These games strengthen the separation of gender while at the same time breaking it. In these games, children of different gender play together breaking the unspoken gender rule that separate the two groups. By giving boys the role of men in the society and attempting to recreate the role of both parents in these games further anchor the perceptions of belonging to one gender on the young children. Educational institutions also serve as moral institutions that reinforce the commonly held beliefs about sexuality in mainstream society.
In any society there are a number of beliefs about what each sex should behave like. Nudity for example becomes a matters of concern for educational institutions and especially so for girls. Most schools advocate for girls to cover up most of their skin as that is what society expects of them. Practices in school that reinforce the belief that girls should keep their bodies covered include separate bathrooms for the sexes. One of the negative effects on sexuality later in life means some girls are afraid to expose their nudity even in legitimate contexts.
Since people in educational institutions are young and have relatively lesser knowledge about the world than adults, they rely on the perception of their tutors to form their own opinions. It is rare to find a teacher unbiased on matters of sexuality (Millington and Wilson 2010). Most tutors lean towards heterosexuality, the dominant sexual orientation in today’s society. Therefore most tutors will intentionally or unintentionally influence their students into taking attitudes that are biased towards other sexual orientations.
Tutors influence sexual identity by associating negative aspects of field of study with one gender or sexual orientation. Sexual stereotypes are also formed and cultivated in educational institutions How do Media institutions shape sexual identity? The media is sometimes referred to as the gatekeeper of society. It is the gatekeeper as it is supposed to provide information that preserves the morality of society. The media can influence the formation of identity in a number of diverse ways.
The means by which media shape sexual identity include the content of the information the media presents to individuals, the context and the way the media portrays the information (Carstarphen and Zavoina 1999). With recent development in mass communication the media is among the social institutions that greatly shape sexual identity. The diversity of the media means it spawns countless messages regarding sexuality on a daily basis. According to Braun (2009), the media advocates for a perspective of life, that views sexual identity in a different light.
Magazines, television, adverts, movies and television provide different guidance on sexual identity. Nevertheless, the media is actively involved in opposing traditionally established views on sexuality. Among the factors that shape sexuality in the media includes nudity (Costa, Braun and Birbaumer 2003). Nudity can be described as the act of showing inappropriate body parts in the wrong context. The media today contains advertisements or programs that show near naked people almost on a daily basis (Millington and Wilson 2010).
Individuals today are exposed to various degree of nudeness in the name of advertisement or media programs. Most magazines contain glossy images of semi-nude or nude women. This constant exposure to nudity has a profound effect on sexual identity of most individuals especially children. Nudity is now more embraced in society and is increasingly being accepted as the norm in modern society. A second factor of media that shapes sexual identity is gendered character representation in the media (Mackie 2008).
In modern society there are certain individuals who are regarded as celebrities whose lifestyles many envy and hope to emulate. The character of these people shapes the sexual identity of people who strive to emulate them. For some people they have to follow the exact lifestyle of their icons.
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