Discussion about Statements Regarding Human Sexuality - Research Paper Example

2 May Discussion about ments Regarding Human Sexuality When it comes to love and human sexuality, several phrases can state matters that people can relate to or cannot relate to. The following is a discussion about a few simple statements about love, relationships and sexuality. I will describe my personal thoughts on each one and will talk about each statement more in depth. One statement is, “Loving someone is different from being ‘in love’ with them.” I believe this statement and completely agree with it. There are times when a person loves their family but they are obviously not in love with them. There are also instances in which people are together and still care about each other but they just simply do not feel in love. They have lost the passion in their relationship and the desire to consider to get married or stay married is no longer present. One example of this is a man and a woman who are married and have children together. They may always have love for each other because each other are the reason that their kids exist. However, they may find that they simply cannot function in a loving and healthy relationship any longer. An example of someone trying to explain this is explained by Evan Marc Katz, a man who is a dating coach for women. When asked by someone about how his girlfriend of over two years put their plans on hold and told him that she loved him but said she was not ‘in love’ with him. According to Katz, he states that it is a label. He states that to be “in love” is often synonymous to people who have a feeling of chemistry. He said that people often acknowledge when someone just feels right for them. He also acknowledges that sometimes it can be an illusion. Some people who have been together for a very long time may have felt the chemistry many years ago but somehow manage to stay in love for a whole lifetime (Katz). Some people either just know that they are meant together or know that they should move on. It is a simple phrase that is used a lot. According to an article discussing this same statement by Thomas Moore, it states that some people do that that to be in love is an illusion. However, these people also think that it will only be detrimental because people cannot make good decisions when in that point. People should take love and enjoy it. Some obstacles in life break people apart and others bring them together. Being in love can just feel like an elated state. It does not always mean that being in love always dies out. In a relationship, you can also love a person and be in love with them (Moore). Sometimes, however, the spark to be together just dies out but caring for that person never stops. In the second statement, “Self-love is necessary before we can love someone else,” this is another statement I agree with. Sometimes when I have struggled or been kind of an emotional mess, I had a hard time loving myself. Loving myself gives me confidence. When it comes to dating and making an emotional attachment and falling in love with another, we have to be satisfied with who we are. It is hard for another to love us if we do not love ourselves. It is a different situation before a relationship than after one begins. After one begins, no matter what you are feeling, that person will already have a strong love for you before you reach a time of personal struggle. They can help you through that time by loving you unconditionally. However, when getting to know someone at the beginning, you have to be comfortable with yourself before someone else can be comfortable falling in love with you. Ilana Donna Arazie also agrees with this statement. She states, “No one is ever going to love you more than you love yourself.” She said that that no one else will ever be into you or in a relationship with you until you are completely into yourself. She encourages that people get in touch with their real selves. She suggests that even doing things for personal development like taking classes, meditating or doing yoga can help a person become more mindful and connect with themselves. What it takes to land a partner who is going to love you back is complete self-confidence (Arazie). In response to Arazie’s theory, Dr. Mark D. White disagrees in part with her. He believes that you have to remember humility. Self-confidence in a relationship is good but sometimes people do not want to feel overly prideful. White is one of these people and he said that despite this, he feels fully capable of loving others. Though he does recognize that if a person does not like themselves very much would be a turn off in a new love, there still has to be a balance. A new love is not ever going to blossom with someone who is a self-absorbed narcissist who only cares about themselves (White). White has some good points in this so it is important to realize that there is a difference in a relationship when someone is confident and when someone is cocky. To love oneself too much makes it hard for someone to care for another because they are too focused on themselves. I think it is important to be confident and love yourself before someone is going to love you because you cannot rely on someone else to make your happiness. You have to make it for yourself. In a third statement, “You always like someone you love,” there are some ways that I agree and some that I disagree. I think that underlying love is the fact that you always will like someone. However, there might be times when a couple are in a disagreement and they might not like each other very much at that given point but it does not mean that they have stopped loving each other. On the other hand, sometimes when it comes to a lost love, someone can love someone very much still even though their partner has left them heartbroken. There might be an aching desire and love for that person but there also might be a strong resentment for that person who you feel tore you up and left you. To start off discussing this in terms of supportive text, there is a quote that was used by Mary Jo Rapini before starting her discussion about liking someone you love. The quote said, “Lust is easy. Love is hard. Like is most important,” and Carl Reiner is attributed to saying it. Rapini said that sometimes a partner may begin to do things that are annoying to the other partner. There may be parts about that partner that you simply find that you do not like. Rapini acknowledges that sometimes when someone is feeling negative about themselves, that is when they start to dislike their partner and people start to see things that they have never seen before. When this starts to happen, a partner may start putting less effort into a relationship. People may never fall out of love but may fall out of like and she attributes many divorces to this because couples have told her so. Relationships take time and care and it is possible to love someone and just not like to be around them (Rapini). Timmy Gibson gives a point of view from a religious perspective. When considering whether or not you can love someone you don’t like, he believes you can. He takes quotes from the Bible from Matthew 5:43-48, “You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbor’ and hate your enemy. But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father and heaven.” Gibson said that it can be possible to be kind to friends as well as love others because it is rewarding. While it does not completely apply to lovers, it does apply to friendships and when people are lovers, they are also obviously friends. However, sometimes lovers are not always the enemy. The fourth statement to discuss is: “Jealousy shows that a loving relationship has depth.” I do not agree with this statement. Jealousy is a sign of weakness. It is also an attribute of people who do not like themselves very much or have confidence. Jealousy is almost a term associated with control. Though it can make a person feel better about themselves to know that they can make them jealous, it is not something that requires depth. People can be barely dating and getting to know each other and the minute that a man turns his head and looks a little too long at an attractive woman, the woman he is with can start to feel jealous. This can even happen on a first date and it certainly is not a relationship that has depth from the get go. I think actually that if people can get beyond jealousy, they actually have more depth because they are secure in their relationship. Dr. Raj Persaud disagrees and says that sometimes jealousy is one of those things that can actually keep a relationship healthy. He states that in research he had uncovered, people who had shown jealousy while dating were actually more likely to get married than if there had not been jealousy present in the relationship. He suggests that a little bit of jealousy can be stimulating. Some therapists now acknowledge that if a partner is completely not jealous, it is a signal that there is no real passion within the relationship (Persuad). I do not know that I buy into that theory. Passion is one thing but jealousy can be absolutely horrible and a complete indicator of someone’s insecurities. If people are insecure in their relationship, chances are that they are not happy in them either. Sometimes a person may be insecure about something else in their life that makes them feel uncomfortable. It might not necessarily be their relationship but maybe it was a person’s upbringing and a woman’s father used to look at women and then he started to cheat on her mother. Jealousy is identified as one of the most common issues in a relationship. Sometimes because of this, it is just pushed aside and ignored. However, it is an issue that couples should take seriously depending on what is motivating it. If jealousy occurs a lot, it is something to address or it might be time to move beyond that relationship if the two people are not comfortable with each other (Buono). The fifth statement to address is that “Secrets are okay to have even in a loving relationship.” I agree with this statement to a degree. Some things that are little white lies are okay to hide. Sometimes if it is something that is really small and a person knows it will create a big stir, it is best to just leave it alone and never tell it. Some things that a person might keep to themselves are things that make them feel completely insecure or might make their partner insecure. There are times when a person might put off telling someone something that was really major in their life. Being in a loving relationship does not necessarily mean that people are completely committed to one another. A loving relationship still in the early stages may not be the time to divulge all of a person’s deepest darkest secrets. It does not mean that a relationship is not a loving one but it just means that the time is not right to tell that person. There are some secrets that could really hurt someone or make them jealous or make them worry. Perhaps a person was raped when they were a child. That is a difficult scenario to discuss and it may take a while for a person to tell everything about that situation. Someone may have had several one night stands in their past and that is another secret that their partner may not need to know. It could create an insecurity even if it is something that is way in the past. If a person has been intimate with someone that they know, it is one thing to tell them. It is another thing to tell them every little single detail about the encounter. That is the kind of information and secrets that someone should definitely keep to themselves in a loving relationship. It does mean that a couple loves each other any less or that they are trying to be deceptive. It just could bring up some really big insecurities that did not exist before. The possibilities of things that could lurk in a person’s closet are endless. Should you tell your partner you have herpes? Yes. Should you tell them that you snooped through their phone? No. One of the most common reasons that people end their relationship is because of dishonesty. The one major reason that people are dishonest, ironically, is that they actually do not want to hurt their partner or lose them. There is no black or white response when determining whether or not a secret should be told in a relationship (Becker-Phelps). The sixth statement is one that I do believe. It is a sad statement but I do think that it is true. This is that “Some relationships should end even when there is still love.” When it comes to a person’s growth, sometimes there are some paths that they have to walk alone. It is unfortunate to lose a partner in order to do so but sometimes people have to walk away from someone even though they love them. In some instances, a person might be emotionally or physically abusive. There might still be love in that relationship but there is not enough love in someone’s heart to stay and be a victim. Sometimes people say that all you need is love. However, love is not always what it takes to make a relationship work and for both people to still be happy. A person can still be in love with someone but may start to feel broken, may feel like they are not growing and are losing their identity, may have lost sight of happiness and dreams or have lost their self-esteem. It is in those situations, it might be best to just let go (Soriano). No matter how much two people love each other, deep down they may know that there is someone else that is best suited for them. To truly love someone is to let them go if they need to. I have looked at many different statements in regards to relationships. Using my own experiences and what I have learned about relationships and human sexuality, I have come to my own conclusions on many of them. Many people have dilemmas in relationships and sometime it just takes a simple reflection to figure out the answers to these common statements. Works Cited Arazie, Illana Donna. “The Real Deal on Finding Love.” Finding Zen in the City. Psychology Today. 28 April 2010. Web. 3 May 2014. Becker-Phelps, Leslie. “Is it OK to Have Secrets in Your Relationship?” The Art of Relationships. WebMD. 4 January 2012. Web. 3 May 2014. Buono, Anthony. “Is Jealousy a Relationship Killer?” Ask Anthony. 6 Stone Jars. 18 May 2012. Web. 3 May 2014. Gibson, Timmy. “Can You Love Someone You Don’t Like?” Life + Religion + Relationship. Timmy Gibson. 11 April 2012. Web. 3 May 2014. Katz, Evan Marc. “Is it Okay to Love Someone But Not Be ‘In Love’?” Chemistry. Dating Coach-Evan Marc Katz. n.d. Web. 3 May 2014. Moore, Thomas. “How Do You Know It’s Love?” Beliefnet.com. n.d. Web. 3 May 2014. Persaud, Raj. “Why Jealousy Works Wonders for Your Love Life.” Mail Online. Associated Newspapers, Ltd. n.d. Web. 3 May 2014. Rapini, Mary Jo. “I Love You, but I Don’t Like You Anymore.” Love and Relationships. The Houston Chronicle. 29 September 2011. Web. 3 May 2014. Soriano, Joyce. “Should You End a Relationship Even If You Still Love Each Other?” I Take Off the Mask! 16 August 2011. Web. 3 May 2014. White, Mark D. “Loving Yourself-How Important Is it?” Maybe It’s Just Me, But… Psychology Today. 29 April 2010. Web. 3 May 2014. Read More