The Relational Nature of Gender, the Pervasiveness of Heteronormative Sexual Scripts, and the Impact on Sexual Pleasure.

This study examined how gender shapes sexual interactions and pleasure outcomes. We highlight varying expectations people have in regard to sex by combining questions about orgasm frequency and sexual pleasure. Our analysis was driven from a sample of 907 survey responses from cis women, cis men, trans women, trans men, non-binary, and intersex millennial respondents, 324 of which had gender-diverse sexual histories. The findings built upon previous literature about the orgasm gap by including those with underrepresented gender identities and expanding our conceptualization of gender's role in the gap beyond gender identity. Qualitative results indicated that individuals change their behavior based on their partner's gender and follow strong gendered scripts. Participants also relied upon heteronormative scripts and cis normative roles to set their interactions for the sexual encounter. Our findings support previous research on how gender identity impacts pleasure outcomes and has implications for how we might make gender progress in the arena of sexuality.

Asexuality, Graysexuality, and Demisexuality: Distinctions in Desire, Behavior, and Identity.

As identities within the ace spectrum gain greater visibility in describing those who experience limited or no sexual attraction, it is vital to understand points of commonality and distinction among individuals who identify as asexual, graysexual, and demisexual. Among respondents to the Ace Community Survey, a large international sample of individuals who identify on the ace spectrum, we found that those who identified as asexual (n = 9,476, Mage = 22.3, 61.0% female, 12.5% male), graysexual (n = 1,698, Mage = 24.2, 58.8% female, 16.5% male), or demisexual (n = 1,442, Mage = 24.2, 62.8% female, 12.6% male) varied in indicators related to sexual desire, behavior, and identity. Asexual individuals were the least likely to be in a relationship, experience romantic attraction, or identify with orientation labels signifying genders of attraction such as straight, bisexual, heteroromantic, and biromantic. Asexual individuals were the most likely to identify as aromantic, graysexual individuals the most likely to identify as grayromantic, and demisexual individuals the most likely to identify as demiromantic. Asexual individuals also scored the lowest on measures of sex drive, personal disposition toward engaging in sex, and masturbation frequency, with graysexual individuals scoring lower than demisexual individuals on the first two.

Teaching and Learning During A Pandemic: How one Graduate Community Psychology Class Quickly Incorporated Healing Justice Into Our Practices.

In this first-person account, we describe the changes we made to align our graduate student-level community psychology class with a healing justice model. We undertook this intervention because the class started in March, at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic stay-at-home directive in our region. We describe the facets of a healing justice model, which promotes radical healing and collective action in a trauma-informed environment. We then discuss the changes we made to the class to better align with healing justice, including how enrolled students (i.e., co-authors) experienced the process of the course (e.g., reworking the syllabus, starting class with check-ins and an exercise to engage our parasympathetic nervous systems), as well as the content of the course (e.g., service projects to support people who are undocumented, unhoused, or minoritized in other ways; photovoice). We end with implications for teaching community psychology, including the importance of universal design, and for scholar-activist PhD programs.