Attitudinal Changes Toward Homosexuality During the Past Two Decades (1994-2014) in Korea.

This study was conducted to examine recent Korean perspectives on homosexuality by comparing attitudes toward mental illness, crime, friendship, and civil rights related to homosexual people in 1994, 1999, 2004, 2009, and 2014. The respondents were 3,299 Korean men and women between 18 and 59 years of age, and the data were collected across 5 years. The major findings were that there has been greater acceptance of homosexuality and civil rights for homosexuals during the past two decades, but the changes have been slow; Korean homosexuals remain subjects of social stigma and discrimination primarily due to increased Christian activism.

Translation and validation of the Korean version of Family Scale.

BACKGROUND: Familism is an important and complex clinical issue because of its significant impact on family caregiving of elders. PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to examine the psychometric properties of a Korean-translated version of the Family Scale (FS-K) among Korean adults. A descriptive, cross-sectional survey design was used. METHODS: A panel of experts completed the initial translation into Korean and back-translated the FS. Upon establishment of the content and translation equivalence between English and Korean versions of the FS, psychometric properties were evaluated for reliability and construct validity with a sample of 577 adults. RESULTS: The internal consistency of FS-K was found to be acceptable, and Cronbach's alpha coefficient was .75. For construct validity, the mean scores of the FS-K were significantly different for gender and marital status (p < .05). For the FS-K, six components were extracted, accounting for 53.9% of the variance. CONCLUSIONS: Results of this study suggest that the FS-K can be used as a reliable and valid measure of familism among Korean adults. The FS-K will contribute to the understanding of familism for family caregivers caring for elders in both research and clinical practices.

Marital and sexual conflicts in elderly Korean people.

There have been very few reports on sexual conflicts involving elderly married couples. Irrespective of their age, most married people expect to have sex. This is the reason behind the frustration of sexually energetic people with spouses who dislike having sex. In this qualitative study on a small sample of elderly married Korean people, men were found to be sexually frustrated while their wives reported marital dissatisfaction. The men persistently asked for sex with the belief that consistency of active sexual expression is important in keeping their masculinity. Although they eventually have sex with their wives, the men were found to remain sexually frustrated for over several days because of their wives' initial disregard of their sexual advances. This disregard was mainly due to the husbands' involvement in extramarital sexual affairs.

Subjective sexual arousal in response to erotica: effects of gender, guided fantasy, erotic stimulus, and duration of exposure.

This study was designed to evaluate the effects of gender, guided fantasy, erotic stimulus (with or without audio), and exposure duration on the subjective sexual arousal of participants watching a 10-min erotic video excerpt depicting sexual activities between a heterosexual adult couple. The excerpt was shown to 105 male and 110 female undergraduates, and sexual arousal was measured four times, at intervals of 1, 4, 7, and 10,min from the onset of the excerpt. While no erotic stimulus effect was found, analysis of variance showed main effects of gender, guided fantasy, and exposure duration, and three two-way interactions of gender x guided fantasy, gender x exposure duration, and guided fantasy x exposure duration. According to the results of simple effects tests, the gender effects were found regardless of whether they had firstly experienced a guided fantasy, while the guided fantasy effect was detected only for the females. The simple main effects for gender were found at all four time intervals, while the pattern of within-subject contrasts at the four time intervals for the males was different from that for the females. The simple main effects for guided fantasy were not found at 1,min and 4,min, but at 7,min and 10,min, while the pattern of within-subject contrasts at the four time intervals for the guided fantasy present condition was different from that for the absent condition. The findings involving gender differences were discussed in the context of biological and social factors.

Assessment of cerebrocortical regions associated with sexual arousal in premenopausal and menopausal women by using BOLD-based functional MRI.

PURPOSE: The aim of this study was to compare the cerebral regions associated with sexual arousal between premenopausal and menopausal women by using functional magnetic resonance imaging (f MRI). MATERIALS AND METHODS: Ten premenopausal and 10 menopausal women underwent fMRI on a 1.5T MR scanner using the blood oxygen level dependent technique. To identify the activated brain regions associated with sexual response, brain activation was assessed during 1 minute of a nonerotic film, followed by 4 minutes of an erotic film. RESULTS: The overall activation ratios of the premenopausal women were greater than those of the menopausal women by approximately 8% on average. The limbic, temporal association areas, and parietal lobe showed greater enhancement of signal intensities in premenopausal women. However, signal enhancement in the genu of the corpus callosum and superior frontal gyrus was dominant in menopausal women. CONCLUSIONS: The activated brain center associated with visually evoked sexual arousal showed qualitative and quantitative differences between premenopausal and menopausal women.

Role of education in generativity differences of employed and unemployed women in Korea.

This study investigated generativity differences between employed and unemployed women in Korea and examined the effect of education on generativity. There were 472 participants in this study, 252 employed married women and 220 unemployed married women living in the Kwangju metropolitan area. A questionnaire requesting demographic information and responses to the translated Loyola Generativity Scale was administered individually. Analysis showed significant generativity differences between the two groups, who also differed in education and mother and spouse roles. However, employment status was not a significant predictor for generativity when a stepwise regression analysis was applied. The analysis showed that education was the strongest predictor for generativity, while mother/wife roles, socioeconomic status, health, and childcare stress were also significant predictors. It was concluded that for Korean married women, generativity is more strongly related to education than employment status.