Scholarly vs. Popular Media on Sexual Behavior, Article Review Example

Article: Browning, J. R., Kessler, D., Hatfield, E., & Choo, P. (1999, November). Power, Gender, and Sexual Behavior. Journal of Sex Research. This article examines associations between power and sexual behavior.

Hypothesis: First hypothesis is that there is a positive relationship between power and sexual behavior. Second hypothesis is that there are no gender differences in the number of sexual behaviors. Third hypothesis is that men engage in unusual sexual behavior more than women. Fourth hypothesis is that power is directly associated with engaging in sexual behavior for men and abstaining from sexual behavior for women and vice versa.

Sample and Methodology: The sample size consisted of 256 people who were enrolled in a human sexuality class at the University of Hawaii. The students were chosen from different relationship and dating categories and came from various ethnic backgrounds. The sample subjects were asked to rate both themselves and their partner in six categories of power. The ratings were added for both the respondents and their partners and the differences calculated to find the relative power of each respondent. Regression analysis was also done on certain data to find their predictability value.

Outcome and Conclusion: The study found that power was directly associated with usual sexual behavior and even more so with unusual sexual behavior. The second hypothesis was also right since there were no gender differences in the number of usual sexual behaviors. The third hypothesis was wrong because there were no gender differences in the number of unusual sexual behaviors as well. The fourth hypothesis was also right since high submission rates were associated with abstaining from usual sexual behavior for men and abstaining from usual sexual behavior for women. The study also found that couples tend to be quite close in power and intelligence to each other. In addition, men are also more likely to use power for sex while women more likely to use power to set limits.

The sample’s age range was 18 to 61 and people’s sexual behavior and how they use power usually tends to vary with age. A young college graduate who is just starting career may have different sexual lifestyle and conceptions of power than someone in mid-forties or mid-fifties. The study’s mean age was 23.6, thus, there is a possibility that more people with age at the lower end of the age-range were chosen. If true, this study may be a poor indicator of those who are at least in early forties. Another issue that may render the study’s outcome less valuable may be the biased responses of the sample participants. They may have given higher scores to self and lower to partners out of personal bias.

In an article titled Money, Power, and Sex, author Larry M. Alkin argues that men often use power for sex but we normally don’t expect them to forcefully obtain sexual behaviors due to the obvious reason that power attracts the opposite sex. The author provides the example of famous people who have been accused of forceful sex or attempted rape including IMF’s ex Managing Director, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, basketball player Kobe Bryant, and NFL player Ben Roethlisberger (Elkin, 2011).

The author also claims that women are usually attracted to men who have wealth, fame, and power, thus, powerful men become used to getting sexual favors whenever they desire. According to British research report, women reported more satisfying sex with wealthy men than those of modest means. The author argues that powerful men do not always realize when they may be engaging in coercive sex. Because they rarely hear no, they have a tendency to ignore a woman’s refusal (Elkin, 2011).

The author of the article is CPA and CFP which are basically accounting and financial backgrounds and entirely unrelated to the subject of the article. The article is more a ‘personal thoughts’ essay by the author. The author does provide links to the British research as well as a Times of London report that are quoted in the article. The article was published on a popular business website called Business Insider, thus, it s main purpose was to address the professional and private implications of infidelities by people of fame, wealth, or power.

Both the scholarly article and the business website article examine power and sexual behavior but while the scholarly article is focused on understanding the relationship between power and sexual behavior, the website article focuses on the implications of infidelities by people of power, wealth, and fame. The scholarly article tries to verify if our common perceptions of the relationship between power and sexual behavior are based on facts or just myths. It carries out a research study using actual sample and defines the whole process so that we know how the study was designed and how the conclusions were reached by the authors. It also gives us an opportunity to investigate the shortcomings of the study and the potential biases of the authors that might have found their way in the study.

The internet order is more like a personal opinion in which the author also uses some studies to support his argument that power does attract more opportunities for sexual engagements. It is possible that the author only chose studies that supported his argument or in other words, engaged in confirmation bias. The author opined why powerful men should stay away from infidelity because it hurts them both personally and professionally so to some extent, the author is also engaging in moral arguments.

Scholarly approach is the best because it provides us an opportunity to replicate the test study or research design and confirm whether the conclusions reached were accurate or not. Since they scholarly approach describes everything, it also helps us determine the strength and the weaknesses of the study. Website article is the best because it often describes things in ways that most people can understand. Scholarly approach may be too technical for a large number of people. Website articles are also usually short in lengths so can be read by most people who won’t have the time or the motivation to reach full scholarly articles.

The professors tout peer-reviewed and professional organization publications and force students to incorporate them into their written work because scholarly work is often objective while the commercialized publications may subjectively write on the issue. Moreover, the scholarly articles not only describe the conclusions but also the methodologies through which those conclusions are reached. Sex should be studied in a scholarly manner because no single person can possibly experience everything and our perceptions are shaped by our experiences and personal bias and may not reflect the common trends in the society. Scholarly articles try to verify through tests whether common perceptions are indeed facts or just ill-founded ideas. In addition, common sense is not always the right way to figure out facts because we humans do not always act rationally and there are lot of psychological forces at work. If we would always act rationally in terms of sexual behavior, we won’t be hearing many stories of people destroying their professional careers over infidelity.

What I learnt from these two articles is that men and women are more similar in sexual behavior than what is usually thought. It may be due to the changing roles of women in the society as more and more women have careers. Thus, the studies done few decades back could be misleading because they didn’t anticipate the changing role of women in the near future. The scholarly study did confirm that men are more likely to use power to engage in sexual behavior while women are more likely to set rules. Setting rules may also be women way of demonstrating their power because men with power are used to getting what they want. The scholarly article also addressed the myth that men are more likely to engage in unusual sexual behavior.

References

Browning, J. R., Kessler, D., Hatfield, E., & Choo, P. (1999, November). Power, Gender, and Sexual Behavior. Journal of Sex Research .

Elkin, L. M. (2011, May 18). Money, Power And Sex. Retrieved December 16, 2011, from http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-05-18/politics/29981144_1_dominique-strauss-kahn-arrest-ben-roethlisberger