision, but how can you avoid it if you believe that you are only the sum of your chemical fluctuations and your biological heritage?

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