Sexual behaviour as an act in context

Abstract

The wider community tends to view sexual behaviour as more “deep seated” and less susceptible to adaptation than other forms of human functioning. Consequently, behaviour analytic treatments of human sexuality, in terms of a history of reinforcement, have not won favour amongst the community at large. Recent research at the Cork laboratory, however, has highlighted the need for a reappraisal of the behavioural approach to human sexuality. The present paper, therefore, provides an overview of the philosophy of behaviour analysis and demonstrates how this philosophy can be applied to the analysis of complex human sexual behaviour. Recent evidence from the Cork laboratory, that favours a behavioural “relational frame” account of complex human sexual behaviour, is also outlined.