This is a discourse analysis of three WebPages which topic is sexual information. Our purpose is to examine the WebPages RFSL (The Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights), RFSU (The Swedish Association for Sexuality Education) and UMO (Reception for young people) from a queer theoretical perspective and illustrate how they discuss the subjects’ gender, sexual preference and sexual limits. Our questions are; what information about gender, sexual preference and sexual limits are presented on the WebPages RFSU, RFSL and UMO, and what similarities and differences can be identified and how can these be analyzed from a queer perspective? Our material was collected from the three WebPages and categorized according to three topics of interest; gender, sexual preference and sexual limits. Our analyses are based on queer theory and former research in the field. We found a number of topics and interesting information which were categorized under new headlines. Our conclusion is that the topics mentioned on the WebPages are in most of the cases homogenous. On the theme gender we found that the categories man and woman were prominent. In the discussion about gender we found that all three WebPages only wrote about hetero-, homo- and bisexuality. None of the WebPages write about subjects whom concern the theme sexual limits. All WebPages write about hetero norms and are questioning them.

In this thesis I investigate whether human sexual preferences develop through sexual imprinting. Sexual imprinting is the acquisition of sexual preferences through non-rewarded experiences with parents and siblings during an early sensitive period and it is known to exist in many other animals. Learning is often sex specific so that males, for instance, learn to prefer as sexual partners individuals that look like their mother, and avoid individuals that look like their father. First, sexual imprinting in animals and humans is reviewed and compared to prevailing evolutionary views presupposing genetically determined sexual preferences. Further, by means of web surveys, I have explored the relationship between childhood exposure to parents with certain natural and cultural traits and sexual attraction to these traits in a partner. Cultural traits were included because it is unlikely that preferences for them are genetically determined adaptations. Parental effects varied between traits. For instance, in heterosexual males, a positive effect of mother was found on attraction to smoking, but not glasses, while a negative paternal effect was found on attraction to glasses, but not smoking. However, when maternal and paternal effects were investigated for a large number of artificial and natural traits, including smoking and glasses, an overall positive effect of opposite sex parent emerged in both heterosexual males and females. Additionally, in the last study we explored a sexual preference for pregnant and lactating women. Results suggest that exposure to a pregnant and lactating mother had an effect if it occurred when the respondent was between 1,5 and 5 years old. In conclusion, these results suggest that human sexual preferences are the result of sex specific learning during a sensitive period. Sexual imprinting should therefore be recognised as a plausible explanation to human sexual preferences that deserves further scientific investigation. / At the time of the doctoral defense, the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 3: Manuscript. Paper 4: Manuscript.

Ontogeny of a human being is influenced by several innate and environmental factors. One of the key environmental factors is family, its structure, and the dynamics of family relationships. These can depend, among other things, on the birth order. Relatively a lot of research has been conducted to study the effect of birth order on humans, but the area of human sexuality is often neglected. Research in this area has so far yielded relatively inconsistent results and needs to be expanded further with new knowledge. That is the main goal of this diploma thesis. In our cross-sectional study, 4495 subjects from two-child families were analyzed. We performed a partial correlation analysis of birth order and selected variables related to human sexuality, considering the sex of siblings. Particular attention was paid to the first sexual experience, the number of sexual partners, sociosexual orientation (SOI-R), and dominant-submissive sexual preferences. We found that the order of birth is related to several of these variables (age of first sexual experience, number of sexual partners, sexual preferences), but the key role is played by the combination of the individual's gender and the sex of his sibling. These results should be followed up by more detailed research within specific families to verify the...

Thèse numérisée par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.

Thèse numérisée par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal