Sexuality And Older People Essay

Contemporary understandings of sexuality are not the same as back in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Understandings and terminology in the past hold multiple differences and similarities than our current contemporary understandings.

Unlike sex, the history of sexuality is dependant upon society and limited by its language in order to be defined and understood.

Sex. It is everywhere. We see in television shows. In magazines. On the Internet. But sex is still seen as a taboo subject in our society. I believe that being educated about sexuality is vitally important to one health. Understanding one’s body and how it impacts your life. To understand how your beliefs about sexuality and sex have developed one needs to look back over the years and how your beliefs were engrained in your life. This essay will be based on my reflection by looking back on my sexual history on how and what have significantly impacted my development of sexuality. The focus will be on my reflection of answering the sexual history questions and how I have changed and developed over the years. It is important to analyze and reflect to understand how I came to be today, that the past has created my ideas and beliefs about sex and sexuality that have shaped me.

The popular culture perceives sexuality among the elderly people as if it doesn’t exist or that the elderly are not as interested as they were in their younger years. The younger generations don’t even want to think about it because of the possible visualization may shock them and they find it disgusting. I’m sure I’m not the only one as a kid that I found adult expressing their intimacy with each other gross. But as I grew, I found that expressing your feelings just shows love and care for that person. Sexuality among the elderly does exist, and from articles that I’ve read to include our reading material, studies show that people in there 70’s and 80’s remain sexually active (Greenberg, Bruess, Oswalt, 2013). There are some sexual problems that increase and sexual activity rate goes down a bit but it doesn’t put a complete stop just because of aging. The desire and interest remains high. It may not be appealing to younger people but they will find that it’s a natural change once they reach that age.

Over the last fifty years there have been many changes to the sexual attitudes and behaviors in the United States. Going back through the early 1900’s misinformation was abundant when it came to the sexuality of the baby boomers and other older adults. Often when thoughts come to mind it is humorous to the younger generation when the notion of aging individuals engaging or enjoying sex. It is brought up in conversation disdainfully in media.

This paper will outline sexuality at different life stages, and as a sexual therapist I will coach an adolescent girl with a boyfriend who is pressuring her to have sex; an elderly couple with a wife exhibiting a renewed interest in sexual activity and a unwilling husband; and finally a handicapped male that has been paralyzed since he was four years old.

Television and film do a wonderful job of widowing parents or creating a life so intertwined with their children that is their identity. When we do witness the actions around sexuality and the aging it is almost never serious, often leaving one to think that that the elderly engaging in any sexual contact will prove perverted, dangerous or lethal (Dan Sewell). Much like advertisements for products incite us to buy them, the views of sexuality and senior citizens we see in the media carries into real life, leaving the elderly to be labeled as either asexual or are met with phrases like "dirty old man" or cougar, simply for having a desire that exists within all of us. Being of the community and seeing these perceptions does not make it easy to be open about feelings regarding the topic on any level, exacerbating any existing esteem issues that could be onset of aging (Melanie

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.

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?

Given the popularity and the exuberant price for a 30 second Super Bowl ad is priced over $4,000,000 (Stauffer, 2013), more and more companies are using racy commercials laced with sexual innuendoes. The use of super model type females trying to sell products to the average football fan aged 18-49 (Gilmartin, 2013), using a variety of themes from Sexual assault (Covert, 2013), to the cliché that women are crazy (Covert, 2013), to a sexual fantasy with a make out session with a Victoria’s secret model and a nerd (Taibi, 2013), to waitresses turning into strippers (Covert, 2013), the list goes on and on; however no matter how the commercial tries to differentiate itself from the other commercials In the same time slot, one thing Is a common denominator between all of them and that is sex.

In today’s society things are being expressed and experienced at younger ages, than ever before in our time. Children and teenagers are discovering their sexuality at very early ages. Sexuality is the discovering of who you are and what makes you different from everybody else.

Sexuality, as defined officially by the Oxford English Dictionary, is “a capacity for one’s sexual feelings.” Even as an official language dictionary term, this shrinks down the very broad term that is sexuality; which cannot be discussed truly nor analysed fully without viewing gender and social construction, especially in the ever-diversifying 21st Century in which gender and sexuality have become such a fluid construct. Alternatively, gender is defined as “the traditional state of being male or female” by the English Dictionary. Yet again, the exact dedicated definitions of these terms do little to nothing to comprehend the complex truth to the worldly understanding of them.

It seems as though sexuality as one ages is most affected by issues such as menopause. Men also go through a similar hormonal shift as they get older. The problem is not with the change in hormones, as that is a normal part of aging. The problem is with the fact that there is still a taboo when it comes to talking about these kinds of things. Men do not want to hear about "female trouble," and even women do not like to talk about it. It

Throughout history it is evident that human sexuality changes do to religious, governmental and societal influences. The perception of human sexuality has gone through many changes such as being very open and unlabeled activity; to being very “conservative” and a topic that shouldn’t be talked about in public or at all. In any case, human sexuality has always been a topic of interest because humans are sexual beings who want to understand the consciousness of themselves as male or female and see their personal response when encountered in erotic experiences with other individuals. Unlike many other species whose sexual force is strictly for reproduction, human’s sexual drive seems to be driven by many factors that intertwine with each other which leads to very different outcomes. Do to these obscure human emotions and personal gratification, sex is always shown every culture’s art, literature, social norms, and laws.

sexualized women, and masculinized men, Barbasol also sold relationships between the two as a benefit of their shaving cream. In Barbasol’s “#1 In Close-Ups” 1946 advertisement, the print shows a close-up of a couple while they are kissing. Both genders are present here. They are formally dressed, and they seem to be content with each other. The woman is dressed appropriately. Moreover, the product is advertised to be good for “close-ups,” and not only shaving. This is another example of subliminal advertising that does not psychologically appeal to sex, but still successfully appeal to Barbasol’s targeted audience in a subconscious manner.