Psyc 310 Spring 2010 Human Sexuality St Joseph College

Instructor - Rick Rayfield PhD

819 Village Square Waitsfield VT 05673

802-496-5667H 496-2022W

496-3299fax 802-229-8237 cell

RayfieldVT@AOL.COM

RRayfield@sjc.edu

Office: Lynch 131 Wednesdays from about 2:30 until class at 4:00

And after class from about 6:45 to 7:30

I am available basically 24/7 in Vermont by email and phone.

I do not text or twitter due to poor cell coverage in Vermont.

Texts:

Human Sexuality, 1^st or 2^nd edition one copy on reserve in library Roger Hock, Pearson/Prentice Hall ISBN 013261866

Trans Sister Radio

Chris Bohjalian, Harmony/Crown Publ. 2000, ISBN 0609604074

Required Reading: We will start reading straight through Bohjalian’s Trans Sister Radio, a delightful novel. Then we will read through Hock’s text. See Reading Schedule separaretly. You will have a series of short papers by famous sex researchers and writer. The first one is from the Journal of Psychosomatic Research by Hoenig and Torr (1964) and one by Wardell Pomeroy (1965). Other will include Freud, Havelock Ellis, Margaret Mead, Boswell, Calderone, and others. These will be posted on Blackboard.

Writing Requirements Short written responses will be required for the primary sources articles. The assignments will be given in class and posted on Blackboard. You will post these at Turnitin.com. The course number is 3069343 and the password is kinsey

Required Listening/Viewing: We will not meet for two of weekly classes. One is a family reunion which depends on other schools’ schedules. The second is a research consulting job in England. I will provide video or audio material as a substitute. One will be a lecture by Wm Masters , and a video on child sexual abuse with Mary Frawley ODay and the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. Another will be the film Kinsey. There will be quizzes you can take at home those weeks, and written assignements.

Recommended Reading: I will mention numerous books and papers during the course. If you can lay hands on a copy of Masters and Johnson’s first book Human Sexual Response, you will find it fascinating. Freud’s Future of an Illusion and Civilization and Its Discontents. Margaret Mead’s Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies

Topics This course will cover the wide range of human sexuality, including the history of research in the field of sexology and related disciplines, sexual anatomy and physiology, hormones, pregnancy and contraception, development of orientation and gender roles, the variety of sexual behavior, health, ethics, and perversion issues, and maybe even love. The Hock text is well-respected, and a fine overall course text. The Bohjalian novel is your first reading assignment. It integrates human sexuality, (and the specific issue of someone who goes through the process of changing from a man to a woman) with the warmth and complexity of human relations, as heard in the voices of a divorced couple, their 19 year old daughter at college, and the wife’s new boyfriend-girlfriend. It is set in a small town, where the wife is an elementary school teacher, and society sticks its nose into their private lives, both via the school board and via National Public Radio. Bohjalian’s earlier book, Midwives, was an Oprah book. This book has great graphic sex in a setting of love and reality. It will provide a common reference of real sexuality for us to discuss in class, a clinical case if you will. I expect we will have some transgendered visitors to the class. And we will also discuss professional interactions with people of different orientation. Besides surveying the standard text material for this course, we will look at and discuss current events and issues relating to sexuality. Students will be encouraged to bring issues and examples into the class discussion, but limit their disclosure of personal details.

Films The course will utilize films which depict normal human sexual behavior. Most of these films were developed under grants from the Exodus Trust and First Methodist Church of San Francisco, and under the auspices of the Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Sexuality and Wardell Pomeroy, co-author of the famous Kinsey studies. The films have been demonstrated to be an effective tool in teaching human sexuality.

Requirements:

Weekly Quizzes on lectures and text reading, self-graded

Three major exams, based on quizzes

Exercises, homework, papers- mostly 1-page assignments, to Turnitin.com

Class participation, on-line discussion or in-class.

Sample quiz questions, and quizzes and tests will be posted on Blackboard, with study items from reading, assignments et al.