I can remember sitting in a cold hospital chair, waiting for my name to be called. I hear breathing and the soft murmurs of the others who are there for their own reasons. It takes me by surprise when my mom nudged my arm, letting me know it was my turn to be seen. My mind was clouded with the thoughts of what if and we’re lucky were okay. When the nurse left us in the room she took all noise and left only silence. My heart started to beat like a caged bird in my chest, my palms and back began to perspire, and my words tumbled out. The secret that felt dark to me for so long was released from the depths of my conscience and I knew there was no turning back. All my late night googling and library searching lead up to that precise moment, when …show more content…
It doesn’t make a difference if you’re straight, bisexual, transgender or asexual or gay, one should come into terms with who they are if they would like to respect and understand others. Moreover, this leads to the topic of sexual identity development or most commonly known as “coming out.” This process occurs in three steps: admitting to oneself that one has a homosexual or bisexual orientation, getting to know other homosexuals or of the same orientation, and telling family and friends of his or her sexual orientation (Bruce M. King). Each of these steps can affect the persons hearing this in different ways, but most importantly the person coming out. In the first step, these individuals knew they were different in some way growing up, yet didn’t know what it was. This “what” were the labels society has given homosexuals and bisexuals and etc. If society were to stop putting people with orientations that they don’t understand in boxes, there would be change. Others should become informed and ask sincere questions, and not promote violence, homophobia (the irrational fear of homosexuals), and sexual prejudice (society enforced negative attitudes towards homosexuals or bisexuals) (Chapter 9). By understanding ourselves, we can then understand others because coming out is important to everyone, they are validating who they are and what they feel. If someone comes to you, hear them, …show more content…
In chapter 5 the definition of an STI is; infections that can be, but are not necessarily always, transmitted by sexual contact (Bruce M. King). Some examples of STIs that can interfere with health and relationships are: Gonorrhea, also known the clap, chlamydia, syphilis, herpes and HIV/AIDS, and HPV just to label the major ones. If a person is sexually active, it is best for them get checked every three months or so. If they unluckily do have an STI or infection it is best for them to follow their doctor’s orders and tell their partner(s) the news. It’s also important for persons to practice safe sex such as using condoms or being committed to one partner, or as we know it monogamy. The book also empathizes communication in relationships. Having the knowledge and being aware of these practices is how individuals can respect others and
Have you seen my husband? Is all my mom was shouting as she held my hand tightly, running back and forth through the hospital? A receptionist sent us to a room, which felt like coming into an isolated mausoleum. The cold air enveloped my entire body, ice has replaced my spine and numbness is all my fingers felt. The room was somber dark, dead silence; the only sound heard was the heart machine ... Beep … Beep. There wasn’t anything more traumatizing then seeing my father lain on the bed, unresponsive, tubes coming from out mouth and nose. The sadness and desperation in his eyes broke my heart. All of sudden the heart monitor went off with a loud buzzing sound. A nurse jumped out of nowhere “Code Blue”, in matter of seconds 4 nurses and a doctor surrounded my father, my mom and I mindset was at a shock, like were able to see what was happening but couldn’t do anything our body was some glued to the floor. The doctors and nurses tired to help my father but it was too late,
This paper examines the social aspects of the sexual identity in America, illustrating how sexual identities have progressed, evolved, and transformed. Social categories have been created as a tool used for social divide and control, inadvertently creating stereotypical facts and discriminatory opinions on sexes; while also helping create social and welcoming communities, whose goals are to diminish ideals such as those. Concluding, this paper will have explained the dichotomous categories of different sexualities and the divides within them. The already established sexual divide leaves no room for those stuck in the in between of today's society, especially one as progressive as America’s. Derived from the examples giving, this paper argues
America, a country that preaches equality for all and may be considered the land of opportunity, has had a bad history of oppressing groups that differs from the norm: white, heterosexual, and male. While legislation has been passed to rectify past oppression of racial, gender and sexual orientation groups, America remains a patriarchal society whose institutions are structurally designed to favor white, cisgender, heterosexual males. The film Higher Learning, brings to light this issue of institutional racism, while perpetuating in majority of the male characters what the ideal man represents and how that is related to racial issues and sexual orientation in the film. Issues of homosexuality is not only brought up in opposition of masculinity, but also femininity. Thus, American society has an attitude or belief that endorses hyper masculinity in males, but this is not viewed as a positive attribution in African Americans, nor is homosexuality considered a normative behavior.
It's early afternoon and I'm watching daytime television which leaves you with limited options. I could probably be doing something better with my time however it is summer break. So as a guilty pleasure, I relish in the antics featured on the Maury Show. Normally his show deals with life changing paternity shows. Occasionally, he veers away from his usual format to a once popular format: Is she a man or woman? This is a show that allows the audience to guess the gender of the person. It seems rather straight forward; the entertainment value is that it's difficult to tell at first glance. It forces you to carefully select which phenotypical traits are most appropriate for the gender you select. We all think we can innately tell the
This essay will be examining the relationship between sexuality and identity in the book, Fun Home (2006) by Alison Bechdel. Bechdel’s memoir Fun Home explores the way gender and sexual identity play important roles in the world. It frames the discovery that Bechdel when she was a young girl realised she was a lesbian, whilst at the same time finding out that her father is also homosexual and had been sexually active with males throughout his marriage to her mother, destroying their relationship. Through the use of visual comic pictures and writing, the books central themes challenge cultural norms of sexual and gender identity. It questions how associated a daughters open lesbian identity is with her fathers closeted gay one. Bechdel 's sexual discovery throughout the book, is always linked to her father Bruces sexual identity and it is possible to say that it had an effect on her own sexuality. She provides the reader with a sample of the identity struggle both her and her father suffered with to illustrate the experience they both had. The images within the text give only a small amount of information, where as the text is the most important element. This essay will explore whether sexuality and identity can be seperated, or whether your sexuality frames who you are with reference to Watson (2008), Freud (1920) and Fantasia (2011), whilst giving an analytical view at the text Fun home.
Sexually transmitted infections, otherwise known as STIs, and formerly, STDs, are exactly what they sound: infectious diseases spread from person to person through intimate contact. When we hear the abbreviation STI, we often conjure images or terrible diseases that leave us fearful of our partner’s sexual history. While STIs are extremely serious and dangerous to a person’s health, they can be easily preventable during any sexual contact. The more you understand about the types of STIs, how common they are and what treatment is like, the easier it is to protect yourself against them.
"Sexual orientation has nothing to do with choice. Our findings suggest there may be genes at play and we found evidence for two sets that affect whether a man is gay or straight." (The Australian, Article on Homosexuality.) There is a difference in the X chromosome, given by the article. There is also a change in the 8 chromosome that predicts whether a child will be gay or not.
1. Sexually Transmissible Infection (STI) is an infection that can be passed through sexual intercourse. Some examples of STI are HIV/AIDS, Chlamydia, Gonorrhea, Hepatitis B, Genital/anal warts, Trichomoniasis, Genital Herpes, Syphilis, and Pubic lice. Some of these infection can be life threatening. A lot of the time people are embarrassed to seek medical attention. They do not want others to know and do not want to seem irresponsible. In our society it is thought to be shameful to catch STIs. The reason being that STIs are common on people with multiple sexual partners.
Cultures usually differ in nature and intensity of how the sexes, gender, gender roles and gender stereotypes are differentiated. Before we get to understand how they are differentiated, it 's good to first understand the meaning of each term. Sex is the biological and physiological differences between men and women, sex roles are the behaviours and patterns of activities that the men and women may engage in which are directly related to their biological differences while gender are the behaviours or patterns of activities that the culture or a society consider suitable for men and women. Culture on the other hand is the beliefs, values and behaviour that comprise of a people’s way of life or the customs and habits that characterize a particular society. Sexual identity is the level of awareness and the recognition of sex and sex roles and gender role is the level to which a person adopts the gender-specific behaviours assigned by one’s culture.
A STI (sexually transmitted infection) refers to more than 25 infectious organisms passed from person to person primarily through sexual contact. The term form STI’s has changed throughout history, from venereal diseases to sexually transmitted diseases to sexually transmitted infections. STI is supposedly a less judgmental than previous terms. Sexually transmitted infections do not have an agenda of a certain race, ethnicity, or gender to affect. Some STI’s can be cured and some require a lifetime of treatment.
To conceptualise sexual identity and gender expression, Judith Butler (1990) proposes a poststructuralist perspective; that gendered behaviour (masculinity and femininity) is learned, a performative act, and that gender is constructed through a ‘heterosexual matrix’. She describes this as
Many parents voice a fear about their child learning about gender, gender identity, and sexual orientation. They think that hearing, seeing, or learning these things will influence their child. According to research, however, no matter how often children are exposed to these topics they still will make their own decisions later on in life on the matter. Often parents are upset when they hear their children are learning about these terms because they do not know the dictionaries definitions for these words are. According to webster; gender is the state of being male or female, the word typically used to reference social and cultural differences rather than biological ones. Gender identity is a person’s perception of having a particular gender that may not correspond with the sex they were given at birth. Sexual orientation is a person’s sexual identity in relation to the gender to which they are attracted. Many times a person’s sexual orientation can be labeled as heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual. Diversity is an important lesson to teach children especially at a young age. To understand how to best teach diversity about gender in a classroom background information, teaching strategies, and student’s understanding of diversity is important.
Imagine if you were to be judged for who you were, or what you did, or even your gender type. In the world there are a lot of social injustices going on even to this very day. One of the most common and heard of social injustice would probably be the one of people being lesbian, gay, bisexual, and/or transgender. This issue has been going on for quite a long time now. Some people do not agree with Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender projects. A lot of people suffer because of this injustice, and it also affects their whole lives. A lot of the people that go through this most likely end up fighting back for what they believe is right, which in their
Within the last decade society has become more open to ideology and lifestyles that years ago were tabo. This is largely due to the fact that the millennial generation may be one of the most laid back and accepting generations of all time. One major lifestyle that was rarely expected was homosexuality within the last decade this issue is no longer in the closet. Most people feel comfortable being open about their lifestyle choice and even show it off. Shortly after the acceptance of gays by society a new issue presented itself and this is transgender people. The community as whole fights for their rights together and it is referred to as LGBTQ. LGBTQ means lesbians, gays, transgender, bisexual, and queer. The LGBTQ community has made great progress in the last decade they have become more open about their community and have gained rights that they should have always had. Even though the community has made progress they still have a long way way to go especially within the workplace.
Throughout the course, Religion and Sexuality, I have gained new insights on religion and its relationship to sexuality, further, I have learned skills on how to approach people about such topics (religion and sexuality) and how to critically evaluate these subjects efficiently. Lastly, this course has enabled me to discover new qualities about myself.