Gender And The Practice Of Sexual Behavior

Since the dawn of man, sex has played a crucial role in society. Before they learned to read or write humans were engaging in sex and without it none of us would be here. In today’s society, sex has grown to become much more complicated. If I were to ask a group of people on the street what they believed sex was? I bet they would have a hard time answering. The question puzzling society today is how do we define sex? Can we define sex? These are questions raised in Tracy Steele’s article “Doing it: The Social Construction of S-E-X”. This article is about the current questions and issues that have been raised about sex within today’s society. In this paper I will summarize the key points of the article, while sharing my own thoughts and

In the first lecture for this class, Professor Creekmur asked the question; is sex popular (Creekmur Aug. 20)? As he often does in the course, Creekmur doesn’t give a simple, clear-cut answer, but instead offers a paradox, that while sex is an aggressively private act, it is also a good that is consumed, in our magazines and on our televisions. This paradox ultimately sets the stage for the rest of this class, demonstrating how something as intimate as one’s sexuality can come to reinforce popular conventions of normalcy and deviancy within society at large, and what this essay will attempt to address.

Ira L. Reiss, a well-known sociologist, has contributed greatly to the field of human sexuality and in the 1960’s brilliantly predicted the revolutionary changes in sexual attitudes. In his novel, An End to Shame: Shaping Our Next Sexual Revolution, Reiss develops the notion that our previous sexual revolution did not adequately eliminate the inequalities related to sexuality. In reality he argues that America is in need of a newly formed sexual revolution, one that will address the negative consequences that our sex negative culture is experiencing. A significant portion of our population argues that these consequences are due to the fact that we talk too much and too soon about sex. This is an inaccurate view of the reasoning behind the sexual problems we are experiencing in America, as in reality the negative sexual outcomes we observe are due to the opposite of this view. This misconception is a common explanation for our sexual problems and many believe it is the key to solving our sexual crisis, but in reality is part of the problem. Reiss argues that “America is long overdue for a rendezvous with sexual reality” (18) and that the future of our nation depends on accepting these realities.

Human sexuality is a common phrase for all, and anything, pertaining to the feelings and behaviors of sex for the human race. Sexuality has been a topic that has been discussed and studied for as far back as 1000 years B.C. and is still being studied today. As the discussion of sexuality has progressed through history, theories have been created based on research and experiments that scholars have implemented, based on their own perceptions of human behavior. Out of the many theories that pose to explain sexual behavior, Sexuality Now explained ten that are seemed to be the most overlapped, and built off of theories. Of these theories, two that were discussed in the text were the behavioral and sociological theory. These two theories cover some of the basic ideas of what could possibly influence a person’s sexuality.

Sociologists reject the idea that behavioural differences between men and women are biologically determined. Outline the key grounds for this rejection and discuss what this means for a sociological understanding of gender.

According to Macionis (2012), the term sex “refers to activity that leads to sexual gratification” (p. 178). Sexual activity is guided by culture (Macionis, 2012). In other words, its practices and attitudes vary by region (Macionis, 2012). Although the historical norm for sex has been between adult partners, sexual practices and attitudes has changed over the years to include hooking up, which has emerged as a pattern among society in the United States, but can caused problems in today’s culture.

The way we are introduced to sex can vary greatly person to person. Due to our differing upbringings, my group for class felt these distinctions through our discussion. Evidently, our regional influences, religious upbringing, socio-economic statuses, and diverse exposure to media influenced how we each were exposed to sex.

Our project topic was centered on Social Control, as discussed in Chapter 8 of the Kottak textbook. Social Control is defined as “maintaining social norms and regulating conflict” (Kottak 2013; 165). More specifically, we decided to focus on the phenomenon of “slut-shaming.” According the Oxford Dictionary Online for American English, “slut-shaming,” is defined as the “action of stigmatizing a woman for engaging in behavior judged to be promiscuous or sexually provocative.” Although Oxford singularizes women in this phenomenon, the practice of slut-shaming is inclusive to both genders. It is the stressed implication that women are more targeted that begged us to question: are women more likely to follow societal regulation in regards to their sexual acts than men? In other words, are women more likely to follow the social norms of the culture regarding their sexual activities than men? Shame and gossip are informal forms of social control that are usually practiced in small communities, which further correlates with the idea that women will follow the informal regulations put into place in order to avoid these consequences. With such ideologies in mind, we hypothesized that in American culture, men are less likely to be confined to sexually-charged social constraints than women.

Attitudes towards different issues in society are adopted depending on the prevailing beliefs in such a society. Every trending issue in a society helps shape the attitudes that people develop and greatly influences their behavior. There is no question that every society has a prejudged perception and possible reaction to any event that may occur within the realm of the society. This prejudgment and reaction is often informed by the various experiences that the society may have undergone through in the earlier instances of occurrence of specific events. Leslie Bell, the author of “Selections from Hard to Get: Twenty-Something Women and the Paradox of Sexual Freedom,” largely focuses on female sexuality detailing the often confusing situations

Contemporary hookup culture began to rise when the United States began to take the “virginity” topic to whole new level of discussion. Dating and intimate human interaction have always been a common conversation spoken by common people in our country. Moreover, the topic of casual sex has been the starting point for this increase attention on the Contemporary hook up culture. Certain authors have made claims that the problem is not casual sex, but a moral panic over the matter (Valenti, 23). According to Levy, “Levy’s concern isn’t necessarily moral, but rather that these young women seem less focused on their own sexual pleasure and more worried about being seen as “hot” by men” (Armstrong, England, and Hamiliton, 23). Similarly, the entire dating situation has been

Human sexuality is defined as the capability of individuals to experience their sexuality and be able to express themselves as sexual beings (Hyde & DeLameck, 2006). Our interest in this topic is because with time, there has been a change in rules that control human sexual behaviour. The status quo in our contemporary society is much different as compared to an earlier state of conditions, and the change has, as a result, brought the evolvement in human sexuality. People 's view on virginity has changed greatly with a decrease of importance in regards to its preservation. Sexuality is essential to the economic, cultural, social and political organization of society or country. Our sexuality plays a fundamental role in all our lives regardless of age, sex or race. It forms a basic part of our personality and the decisions we make in what we do. One’s sexuality also consumes much of their time through behaviour or thoughts; at times every aspect of our lives seems to revolve around our sexuality. Studying sexuality is very important since human sexuality majorly contributes to social as well as personal problems. A lingering question concerning this topic is to what extent is virginity determined by the status quo and the rules that control human behaviour?

Throughout history, definitions of sexuality within a culture are created and then changed time after time. During these changes, we have seen the impact and power one individual or group can have over others. In the Late Nineteenth Century into the Early Twentieth Century, we see multiple groups of people and or authorities taking control over the idea of sex and how they believe society is being impacted by sex. At this point in time, society had groups of people who believed they had the power to control how society as whole viewed and acted upon sex. Those particular groups and ideas changed many lives and the overall definition of sexuality within that culture.

Goffman defines ritualization of subordination as “female bodies in particular are used to demonstrate the broadest social idea and what the culture defines as feminine as a subordinate relationship as to what the culture defines as masculine”. This means that by social aspects and ideals, women are depicted as subordinates and are underlying to men because of how the culture is defined. One position in which women are depicted as subordinates and defenseless is when they are lying down. They are then dependent on the world as being safe from threats as they would have no chance to even defend themselves; it’s a submissive and powerlessness position. However, this position has also been come to viewed women as sexualized. Women are shown in this aspect as available and in “need” of a man. As Goffman stated, female sexuality has become an image of how woman are submissive, powerless, and dependent. Furthermore, femininity is seen also as female sexuality and then as Goffman exclaims, femininity in this way is also seen as submissive, powerless, and dependent. When photos of women are captured with men in this sense, many women are on their knees, lying on their backs, or sitting on the ground looking up at the men. Assumptions are made from these poses in advertising in which the ads of woman (and ads of gay men) have similar audience that targets the perspective of the male viewer’s desire. In this sense, the subordination comes from the relationship of the viewer, the

These ideas can come from a variety of places, with peers being one of the main sources for schemata development during adolescence (Baumgartner et al., 2011). In a study conducted by Baumgartner et al., researchers investigated the influence of peer norms on engagement in online risky sexual behavior. Using a sample of 1,016 adolescents 12-17 years of age, they found that perceptions of peer norms were statistically significant predictors of whether or not participants chose to engage in risky sexual behaviors online (Baumgartner et al., 2011). Furthermore, they found that males were more likely to attempt to initiate risky online sexual behavior than females. In this case, if participants believed that their peers advocated for engaging in risky sexual behaviors online, such as sexting, then that belief works cohesively with already established schema about sexuality and sexual

Sex has been a hot topic of debate since the beginning of time. Many believe it is a wrong and in most religions they believe it is sinful to have premarital sex. Many times people use other people as means for pleasure. Kant says that this is wrong to do. I believe that you can use people for sexual pleasure and not be required to love or care for them.