Contemporary Sexuality - February 2009 - (Page 4) Conference Preview continued from page 1 the scientific program so we can provide as much content as possible.” Plenary sessions Psychotherapist Brett Kahr wondered what kind of sexual fantasies might be bouncing around inside the heads of other people. So he started the British Sexual Fantasy Research Project, a survey of 20,153 adults in the United Kingdom and United States. Hundreds of those respondents also participated in five-hour interviews about their fantasies, which Kahr compares to a giant jigsaw puzzle or mystery story. “At the end of analysis, every piece must fit in order that we may gain a clear picture of the contents of the mind of the fantasist,” Kahr writes in his book on the subject, Who’s Been Sleeping in Your Head? The Secret World of Sexual Fantasies. A Los Angeles Times book reviewer describes Kahr as “inspired by the psychological insights of Sigmund Freud, the methodological rigor of Alfred Kinsey and the writings of Nancy Friday on female sexuality.” Kahr, who will present his findings during the opening plenary of the conference, heard stories that involved fetishism, transvestism, genital exhibitionism, “ordinary explicitness” and fantasies about celebrities, including Margaret Thatcher, Serena Williams, Seth Green and Gregory Peck. “Gregory is the mainstay of my fantasy,” one older woman told him. “Yummy.” Kahr’s AASECT plenary presentation is titled “Erotic Tumours and Orgasmic Thrills: The Sinister Psychology of Sexual Fantasies.” At the Friday morning plenary, Elizabeth Schroeder, EdD, MSW, and Judy Kuriansky, PhD, will discuss insights from Sex Education: Past, Present and Future Issues (Praeger Publishers, 2009), a four-volume book the pair edited. Schroeder serves as executive director of Answer at Rutgers University, which publishes the award-winning teen website Sex, Etc. (sexetc.org). Kuriansky is a child psychologist at The Columbia University Teachers College and is cofounder of the Society for Sex Therapy and Research. “At the end of analysis, every piece must fit in order that we may gain a clear picture of the contents of the mind of the fantasist.” — Brett Kahr Elizabeth Schroeder Judy Kuriansky Due to be released in April, the 1,300-page Sex Education: Past, Present and Future Issues presents views and research from “sexuality educators, physicians, psychologists, and social workers — as well as voices of youth themselves, addressing the current and needed resources for insuring their sexual health and personal growth.” According to press materials, the four-volume set “also describes sexuality education in terms of how it has expanded to serve not only youth, but also adults, from new parents to senior citizens. Readers are taken into classrooms and conversations … revealing the range of unanswered questions about sex that are important for psychological as well as physical health.” On Sunday morning, the conference will conclude with a closing plenary by a researcher at Real Reason, a nonprofit that uses cognitive linguistic analysis to understand how people view public policy issues. In 2008, Real Reason and the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project studied how Americans think and talk about sexuality education. The group summarized its work in a project brief called “Reconceptualizing Sexuality Education.” Here’s an excerpt: “In one metaphorical understanding of sexuality, it is an undesirable substance that soils us (as in ‘filthy thoughts’) — something, therefore, that can be present or absent, comes from an external source, and transfers via contact with anyone or anything already ‘dirty.’ Another common pattern is to conceptualize sexuality as an opponent (as in ‘overcome by desire’) that must be ‘grappled’ with — an outside entity that acts intentionally, has great strength and impact, and has goals in conflict with our own.” Real Reason also examined how comprehensive sexuality education advocates discussed www.aasect.org | February 2009 Vol. 43, No. 2 4 Contemporary Sexuality http://www.sexetc.org http://www.sexetc.org http://www.aasect.org
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