GROUP ASSIGNMENT PSY 108

Sexual Orientation
Chapter 11: What drives us?

Group No: 5
Group members:
Table of Contents
Introduction 3
Report Content 3
Sexual Orientations in Research 3
Social Factors on Sexual Orientations 6
Conclusion 9
References 10

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 I. Introduction

Continuing the major question: “What drives us?”, this report concentrates on Sexual
Orientation. This has been one of the crucial attributes intertwining our biological structure, our
psychological development and our social perceptions, but was severely understudied due to the
oppression of socio-political controversies. Sexual orientation lies with numerous other factors in
determining us humans’ basic physical needs as well as construction and well-being of our social
relationships, which is why it has been chosen as the focal point for this project. Through
introduction of general information as well as analysis and discussion, this report aims to explore
the foundation of sexual orientation, to have a basic understanding of how it can affect people,
and to better utilize it in our life.

II. Report Content

The report content is divided into two main parts, focusing on two questions regarding
the subject of sexual orientation:
(1) What has research taught us about sexual orientation?
(2) What role do social factors play in our sexuality?

A. Sexual Orientations in Research

● The first section considers the question: “What has research taught us about sexual
orientation?”. General information and knowledge about sexual orientation will be
introduced and discussed, which includes its definition, differentiation with other factors
of sexuality, and categorization.

● Similar to how most topics rise into comprehension, we first start with the definition of
the subject, or the simple question: “What is sexual orientation?”. To answer, sexual
orientation is a person’s pattern of romantic or sexual attraction towards people of a
particular gender (Planned Parenthood. Sexual Orientation?).
● A better way to clarify sexual orientation is to differentiate it with other aspects of
sexuality, including sex and gender of an individual. To greatly simplify, the term “sex”
is about a person’s physicality, the term “gender” is about how that person feels themself
to be, and the term “sexual orientation” is about to whom that person is romentically or
sexually attracted to (Accord Alliance. What are the differences between sex, gender, and
sexual orientation?). Each of those terms can be better explained as followed:
○ Sex refers to a person’s physical sexual anatomy, specifically their genitalia. This
will classify them into groups of either male, female, or in some rare cases,

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 intersex - a group of people whose physical anatomy is outside the male/female
binary (Planned Parenthood. Sex and Gender Identity).
○ Gender (with relation to gender identity and gender expression, both of which are
also very different terms) can be understood as how a person feels about themself.
Generally, this means they can identify and express themself as either a man/boy,
a woman/girl, or a non-binary - a person whose genders do not conform to the
binary code of man/woman (Planned Parenthoo. Sex and Gender Identity).
○ Sexual orientation, lastly, is a person’s tendency of having romantic or sexual
attractions towards a particular group of individuals. This would classify people
into groups of heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, among many others that would
be discussed in later sections.

● Though there are several limitations on classification on each aspect, the following
illustration of “The Genderbread Person” (Killermann S., 2011) can act as an example to
clarify the difference among aforementioned terms:

Figure 1 - The Genderbread Person by Sam Killermann

● With the core idea of what sexual orientation is and is not, the next questions, which has
already been peeked earlier, can be explored: “What types of sexual orientations are
there? What do they mean?”. Though there is a diverse range of sexual orientations,
which is still increasing and transforming even today, to better serve the scope of

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 research, this report focuses on the most major orientations at the moment. Those,
according to Sexual Orientation? Planned Parenthood, would include:
○ Heterosexual: People who are attracted to a different gender from their own.
People of this orientation, who mostly refer to themselves in a casual manner as
“straight”, are still likely the majority of the world population. Their romantic and
sexual attractions can be simply understood as “men that are attracted to women,
and women that are attracted to men”.
○ Homosexual: People who are attracted to the same gender as theirs. In this group,
people that identify themselves as men use the word “gay”, while those identify
themselves as women use the word “lesbian”.
○ Bisexual: People who are attracted to both genders of men and women.
○ Pansexual: People whose attraction span across multiple different genders, or in
some cases, all of them. This can mean people of this orientation are attracted to
individuals regardless of their genders or sexes, which differentiate themselves
from bisexual people, whose range of orientation can be much narrower.
○ Asexual: People who do not have attraction for any specific genders. Although
the degree varies between romance and sexual activities, this does not necessarily
mean people of this orientation would never experience romantic affection or
sexual arousals at all, it only clarifies the fact that these people do not have a
specific attraction towards any genders. In other words, asexual people would still
participate in romantic/sexual activities and relationships like others, the only
difference is their preference of partners does not rely on genders.
○ Questioning: People who are still unsure about their sexual orientation. Many
people do not discover their orientations as easily or as quickly as some, and
during such phases, they can refer to themselves as questioning - signifying they
are still unclear or still exploring their own orientations.

● The following example about three individuals can further demonstrate these terms,
together with other classification regarding sex and gender we mentioned before, and
how they interact, despite being completely different from one another:
○ Alex: Alex was born as a girl, she grows to identify herself as a woman and
notices she tends to have romantic attraction to both men and women.
⇒ On the aspect of biological sex, Alex is a female, because she was born with
the anatomical body of a female. This matches with her gender identity - a
woman, which means she feels and expresses herself as a woman in her life. Since
she tends to be attracted to both genders of men and women, her sexual
orientation is bisexual.

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 ○ Doran: Doran, Alex’s friend, was born as a girl. However, as he grew up, he has
always felt he is more drawn to the identity of a boy/man, and he decided to
undergo a gender transition to transform his physical anatomy to that of a man.
He notices, even before and after the transition, he is still only attracted to people
with the same gender as him - men.
⇒ On the aspect of biological sex, Doran was a female, but is now a male due to
his gender transition. This resulted from the fact that his biological sex at birth
does not match with his gender identity (how he felt on the inside) and expression
(how he wanted to express on the outside) of a man. People like Doran can also
refer to themselves as transgender - a term for people whose sex at birth does not
match with their gender. Despite the transition, Doran’s tendency of attraction
stays the same, which is towards men - people of the same gender as Doran, so his
sexual orientation is homosexual. As a whole, Doran is a trans gay man.
○ Valor: Lastly, Valor, Doran’s cousin, was born as a boy. However, as they
matured, they have never felt like their identity conforms to a man or a woman,
nor have they felt drawn to any specific genders, romantically or sexually.
⇒ Biologically, Valor is a male, because they have the anatomy of a male body.
Nonetheless, as their identification of themself does not fall into either a man or a
woman, their gender can be referred to as a non-binary; and since they do not feel
attracted to any specific gender, their sexual orientation can be asexual.

● There are still numerous other examples on people’s diverse ranges and interactions
among sex, gender, and sexual orientation. Through these examples, we can see more
clearly how those terms, despite being totally different from one another, essentially link
together to form the identities of people around us. From such observation and
differentiation do we understand the essence of sexual orientation and have the capacity
for further exploration on human’s sexuality, as well as its role in our life.

B. Social Factors on Sexual Orientations

● The second section focuses on the question: “What role do social factors play in our
sexuality?”. There are two different approaches to interpret and answer this question:
○ On the one hand, this can be understood as uncovering what the social causes for
our sexuality are.
○ On the other hand, this may be understood as exploring how our sexuality affects
other social factors in our life.

● On the first approach, the answers still remained relatively unclear and inconclusive.
There has been good evidence that genetic attributes and non-social environmental
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 factors can affect a person’s sexual orientation, while a lack of evidence that social
environment can affect sexual orientation is present (Cook C., 2020 and Bailey J. et al,
2016). However, there has also been evidence that different sexual orientation bears
different variability in terms of fluidity (Diamond L., 2016 and Savin-Williams R., 2016).
In other words, sexual orientations can vary with a diverse range of traits, degrees, and
fluidity, even in adulthood. This means there can still be the possibility that the social
environment bears significant impacts on people’s sexual orientation. Even with the
assumption that our sexuality is determined and impacted by a mixed set of “nature” and
“nurture” factors, we still cannot pinpoint exactly what those factors are. Without firm
and specific conclusion, the question on the causes of sexual orientation should be best
left for further research in the future; meanwhile, another approach can be discussed: how
sexual orientation can affect other factors.

● On the latter approach, the answer can be explained on three, among numerous other,
factors influenced by our main subject. Sexual orientation plays a significant part in our
life via (1) our physical and psychological well-being, (2) our romantic or erotic
relationships, and (3) our awareness of the society.

○ (1) Firstly, the connection between sexual orientations and human’s physical-
psychological well-being can be discussed. For the majority of the human
population, sexual activities remain their essential role both as a physical
necessity and as a psychological demand (Flynn K., 2016). Regardless of the need
for reproduction, men, women, and anyone in between or outside the binary code,
all have their own sexual desires in their daily life, attached with their compatible
sexual partners. Therefore, the fact that sexual orientation partially represents
each person’s preference of partners means it can greatly impact a person’s
physicality as well as mental health. Numerous important physical attributions of
individual’s sex life and sexual activities were all connected and influenced by
their own sexual orientation, even from early years of maturity (Breyer B. et al,
2018). These attributions may include desire, orgasmic function, erectile function
and premature ejaculation for males, arousal and lubrication for females, overall
satisfaction, and many others. Information of sexual orientations can equip people
with awareness and knowledge to cope, improve and enhance not only said
specific attributions, but also their sex life as a whole. This makes learning about
sexual orientation an essential role for everybody, to lead them towards their own
physical and mental well-being.

○ (2) Furthermore, the correlation between sexual orientations and a great deal of
human’s relationships is also worth discussing. Sexual interactions are of great
social significance since they not only provoke erotic connections and develop
romantic reliability, but also help maintain the bond of those relationships against
the test of time. For short-term or open relationships, sexuality is still highly
appreciated in sparking and retaining the level of intimacy and closeness between

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 participants; and for long-term commitment, sexuality becomes even more major,
to the extent of being among determiners or reflections of the relationships’
stability and partners’ satisfaction in the long run (Myers & Dewall, 2018). The
evidence that, people experience a much greater surge in the hormone associated
with sexual satisfaction and satiety after intercourse with their loved ones (Brody
& Tillmann, 2006), and, overlapping brain areas make sexual desire and romantic
affaction feed of each other (Cacioppo et al., 2012), further implements this
important link between sexuality and relationships’ quality. And since sexual
orientation play such a huge part in defining each and everyone’s sexuality, it
becomes even more necessary to better comprehend these orientations - to
maintain and improve our own relationships, regardless of their commitment level
or characteristics.

○ (3) Finally, the wide and diverse range of sexual orientations can also help people
grow better awareness and tolerance for others in the society. The history of non-
heterosexual community has been a long and complex revelation, attached with
ugly stigmas, horrible physical and political oppresion from so many different
sides (Morris B., 2009). There has been a strong consistent correlation between
beliefs about the origin of sexual orientation and tolerance of non-heterosexuality
(Lewis, 2009). There has been an even stronger association between political
attitudes about homosexuality and beliefs about the causes of sexual orientation;
and unfortunately, it is largely misplaced, leading to prolonged oppression and
apathy towards this group of people (Greenberg & Bailey, 1993). The group of
non-heterosexual people, or LGBTQ+ community as a more casual and familiar
manner, play a small but nontrivial role across cultures around the globe (Bailey
J. et al, 2016). Regardless of the issue of scientific or political reasons, this has
become a matter of ethical decency, to at least put effort into growing better
awareness and tolerance for the community. With a more supportive situation
enabling more people to reveal their identities as non-heterosexual, this
proportion in the community can be expected to grow larger, which in turns
brings even more prominence on the role of learning and supporting them. Sexual
orientation is part of the core of the LGBTQ+ community, so to better understand
and appreciate sexual orientations is the minimum decency each person can afford
to show support and progress in bettering the specific political situations, as well
as the society as a whole.

● There are numerous actions each individual can take to show their support for the
LGBTQ+ community. As discussed in the previous part, it is always a great start to
educate yourself, to have a better comprehension of sexual orientation as well as a better
sympathy for people associated with it. Furthermore, each person can be a role model for
kindness and inclusion: to be sympathetic and supportive with people of the LGBTQ+
community, to stand up against homophobia and transphobia, and to spread the words of

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 positivity. Beyond that, everyone can even reach out and get involved in social
communities and movements for the LGBTQ+: with Human Rights Campaign (HRC) or
ILGA World as great sources to explore on a global scale, or Hanoi Queer and Stronger
Together Summit as nice starting points in the local scene of Hanoi, Vietnam, and Pride
Month being celebrated diversely, in terms of time and activities, across many cultures
and countries (National Today, Pride Month)...

Figure 2:
Top left to right - logos of HRC, ILGA World,
Hanoi Queer and Stronger Together Summit
Bottom - Pride Month poster

III. Conclusion

Sexual orientation has been and will most likely continue to be an essential part of
human’s well-being. It is attached to the biological sex and gender to form each and every
individual’s identity; it is the core for our sexual attraction and romantic relationships; and it is
also a significant factor for the diversity of today’s society. With effort to learn more about
sexual orientation, each person can better their own physical-psychological desires, the quality
and longetivity of their relationships, as well as the awareness/support for the substantial
diversity of the society. Through this report, we hope to have fulfilled our aim of delivering
sufficient basic information about sexual orientation, togetherwith spreading the positivity
towards the LGBTQ+ community, which is deeply needed in the current social climate.

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IV. References

● Accord Alliance. What are the differences between sex, gender, and sexual orientation?
Accord Alliance.
https://www.accordalliance.org/faqs/what-are-the-differences-between-sex-gender-and-
sexual-orientation/

● Bailey, J. M., Vasey, P. L., Diamond, L. M., Breedlove, S. M., Vilain, E., & Epprecht, M.
(2016). Sexual Orientation, Controversy, and Science. Psychological Science in the
Public Interest, 17(2), 45–101.
https://doi.org/10.1177/1529100616637616

● Breyer, B. N., Smith, J. F., Eisenberg, M. L., Ando, K. A., Rowen, T. S., & Shindel, A.
W. (2010). The impact of sexual orientation on sexuality and sexual practices in North
American medical students. The journal of sexual medicine, 7(7), 2391–2400.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1743-6109.2010.01794.x

● Brody, S., & Tillmann, H. C. (2006). The post-orgasmic prolactin increase following
intercourse is greater than following masturbation and suggests greater satiety. Biological
Psychology, 71, 312–315.

● Cacioppo, S., Bianchi-Demicheli, F., Frum, C., Pfaus, J. G., & Lewis, J. W. (2012). The
common neural bases between sexual desire and love: A multilevel kernel density fMRI
analysis. Journal of Sexual Medicine, 12, 1048–1054.

● Christopher C. H. Cook (2021). The causes of human sexual orientation. Theology &
Sexuality, 27:1, 1-19.
https://doi.org/10.1080/13558358.2020.1818541

● Diamond, L.M (2016). Sexual Fluidity in Male and Females. Current Sex Health Reports
8, 249–256.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11930-016-0092-z

● Flynn, K. E., Lin, L., Bruner, D. W., Cyranowski, J. M., Hahn, E. A., Jeffery, D. D.,
Reese, J. B., Reeve, B. B., Shelby, R. A., & Weinfurt, K. P. (2016). Sexual Satisfaction
and the Importance of Sexual Health to Quality of Life Throughout the Life Course of
U.S. Adults. The journal of sexual medicine, 13(11), 1642–1650.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsxm.2016.08.011

● Greenberg, A. S., Bailey, J. M. (1993). Do biological explanations of homosexuality have

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● Killermann S. (2011). The Genderbread Person.
https://www.samkillermann.com/work/genderbread-person/

● Lewis, G. B. (2009). Does believing homosexuality is innate increase support for gay
rights? Policy Studies Journal, 37, 669–693.

● Morris, B. (2009). History of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Social

● Myers D., Dewall C. (2018). Sex and Human Relationships. Psychology, 12th ed, 11
1133-1134. Worth Publishers.

● National Today. Pride Month. National Today.

● Planned Parenthood. Sex and Gender Identity. Planned Parenthood.

● Planned Parenthood. Sexual Orientation. Planned Parenthood.

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