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Media's effect on current culture and sexuality
Gender education can minimize teenage pregnancy essay
Gender education can minimize teenage pregnancy essay
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Sex In America a definitive survey covers a wide variety of sexual practices as well as the diversity of sexual acts. This book also reveals the myth shattering results of the only comprehensive methodologically sound survey of America’s practices (inside the cover). Robert T. Michael, John H. Gagnon, Edward O. Laumann, and Gina Kolata wrote this book. Socialization plays a major role in this book because it helps us learn about the attitudes values beliefs, and norms of our culture (Gagnon). This book covers most of the talked about topics in America, to have a better understanding of what can happen when being sexually active. Sex is everywhere; you see it in magazines, moves and on television. By throwing these sexual acts in the faces of our younger generation, it will only make the rate increase. Therefore, this will cause the spread of STD’s, AIDS, and other viral infections that can ruin a person for life. Our goal was to give people a different way to think about sexuality, to reveal social faces that effect sexual behavior, just as they affect every other sort of human behavior. (Gagnon 13) Scientist wanted more general studies of sexuality to examine such issues as teen pregnancy, sexual dysfunction, and child abuse, and they realized that the AIDS crisis finally made such a study politically tolerable as well as crucially important. “This book offers facts about American’s sexual practices, putting them in context that helps explain not only what we do but why?” (Gagnon 13). Knowing that the world is a large place, we have a different set of culture groups that might agree in sexual acts, that others might not; for instance some people see homosexuality as being o.k. and others who Are homophobic, se... ... middle of paper ... ...ually respectable and that she in no way encouraged the offender.” (Gagnon) In recent studies scientist have proven that there are some advantages to having good sex. A satisfying sex life requires more than just simple martial status access to a partner. Happiness with partnered sex is linked to happiness with life. We cannot say which comes first-general happiness or a good sex life-but the correlations are clear and striking. And happiness is clearly linked to having just one partner-which may not be too surprising since that is the situation that society smiles upon. (Gagnon) As the years have gone by the numbers of teenage sex have increased. “We are told over and over again that all young, healthy Americans are likely to be having a great deal of sex, and when they are not, they are encouraged to get back into the fray as quickly as possible. (Gagnon)
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 opinions of Steele’s findings.
[3] Since the 1950’s, a sexual revolution has spawned in America, accordingly downgrading previous anathemas in society, like pre-martial sex, masturbation, and homosexuality. For example, according to an article describing the sexual revolution, “In the 1950s, less than 25 percent of Americans thought premarital sex was acceptable; by the 1970s, more than 75 percent found it acceptable” (Stossel 74). Norman Podhoretz recounts how in the early 1950’s obtaining pornography was like trying to buy illegal drugs. But Playboy changed all of that, as it emerged as an “acceptable” form of pornography in 1953.
In the article “An Anthropological Look at Human Sexuality” the authors, Patrick Gray and Linda Wolfe speak about how societies look at human sexuality. The core concept of anthology is the idea of culture, the systems of attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors people acquire as a member of society. The authors give an in depth analysis on how human sexuality is looked at in all different situations.
Today’s young Americans face strong peer pressure to be sexually active and engage themselves in risky behaviors (Merino 100-109). Anyone deciding to have sex must first think about all the risks involved. Kekla Magoon, author of Sex Education in Schools, says that “half of all teens aged 15 to 19 years old in the United States have had sex” (Magoon 64-65). It is currently not required by federal law for schools to teach Sex education and those few schools that do teach Sex education have the decision to determine how much information is allowed. Advocates from both sides of the Sex education debate agree that teens need positive influences in order to make practical decisions (Magoon 88-89). Opponents of Abstinence-only education believe it fails because it does not prepare teens for all the risks of sex (Magoon 64-65).
Halperin, David. "Is There a History of Sexuality?." The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader. Ed. Henry
Milstein, Susan A. Taking Sides Clashing Views in Human Sexuality. Ed. William J. Taverner and Ryan W. McKee. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2009. Print.
Looking at our past, there have been dramatic changes in the way humans view sex. Long before the 1900s individuals framed their views based on the religious institution. Due to the fact that they strongly centered their idea of sexual thought on religion, they believed that the only purpose of having sex was to procreate. As the 1920’s approached, there were various factors that changed the way individuals viewed sex. The “new women” known, as flappers were women who were confident in who they were. They changed their attire as well as their social attitude. In the 1920s, the flappers redefined sex; customs and traditions were broken and new norms were created by society.
Sexuality is a fundamental part of our self-discovery, involving much more than just being genetically or anatomically male and female and it is not defined solely by one 's sexual acts (Ministry of Education 1989, p.79 cited in Gourlay, P 1995). The notion that sexuality is fixed and innate disregards the social aspects that impact ones’ sexualities. Gagnon and Simon (1973) further commented that sexuality is a feature of social
... decades ago. This book is one that will allow the reader to view many aspects of sexuality from a social standpoint, and apply it to certain social attitudes in our society today, these attitudes can range from the acceptance of lesbian and gays, and the common sight of sex before marriage and women equality. The new era of sexuality has taken a definite "transformation" as Giddens puts it, and as a society we are living in the world of change in which we must adapt, by accepting our society as a changing society, and not be naive and think all the rules of sexuality from our parents time our still in existence now.
A study conducted on teens in Sweden and the Netherlands showed that teens in those countries were just as sexually active, but the teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease rate was much lower. Researchers say this is due to sex education that begins in elementary school and continues on(Bender p.13). Only ten percent of American school-age youth participate in a comprehensive program lasting at least forty hours(deMauro p.89). Teens in America also score low on questionnaires based on sexual knowledge(Gordon p.
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.
Whereas, the Sexual Education program promotes safe sex and knowledge of the sex and it’s consequences. The motto would be, “Knowledge is Power.” As a result of this program has decreased the rate of unplanned pregnancy and sexual disease outbreak. This is why it is argued that Sexual Education should be taught in the public school system.
Martinez, Gladys, Joyce Abma, and Casey Copen. “Educating Teenagers About Sex In The United States”. CDC.GOV. Center of Disease Control and Prevention, 15 Sept. 2010. Web. 09 Feb.2014
The sexual revolution occurred in the second half of the twentieth century. It was caused by a variety of reasons such as the weakening of control of adolescent behavior, separation of sexuality from reproduction, and open appearance of different orientation. Furthermore, people ceased to perceive sex as something shameful and immoral. In this regard, there were many problems associated with the ignorance of the majority of people in matters of sexuality; consequently, government decided to impose a duty to explain to pupils basic reproductive processes and precautions on schools. Teaching a class of sex education would have sufficient benefits such as "lower teenage pregnancies, a decline in sexually transmitted diseases, more responsible thinking" (Blanton).
...tions and fifty percent of them were from young adults ages 15-24 (CDC). “Every year around nineteen million Americans get an STI infection and out of that nineteen million, nine million of them are young adults between the age 15 to 24” (STD Statistics). We want statistics like these to go down not stay the same or go up. They are not going to go down unless we do something about it. The more people getting viruses, the better chance our children are going to have sex with someone that has a virus and does not know it. There will be a domino effect passing viruses down from generation to generation if something does not change. It is a parent’s job to want the best for their children, education, health and knowing all about everything that can change their lives drastically. More sex education in schools could change the direction that people’s lives are heading.