Saturday, October 31, 2009

Sex, love, and romance by Pamela Murillo

Our culture and morals dictate what is right or wrong about sexuality. What is acceptable to some people might not be acceptable to others. Each individual is capable to be sexually aroused, but people learn rules that tell them how to behave in a sexual act, with whom to have sex, how to have sex, and what is pleasurable and not pleasurable during sex. Sexual acts that are recognized by a particular social group, the rules that guide the expected behavior, and the expected punishment for violating such rules form sexual scripts. Sexual scripts are schemas for sexual concepts or events, an example is listing the things people do on a first date, such as getting dressed, go out shopping or to a restaurant in order to get to know each other, joking and talking to try to impress. Sexual scripts are also guided by society and are part of cultural institutions; this is because law and religion regulate sexual behaviors. Sexual scripts are also influenced by race and class as well as by gender. For example, as the text mentions, people in the United States believe that Love is necessary for marriage, but in many parts of the world love is arranged by family members, not by the bride and groom.

In class we read different passages about people’s sexual lives, and we rated them as to what is most and least acceptable to us. We heard the story of Diane who sleeps with any guy without having any attachment. We heard the story of Jill and the swinging of partners. We also heard among others, the story of a guy who was been unfaithful to his partner and was afraid to hurt her, therefore he kept salience he liked somebody else. Similarly, the whole class had similar ratings to these stories, and this is because we go to the same school, we are used to cultural diversity, and we are more open minded about sexuality. But the reality of this is that everybody will rate these stories differently, and they will rate them according to their morals, culture, and religion ideas. Some one in class mentioned that partner swinging is ok as long as both individuals in the relationship are ok with it. However, I am pretty sure that for many people out there, partner swinging is a sin and should not be done at all.

Chapter 8 talks about sexual scripts, sex, love, and romance, but among these beautiful ideas it also talks about dating violence. Violence between partners is very common that pretty much everyone know someone that has experienced it. The chapter mentions that over 80% of college students say they have experienced or given some kind of verbal aggression within the past year. In addition, over one third report having engaged in physical aggression during the same time period; for example, hitting, throwing something, grabbing, or shoving. Women are the ones that report this kind of violence more often than men. But although women report it more often, there are many man out there that keep it quite; this is because they feel shy or embarrassed to say that they have experience some sort of violence by a woman. Finally, the speaker that we had in class taught us that being violent is by choice, and that even though women and men give many reasons as to why they are violent, it all comes down to them choosing to be like that. We all should have healthy relationships and choose for ways to avoid being violent at all costs. Also we cannot let anyone be violent to us, and we have to report it immediately to stop it on time.

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