Sex, Love and Romance
The meaning of sex, love and romance can be different among people, like the way we express our love, what we feel is romantic and our sex behavior. To understand someone’s sexuality we need to look at many social factors that are involved in the person’s life. As Crawford explains, people’s sexual identity can be influenced by their social class, religion, gender roles and ethnicity.
Before we get into sex, love and romance, we should discuss how we pick our partners. For which characteristics do we look for? What is preset in our mind about certain things? The first thing that strikes us when we see a stranger is there appearance. Before we get to know a person, some may already judge them and foresee how things would go if they dated him/her.
Our expectation of what happens in a relationship is built on the basis of sexual scripts. In class we discussed about what we would expect to happen on a first date. Our class had a few different answers. Some feel that the male should take the first step in asking a girl out where as some female students feel that they were comfortable in asking the male out. Some people would like to go on a movie date and others like to do other activities. All the things we say about first dates is based on expectations. In addition the in class activity where we rated if activities are appropriate are also based on our expectations. These expectations are influenced by gender, culture and society. As part of my culture, females are supposed to be waiting on the males to ask them out and may only have sex after marriage. It is also part of my culture that a couple cannot live together until after marriage.
Even though one’s culture or religion can indicate how they should behave, society is changing. Now adolescents begin to explore their sexuality earlier. They are more curious about their own bodies and the opposite or same sex. It is a fact that adolescents have sex at an earlier age and this can be influenced by the media and peer pressure. Their curiosity comes with a danger as well because many of them might not engage in safe sex. Many young girls do not speak up to their partner about using condoms. Even some older adults don’t even do so.
Ok, some of us may or may not pressure our partner to use a condom. What is the benefit of that? And to whom is that benefiting? Some if not all men say that it feels better without it. Ok, that makes them enjoy the sex more but what about the women? How do women feel about sex with their partner? More often than not, a woman’s first intercourse is a negative experience as Crawford mentions. This negative experience is based on how they lost their virginity. How is the experience of sex influenced by how it is performed? Some women just lay there and let the man do their thing and some women likes to be more active. Studies prove that women that are passive feel less pleasure. What if you don’t have a partner? Is self pleasure appropriate and does both sexes do that? Both men and women may pleasure themselves how ever men admit to it more often than women.
People say sex makes the relationship stronger and better. What if you are forced to have sex? What do you know about abusive relationships? All in all what makes a relationship strong and healthy is equality. Abusive between partners is known as intimate partner violence. Jordana Ravick discussed about intimate partner violence in our class. In addition Crawford also discussed about abusive relationships in the book. The rates of intimate partner violence are high in New York City and they are even higher if we count in those that are not reported. Most batterers are men even though there some that are women. Jordana indicated it was the matter of being a choice. She also made a very unbelievable note that for every battered women shelter there are 2-3 animal shelter. That statistic makes a loud statement. There are many forms of abuse such as emotional/verbal, sexual coercion, financial/economic, sex and using children. To have a healthy relationship, one needs to stop the abuse and engage in healthy behaviors like trust and support, negotiation, fairness, honesty and non threatening behavior.
Interesting videos that I found in relation to intimate partner violence and sexuality
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