Sexual History Interview

A couple of days ago, I got the chance to interview one of my dad’s friends, Nate, about his experiences with interviews. Currently a Nurse Practitioner, he has had over ten different jobs in his lifetime, ranging from a managerial position at KFC to an emergency room nurse. Just like his past jobs, the types of interviews that he has been in have been wildly different. He has even conducted a few interviews himself. Soon I will be participating in important, career-defining, interviews and it is important that I understand the ropes of an interview. I asked him only a couple of questions, but I got detailed answers and invaluable insights from the mind of both a successful interviewee and

how the questions are answered. Your goal in choosing an interviewee is to simulate the interaction

Interviewing someone you know may be a more easier with than someone you do not know. In this case, I interviewed my friend Matthew Guerrero. He is a sophomore here at Washburn. Matthew's background is different than mine because he is Hispanic and grew up with his married parents and his one brother. That differs from my background because I grew up with divorced parents going back and forth between the two every weekend. I also grew up a bit different because there is a total of eight kids in my family. I chose to interview Matthew because even though we both have two very different life's we are very similar. I think it is interesting how we had complete opposite lives growing up but we both are almost boy-girl version of each other and

Growing up as a Catholic I was educated in the spirit of living a pure life, learning many aspects about what I should not do. My parents and the entire Catholic community in which I grew up praised a restrictive life, wherein most of the pleasures in life were forbidden. Sex has been always a taboo subject for Catholics. My parents taught me that sexual relationships are only allowed after marriage. People who were known to be engaged in sexual relationships without being married were regarded as sinners and they were not respected within our community. Being raised in this spirit of considering sexuality a sin, I had become to despise the idea of sex, considering it impure and vulgar. As a child I could not imagine myself ever being married and desiring to be involved in sexual relationships, because I was inculcated with the idea that sexuality is

Previously on my Theory of Me paper I discussed how important respect is in my family and zero tolerance for disrespect. The only discussion I had growing up regarding age was respect towards adults and the elder. Sexual health or sexual orientation was the last thing my parents did not talk to me about. It may have been influenced from embarrassment and boundaries of what not to talk about.

Personally, I have had several interviews in my life, most of them being job interviews. I have done well in all these employment interviews, but it has never occurred to me that one day, I will be on the other side of the table during a job interview to see how well a candidate fits a job (book). When I open my own physical therapy practice one day, I will have to interview receptionists, assistants, and other physical therapists. I will have to formulate my own interview protocols

I interviewed a good friend of my best friends aunt. I was extremely comfortable asking the question that were noted in the assignment along with the additional follow up questions. I explained that if there was anything that I asked that she did not feel comfortable answering she could let me know. I also explained that she could give me as little or as much information she felt comfortable speaking about. My goal was to show the almost respect and empathy towards the individual I was interviewing because of the natural of the topic.

Consider what questions will be appropriate; you don’t want to upset anyone’s feelings, or invade their privacy

Well, if I am to be completely honest…when I was growing up my parents were divorced. We weren’t necessarily religious but we went to Sunday school for a few years I guess. I went back and forth a lot and amid all this neither my mother nor father really talked to me about sex at all. I was curious about it of course just like all kids become growing up. As I grew to my teen years I became very promiscuous. I felt it was because I didn’t know that what I was doing was bad because no one was educating my on it. No one helped make me aware of the differences and meanings of passion, intimacy and commitment. I sort of had to find out for myself.

Throughout history, sexuality has been an extremely discussed and disputed topic. In the United States, views on gays and lesbians have fluctuated as social norms changed and adapted rapidly as the nation grew into a major international superpower. Even today, the topic of sexuality is one of the most controversial and progressive movements sweeping the country as more and more states pass laws allowing the marriage of gay and lesbian couples. This essay will attempt to delve into the controversial history behind sexuality in the United States, addressing both positive and negative issues, beginning in the 1920s until the end of the 20th century.

One of the keys points in the article “Are you Sexually Normal- and Does That Matter?” by Dr. Klein is “are we normal?” As humans we want to be seen as normal, but there is no real definition for normal. In class, Professor Popillion asked us our definition of a virgin and as a class we have different views on what we classified as a virgin. This is exactly what is going on with the definition of normal. I didn’t realize how much of a problem this was until reading this article because it affects us starting at childhood all the way into adulthood and beyond. Society makes us believe that we will be frowned upon for being sexual and having sexual thoughts all of our lives. Dr. Klein mentioned “as children, we learn to fear being discovered as sexual, and to mistrust our sexual energy, curiosity and desire.” It was really surprising to me to find out that a lot of young girls and boys believe they can’t talk about their sexuality and fear that there is something wrong with them because of their sexuality. This is really sad because as children we have these feelings and everyone is telling us that they are bad, and in a child’s mind it makes them believe they are bad. When I was younger I thought this as well and I didn’t have anyone to talk to about these types of things. I believed that I wasn’t allowed to know about these things and what it was because it was bad.

Nicholas Solebello and Sinikka Elliott examine the way fathers describe and discuss the conversations they have had with their teens about sexuality and sexual orientation in the article “‘We Want Them to Be as Heterosexual as Possible’ Fathers talk about Their Teen Children’s Sexuality”. The overwhelming theme of these conversations was that fathers encouraged and expected their children, especially their sons, to be heterosexual. Fathers seemed much more invested and interested in the sexuality of their sons than their daughters. The fathers seemed to view sons as sexual beings, but not daughters. The prevalent pattern was that they explicitly wanted their sons to be heterosexual and interested but careful about sex. They expected and viewed

Sexual socialization is a gradual developmental process that occurs throughout life. familial and social contexts influence and shape men’s sexual socialization. In July of 2015, Katherine R. Allen and Erin S. Lavender-Stott published their research article titled, Family Contexts of Informal Sex Education: Young Men’s Perceptions of First Sexual Images, published by the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. The authors examined young men’s recollection of their first reactions in which they realized that they were seeing an explicit sexual image for the first time, and how this affected their views of sexuality in the long term.

Biblical writing tends to have strict laws about sex and sexuality and how it was expressed and universally accepted. The Pauline Epistles, or Paul’s views, had unique views on sex because he completely distrusted gender as a whole and because he believed that there would be an apocalypse. Many of Paul’s ideas were widely accepted back than because they explained may things that people could not, for instance it explains homosexuality. Today, the laws are seen differently and in some cases interpreted much more literally than they were back then. It is likely that ideas have changed either because people have become more understanding and accepting of others or because we no longer view sex and sexuality as a thing to be ashamed of. This new age of interpretation is seen in the way homosexuality is accepted today, submission of the wife to the husband in some religious dominations, and the ideal of marriage and its sexual implications.

Being a sexual being in the 21st century means that history has taken the guess work out. Sex is advertised in every source of media and now teens learn a bit about safe sex in high school. Unfortunately there are still cultures and some American families that do not talk about sex or ones preference, but there are programs and counselors for people to confide in.