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Paul Richard Abramson (born December 24, 1949, in Norwalk, Connecticut) is a UCLA psychology professor, expert witness, author, and musician.
The oldest son of Leonard Abramson and Ethel Esther Sakowitz, Abramson grew up in Norwalk, Connecticut, graduating from Norwalk High School in 1967. He received a bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of Miami in 1971, a master's degree in psychology from Connecticut College in 1973, and a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Connecticut in 1976. His research focused on the interplay between sexuality and personality.
In 1976, Abramson became an assistant professor of psychology at UCLA. He then moved through the ranks of associate and full professor at UCLA. Abramson taught courses on Art and Trauma (undergraduate), Human Sexuality (undergraduate and graduate), Independent Study (undergraduate and graduate), Introduction to Psychology (undergraduate), Personality (undergraduate and graduate), Personality Assessment (graduate), Sex and the Law (undergraduate and graduate) and Supervised Doctoral Research (graduate).
Abramson was also a visiting professor of psychology at Kyoto University in Japan in 1983, Editor of the Journal of Sex Research from 1988 to 1992, and Technical Advisor to the World Health Organization's Global Programme on AIDS in 1991. He received the Gold Medal Award for Feature Articles in Scholarly Journals in 1997, and KPFK’s Reading Service Helen Keller Award in 2013.
Abramson is married to Tania Love Abramson. He has two children.
With few exceptions, Abramson rarely conducted traditional psychological research. Problems were his bailiwick, and criticism his touchstone. He employed methods – mathematical models, narrative theories, constitutional scholarship, archival research, epidemiology, psychological interviews, ethnography, the philosophy of aesthetics – that suited the conundrums he grappled with.
Why is severe trauma so protracted and unpredictable? Are multiple one-night stands with a condom riskier than serial monogamy without them? Can the philosophy of aesthetics be extended to severe trauma? Why is sex so pleasurable? Why don't Americans have 9th amendment constitutionally protected sexual rights? How does a person who is blind experience sexual attraction? Why is sexual violence so ubiquitous?
Abramson, along with Donald Mosher, were among the first psychology professors to add scientific rigor to the study of human sexuality. Though Kinsey conducted research on the way Americans expressed their sexuality, and Masters & Johnson did the same for the underlying physiology, Abramson and Mosher extended this line of work by introducing psychological variables into the mix, guilt in particular. The experience of sexual guilt, for example, is one of the best ways to account for the variability in human sexual expression. Abramson expanded upon this research by studying this process cross-culturally, in Japan in particular. Many other studies on the psychology of human sexuality followed. Most notable of all, however, is the work he did on sexual pleasure with his former student Steven Pinkerton. Their book With Pleasure answers the most basic question about sex, namely, why does it feel so good? This book reframed the dialogue and research agenda on the study of sex.
Having published a series of studies on genital herpes in the mid-1980s, Abramson was well positioned to transition into research on HIV/AIDS. Challenging some of the earlier epidemiological scenarios on the proliferation of HIV, Abramson and colleagues (notably Steve Pinkerton, Edward Kaplan and Bruce Rothschild) developed a Bernoulli process model of HIV infection and risk reduction, a mathematical model of AIDS education, and an alternative mathematical prediction of HIV infection. The importance of condoms were stressed throughout, including (in 1993) a series of challenges to the funding priorities underlying an HIV prevention vaccine to the exclusion of alternative prevention strategies, such as better condoms or HIV preventing gels. Abramson also served as a Technical Advisor to the World Health Organization's Global Program on AIDS.
The U.S. Constitution guarantees certain fundamental rights, such as the freedoms of speech and religious expression. But what guarantees our sexual freedoms? The text of the Constitution makes no reference to sex, family, or procreation. Though the right to privacy is tangential to sex, it is not in the Constitution or a putative sexual right either. It is simply a barrier to being observed or intruded upon by the government without just cause. Sexual conduct per se is still perceived as having no Constitutional protection whatsoever.
Abramson is trying to change that through his books and teaching. Arguing that sexual freedom is cut from the same cloth as other freedoms protected by the Bill of Rights, Abramson and his former students (Steve Pinkerton and Mark Huppin) argued (in the book Sexual Rights in America) that the freedom to choose how, when and with whom to express sexuality is a quintessential right protected by the Ninth Amendment. The Ninth Amendment states the following: “the enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” Abramson wryly notes that without sexual rights, there would be no “people.” More importantly, he asserts that the manner in which we make choices about sex (among consenting adults and void of tangible harm) is the way we exercise this fundamental right protected by the Ninth Amendment (and extended to States by the Fourteenth Amendment.)
Abramson extended this argument in a second book titled Romance in the Ivory Tower: The rights and liberty of conscience. He asserted that the choices we make about love and sex are no less intimate or deeply personal as the choices we make about God or religion. Together with the Ninth Amendment, and the right to privacy, the rights and liberty of conscience combine to create a zone of personal autonomy that is immune from governmental intrusion; including decisions or actions related sex, God or love.
To further this area of inquiry, Abramson also created at UCLA the first class in the United States devoted to the study of the interface between sex and the law, as it relates to criminal, civil, and constitutionally relevant litigation.
Abramson's 1984 book, Sarah: A Sexual Biography was one of the first in-depth psychological portrayals of the ravages of childhood sexual abuse. A true-life story, it was also a testimonial to the psychological survival of the victim. Though Americans have grown accustomed to the enormity of childhood sexual abuse through its depiction in newspapers, novels, memoirs and movies, this was not the case in 1984. When the Los Angeles Times reviewed the book shortly after publication it remarked, “How can so much intimate, destructive violence be part of our here and now, almost before our eyes? No novelist would dare, because fiction can neither resolve, nor even make reasonable, this material.”
Abramson continued to write about the impact of childhood sexual abuse, most notably the nation's largest child pornography case which involved over 3000 images of children, discovered at the home of the director of a prominent preschool. Another book he wrote about this subject matter, with co-author Steven Pinkerton (a psychiatry professor at the Medical College of Wisconsin), is A House Divided: Suspicions of mother-daughter incest. The book details a child sexual molestation case (drawn from his three decades of serving as an expert witness in civil and criminal litigation) gone shockingly awry, and concludes with recommendations for policy changes to minimize false accusations.
Together with his former wife, photographer Ann Purdy, Abramson wrote and directed the short experimental film Regret is My Demon that premiered at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival in 2008. Composed almost entirely of still photographs with voice-over narration, Regret is My Demon tells the story of a teenage girl who blames herself for her mother's heroin addiction and untimely death. Chris Marker's La Jetee (1962), Edgar Allan Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher" and Cindy Sherman's Untitled Film Stills (1977–1982) are obvious influences. Regret is My Demon was produced and edited by Blisss Productions. [1]
Abramson is the lead singer and lyricist of the band Crying 4 Kafka. [2] They have six CDs, all produced by Paul du Gre for the record labels Waiting for Godzilla and Hellflowers in LA. Additional songs were produced by Abramson and Ian Putnam for Vending Machine Sound. The CDs and songs are available on iTunes.
Abramson wrote the play The Saint of Fucked Up Karma (2017). He also composed the music with Robin Finck of Nine Inch Nails and Crying 4 Kafka. The Saint of Fucked Up Karma was performed as a musical in Los Angeles and Santa Barbara, California in 2013.
Abramson's drawings illustrate two books, The Saint of Fucked Up Karma [3] (2017) and Erika Blair's The Sanctity of Rhyme: The Metaphysics of Crying 4 Kafka [4] (2018).
Abramson has written for the Boston Globe, LA Times, and the LA Weekly.
Sexology is the scientific study of human sexuality, including human sexual interests, behaviors, and functions. The term sexology does not generally refer to the non-scientific study of sexuality, such as social criticism.
Sexual intercourse is a sexual activity typically involving the insertion and thrusting of the penis into the vagina for sexual pleasure or reproduction. This is also known as vaginal intercourse or vaginal sex. Other forms of penetrative sexual intercourse include anal sex, oral sex, fingering and penetration by use of a dildo. These activities involve physical intimacy between two or more individuals and are usually used among humans solely for physical or emotional pleasure and can contribute to human bonding.
Safe sex is sexual activity using methods or contraceptive devices to reduce the risk of transmitting or acquiring sexually transmitted infections (STIs), especially HIV. "Safe sex" is also sometimes referred to as safer sex or protected sex to indicate that some safe sex practices do not eliminate STI risks. It is also sometimes used colloquially to describe methods aimed at preventing pregnancy that may or may not also lower STI risks.
Prison sexuality consists of sexual relationships between prisoners or between a prisoner and a prison employee or other persons to whom prisoners have access. Since prisons are usually separated by sex, most sexual activity is with a same-sex partner. Exceptions to this include sex with spouses/partners during conjugal visits and sex with a prison employee of the opposite sex.
Mammary intercourse is a sex act, performed as either foreplay or as non-penetrative sex, that involves the stimulation of a man's penis by a woman's breasts and vice versa. It involves placing the penis between a woman's breasts and moving the penis up and down to simulate sexual penetration and to create sexual pleasure. It may be used as an alternative to a handjob.
Bareback sex is physical sexual activity, especially sexual penetration, without the use of a condom. The topic primarily concerns anal sex between men who have sex with men without the use of a condom, and may be distinguished from unprotected sex because bareback sex denotes the deliberate act of forgoing condom use.
Donald Symons is an American anthropologist best known as one of the founders of evolutionary psychology, and for pioneering the study of human sexuality from an evolutionary perspective. He is one of the most cited researchers in contemporary sex research. His work is referenced by scientists investigating an extremely diverse range of sexual phenomena. Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker describes Symons' The Evolution of Human Sexuality (1979) as a "groundbreaking book" and "a landmark in its synthesis of evolutionary biology, anthropology, physiology, psychology, fiction, and cultural analysis, written with a combination of rigor and wit. It was a model for all subsequent books that apply evolution to human affairs, particularly mine." Symons is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His most recent work, with Catherine Salmon, is Warrior Lovers, an evolutionary analysis of slash fiction.
Abstinence-only sex education is a form of sex education that teaches not having sex outside of marriage. It often excludes other types of sexual and reproductive health education, such as birth control and safe sex. Comprehensive sex education, by contrast, covers the use of birth control and sexual abstinence.
Comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) is a sex education instruction method based on-curriculum that aims to give students the knowledge, attitudes, skills, and values to make appropriate and healthy choices in their sexual lives. The intention is that this understanding will prevent students from contracting sexually transmitted infections, such as HIV and HPV. CSE is also designed with the intention of reducing unplanned and unwanted pregnancies, as well as lowering rates of domestic and sexual violence, thus contributing to a healthier society, both physically and mentally.
Women who have sex with women (WSW) are women who engage in sexual activities with other women, whether they identify themselves as lesbian, bisexual, or heterosexual, or dispense with sexual identification altogether. The term WSW is often used in medical literature to describe such women as a group for clinical study, without needing to consider sexual self-identity.
The Gift is a 2003 documentary film by filmmaker Louise Hogarth documenting the phenomenon of deliberate HIV infection; such practices are known colloquially as bugchasing, for seeking and providing voluntary HIV infection, respectively. The film follows the stories of two "bug chasers" who are seeking "the gift" of HIV infection. Interviews are also conducted with AIDS activist and author, Walt Odets, PhD, and HIV positive and negative men. The film explores the normalization and glamorization of HIV/AIDS and discusses the isolation and division caused by HIV status in the gay community.
Human sexuality covers a broad range of topics, including the physiological, psychological, social, cultural, political, philosophical, ethical, moral, theological, legal and spiritual or religious aspects of sex and human sexual behavior.
Gregory M. Herek is a researcher, author, and professor of psychology at the University of California at Davis (UCD). He has conducted extensive research on prejudice against sexual minorities, and coined the term sexual prejudice as a replacement for homophobia to describe this phenomenon. Herek argued that using the term homophobia incorrectly assumes that negative responses to lesbian, gay, and bisexual people are founded in pathological, irrational fear, whereas psychological research indicates they are more accurately regarded as a form of prejudice. Herek is an openly and prominent gay psychologist. Herek is considered one of the most influential scholars of sexual minorities.
Lesbian sexual practices are sexual activities involving women who have sex with women, regardless of their sexual orientation. A woman who has sex with another woman may identify as a lesbian if she is exclusively sexually attracted to women, or bisexual if she is not exclusively sexually attracted to women, or dispense with sexual identification altogether. The term may also be applied to a heterosexual or asexual woman who is unsure of or is exploring her sexuality.
Human female sexuality encompasses a broad range of behaviors and processes, including female sexual identity and sexual behavior, the physiological, psychological, social, cultural, political, and spiritual or religious aspects of sexual activity. Various aspects and dimensions of female sexuality, as a part of human sexuality, have also been addressed by principles of ethics, morality, and theology. In almost any historical era and culture, the arts, including literary and visual arts, as well as popular culture, present a substantial portion of a given society's views on human sexuality, which includes both implicit (covert) and explicit (overt) aspects and manifestations of feminine sexuality and behavior.
Lisa M. Diamond is an American psychologist and feminist. She is a professor of developmental psychology, health psychology and gender studies at the University of Utah. Her research focuses on sexual orientation development, sexual identity, and bonding.
Jeffrey T. Parsons is an American psychologist, researcher, and educator; he was a Distinguished Professor of Psychology at Hunter College and The Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY) and was the Director of Hunter College's Center for HIV/AIDS Educational Studies & Training, which he founded in 1996. Parsons was trained as a developmental psychologist and applied this training to understand health, with a particular emphasis on HIV prevention and treatment. He was known for his research on HIV risk behaviors of gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (GBMSM), HIV-related syndemics, and sexual compulsivity. He resigned his positions at CUNY on July 3, 2019, following a year-long university investigation of misconduct allegations against him.. In 2023, the U.S. Attorney's Office announced that he was required to pay a $375,000 settlement for engaging in fraud against the federal government for many years.
Brian Mustanski is an American psychologist noted for his research on the health of LGBT youth, HIV and substance use in young gay and bisexual men, and the use of new media and technology for sexual health promotion and HIV prevention. He is a Professor of Medical Social Sciences, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, and Psychology and Director of the Institute for Sexual and Gender Minority Health and Wellbeing at Northwestern University, Chicago, IL.
Sharon Horne is a scientist known for conducting research on LGBTQ issues, mental health and college student development, and international psychology concerns. Horne is Professor of Counseling Psychology and the Director of Training for the American Psychological Association Accredited Counseling Psychology Ph.D. Program at the University of Massachusetts Boston. She is a representative to the APA International Psychology Network for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex Issues (IPsyNet), and chaired the policy committee that drafted the IpsyNet Statement and Commitment on LGBTI Concerns.
Gail Elizabeth Wyatt is a clinical psychologist and board-certified sex therapist known for her research on consensual and abusive sexual relationships and their influence on psychological well-being. She is Professor of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. Wyatt was the first African American woman in the state of California to receive a license to practice psychology and first African American woman to be named a Full Professor of the UCLA School of Medicine.
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