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Sexuality as socially constructed
Sexuality as socially constructed
What effect does the sexualisation of children in media have on adults
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Typically sex is a source of pleasure-- but it is not without its dangers. Discuss some of the ways in which hegemonic constructions of sexuality and expressions of sexual desire can (and does) do harm. Can we reduce or eliminate the harm done? Sex used to be an act only done to reproduce. The act was done typically at night and in private. Sex was not something done for pleasure and it was not talked about in public. (Obtained through discussions in Dr. Steele’s lectures). Throughout the years society has changed its view on sex and where, when it is done and talked about. Sexually related things fill our media and lives almost 100% of the time. In today’s society sex has become something of pleasure when in the past it was not. Even though the sex in something of pleasure it comes with its negative effects that can do harm to someone and or to a group of people. There are so many types of negative effects that sex can bring. The negative effects that sex can bring onto a person or group can be physical and or mental. For instance the idea of “one virginity” has brought a lot of fear or guilt when someone losses their “virginity”. Before virginity was thought of as something sacred. Now that sex is an open topic and people openly talk about it and participate in the act, virginity has lost the idea of being sacred. Even though the loss of ones virginity has become more relaxed that doesn’t mean it doesn’t make some feel the fear or guilt of losing it. When some losses their virginity sometimes they think it was a mistake and sometimes it is taken from them through rape. This brings mental harm to the person(s) and has created this new term “second virginity”. This is where one thinks they can regain their virginity in many way...
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...ll into. In one case there was a female owned peepshow business. The entertainer came from all different types of social classes. The entertainers controlled how the danced and to who the entertained. Even though they still showed off their body they controlled the situation making it feel less like they were being used. (Tawnya Dudash, Peepshow Feminism, pg230-240).
Even though these industries offer entertainment for consumers and money for the CEOs and actors they leave a trail of negative effects on both the actors and society outside of the industries. The negative effects they have are present and can obviously been seen, so why are they still in business? That is the million dollar question. It seems that everyone claims money doesn’t talk, but with the evidence shown between these two industries and them having negative effects, that money truly does talk.
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.
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 the entertainment industry overpowers society, millions of people spend their time watching shows, movies and soap operas. How can the industry keep all the people satisfied? Many people get reeled in by the supernatural, so majority of todays industry revolves around the supernatural such as vampires, werewolves etc. . Taking vampires for example, vampires have become a huge part of teenage fictional literature and the entertainment business takes advantage of it and creates film adaptations of books such as “Twilight”. Since individuals are so hooked they rush to buy movie tickets to see the film, according to Del Toro and Hogan, “ In a society that moves as fast as ours, where every week a new “blockbuster” must be enthroned at the box office…” (323). In the end the entertainment industry uses the supernatural theme to make a great amount of profit and they keep making sequels and new movies rap...
...am Victorian society, sexual liberalism transformed the ways in which people arranged their private lives. Shifting from a Victorian environment of production, separate sexual spheres, and the relegation of any illicit extramarital sex to an underworld of vice, the modern era found itself in a new landscape of consumerism, modernism and inverted sexual stereotypes. Sexuality was now being discussed, systemized, controlled, and made an object of scientific study and popular discourse. Late nineteenth-century views on "natural" gender and sexuality, with their attendant stereotypes about proper gender roles and proper desires, lingered long into the twentieth century and continue, somewhat fitfully, to inform the world in which we live. It is against this cultural and political horizon that an understanding of sexuality in the modern era needs to be contextualized.
It is of particular interest to look at sexuality in relation to the modern daily life. What may seem abnormal and even abject in daily life is constitutive in human sexuality. It goes beyond normal functioning, rationality, and purposefulness, making sexuality inherently excessive. The discrepancy between the sexual and daily life connotes the otherness of sexuality. Freud mentions this in Three Essays on The Theory of Sexuality in his contention that perversion should be used a term of reproach: “no healthy person, it appears, can fail to make some addition that might be called perverse to the normal sexual aim.” Although he may have been focusing on the abnormal particularities in normal sexual life, this idea expounds ...
Sexuality is often looked down upon by mainstream society. Embedded into culture and tradition, sex itself has been made to be seen as a taboo of sorts. Prostitution was made illegal; pornography was made evil. Rooted deep within the teachings of the most common religious morality systems, sex and sexuality is often paired with punishments. Those who explore their sexuality is often shamed, and labeled with words that can ostracize such persons from society. Kant’s view of sexuality almost destroys his credibility as a philosopher by providing unclear and unreasonable points of sexuality and objectification, yet he remains keen on trying to prove that sex, outside of marriage, is the worst possible sin. However, there are those who believe that expressing sexuality is power, and is exercising autonomy. Many existentialists see sexuality as a means of self-expression, and to not be comfortable with sexuality shows that the person inhabits the morality of the sheep.
In The Introduction to the History of Sexuality, Foucault explains how during the 19th century with the raise of new societies, the discourse or knowledge about sex was not confronted with repulsion but it “put into operation an entire machinery for producing true discourses concerning sex” (Foucault 69). In fact, this spreading of discourse on sexuality itself gives a clear account of how sexuality has been controlled and confined because it was determined in a certain kind of knowledge that carries power within it. Foucault reflects on the general working hypothesis or “repressive hypothesis,” and how this has exercised power to suppress people’s sexuality. It has power on deciding what is normal or abnormal and ethical or unethical about sexuality. Through discourses of life and sexuality, power is exercised because humans learned how to behave in relation to sexuality, which method keep individuals controlled and regulated. This explains why people experience that sense of behaving inappropriate when we talk about sex in a different way than the whole society. Foucault points up how sexuality is not just treated in terms of morality, but it is a matter of knowledge and “truth.” However, these discourses, including sexual discourses are not true or false, but they are just understood to be the truth or falsehood to control society. As a result, sexuality begins to be explored in a scientific way, developing the “truth” science of sex (Foucault 69). For Foucault, he asserts that sexuality has developed as a form of science that keeps us all afraid of such phenomena, which people think to be true, thus this science helps society to discipline and control individuals’ behaviors.
The second part of the essay is call for reform from the current state of sexual ethics as it relates to the most vulnerable social group– teenagers. I conclude that current christian attempts within sexual ethics are failing teenagers and suggest ways in which my ordering of sexual ethics might prove more effective.
In my discussion I will be addressing three main issues that concern sexuality. The subjects are prostitution, premature ejaculation, and abortion. Although these topics concern different aspects of sexuality, I still chose to discuss them either because they relate to my sexual experiences, or because I wanted to further educate myself on the subject due to my lack of sexual experience and knowledge in the field.
Despite that we often think of sex and sexuality as going hand in hand in today’s society, if we look back in history we see a major distinction in many cultures. It is obvious that there has always been sex, otherwise I wouldn’t be here writing this paper, but sexuality is another matter. I interpret sexuality to be a distinct preference for some sexual act with a specific partner(s) free of outside pressure. In some places and periods of history this distinction was a component of a sexual behavior, others not so much, and sometimes it’s unclear. Take for example the arguments made in David Halperin’s “Sex before Sexuality” and John Boswell’s “Revolutions, Universals, and Sexual Categories” regarding the sexual nature of pederasty.
Milstein, Susan A. Taking Sides Clashing Views in Human Sexuality. Ed. William J. Taverner and Ryan W. McKee. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2009. Print.
A report published by the U.S Department of Health and Human Accommodations “suggests that as many as 50% of all adolescents are sexually active” (White, 2008, p. 349). A portion of those are puerile women who will become pregnant, adolescent men who will contract a sexually transmitted disease (STD) and teenagers who will suffer from emotional distress and regret. Albeit the majority concurs inculcation is the solution to this dilemma, one q...
Sex and relationship education (SRE) is supporting children through their moral, physical and psychological aspects of growing up to be an adult, and making sure they have knowledge on relationships, sex, human sexuality and sexual health (Sex Education Forum, 2010). There are three main elements in SRE, the first element is attitudes and values, which is about developing positive values and be able to consider moral issues before they make their decisions on having intercourse (Kirby, 2007). The second element is personal and social skills, which is about teaching children to have the confidence to value themselves and others to become respectful for individual conscience and the skills to judge the kind of relationship they want; the third element is about accessing the knowledge and understanding of human sexuality, reproduction, sexual health, emotions and relationships (Kirby, 2007). The potential effect of SRE should be seen in these three areas, which includes reduction in teenager pregnancy, and the chances of getting sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and being sexually assault, etc. As SRE can either be given at home to the child by parents, in school by teachers, or in youth organizations, alternative educational institutions, or youth offending organizations by Shine staffs or trained peer educators and volunteers (Levy 1992). This essay is mainly going to focus on the teacher-led SRE given in school and discuss whether it is beneficial or not, with the support of the positive outcome of children having SRE in relation of STDs, pregnancy and peer violence, and also the actual fact of SRE being not useful, supported with the data of teenagers not receiving the knowledge they should have been taught in SRE, and high te...
Gayle Rubin’s “Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality” focused on the history of sexuality and sexual persecution. Gayle Rubin recognizes the idea of sex as a natural force that exists prior to social life and which shapes institutions and society. First, Rubin, emphasizes the idea of negative sex, by showcasing views by other scholars. Rubin notes Foucault in his 1978 publication “The History of Sexuality”, as “sex as the natural libedo wearing to break free of social constraint” (Rubin, 149). This leads Rubin to her understanding of sex negativity. Sex, as Rubin depicts, is dangerous, destructive and a negative force and sex negativity is any negative sexual behaviour other than married or reproductive sex. Many Western religious believe that sex should only be for reproductive reasons and that pleasure and anything outside of martial sex should not be experienced. Third, Rubin goes on to construct the charmed circle, distinguishing good and bad sex. Resulting from sex negativity, Rubin develops an illustration of good and bas sex, better known as the charmed circle. Instances of bad sex include; casual,
So many topics were covered throughout this semester but this being a sex crimes class, majority of the class dealt with sex at least the negative aspects of what occurs with it. Sex is everywhere these days, even if you wanted to escape it there is no where you can go to get away from it. Whether it’s a sexual act, phrase, or action, sex has consumed most of our society and has been put in a highly negative way where people are ashamed to talk about. As our class has agreed upon on saying that we all believe that everyone is sexually unhappy. I do agree with this, but I just want to put it out there that as a virgin I believe that I am actually unaware of how this feeling of unhappiness arises or feels for those people that are sexually unhappy