Human Sexuality as the Capability of Individuals to Experience Erotic - Assignment Example

Sociology of Sexualities due: Introduction Human sexuality is defined as the capability of individuals to experience erotic and be able to express themselves as sexual beings (Hyde & DeLameck, 2006).My interest in this topic is because with time there has been a change in rules that control human sexual behavior and that the status quo in our contemporary society is much different as compared to an earlier state of conditions, and the change has brought with it some changes in human sexuality. Peoples view on virginity has changed greatly with most people not giving it much importance. Sexuality is essential to the economic, cultural, social and political organization of society or country. Our sexuality plays a fundamental role in all our lives regardless of age, sex or race. It forms a basic part of our personality and what we do. One’s sexuality also consumes much of their time through behavior or thoughts; at times every aspect of our lives seems to revolve around or sexuality. Studying sexuality is very important since human sexuality majorly contributes to social and also personal problems. A lingering question concerning this topic is to what extent is Virginity determined by Status quo and Rules Controlling Human Behavior? The importance given to virginity is something that has been constructed socially; with virginity among young women being more valued than virginity among young men. For young men and women losing their virginity seems to be a big issue because that is what they are brought up believing. This belief has been able to control human sexual behavior by making individuals wait till marriage before they engage in sexual activities. By shaping peoples behavior, it has enabled the society to avoid some of the social problems associated with sexuality. There are many reasons as to why various societies value and treasure virginity among unmarried women. The reasons include mens dominant character, religion and family values. In our past societies, women were subordinate to men. Men felt more superior and secure when they married a bride who was a virgin. The knowledge that no man had touched their bride apart from him gave a man great pride and satisfaction. Societies labeled virginity as being a symbol of decency, self-control and purity. Virginity was also highly valued because of the stigma that was associated with having a child out of wedlock. Young women were expected to remain being virgins so as to avoid getting pregnant because having a bastard child in a family was considered to be very shameful (Hyde & DeLamater, 2006) Our contemporary society is highly sexualized. Engaging in sexual activities is regarded as a rite of life to adulthood and those who do not have any sexual experience being considered as not being authentic adults; this has destroyed the former belief that was held with members of our societies regarding virginity. There are very few virgins left in our modern society, and the number decreases yearly. Some of the remaining virgins are keeping their virginity for the right partner, for marriage, or for a stable relationship; which is very admirable. Teenagers today lose their virginity because they are curious while most want to fit in the society and be viewed as being the "cool adults “since they are sexually active. Those who are virgins are usually stigmatized and perceived to have psychosocial and psychosexual problems. For those who are female virgins they are stereotypical viewed as being unattractive, unworthy, very religious and spinsterish. For males who are virgins they are viewed to be "losers" in the society, geeks, afraid of approaching the opposite sex or simply mamas boy. This notion about modern day virgins has caused many teenagers to be sexually active to prove themselves and be able to fit in (Avesian, 2013). In many articles written concerning mens view regarding female sexuality, majority have stated that women in their twenties who are still virgins were in the same level as children sexually and view them as not being complete adults (Papadopoulos, et al., 2000; Avesian, 2013). Some men have also claimed that they would not date a woman who is twenty and above and are still a virgin. They believe that those women have relationship and sexual problems making them be turned off. This reveals that our modern society no longer views virgins as being desirable. The same applies for men who are above twenty and still virgins. Women today find men who are more sexually experienced as being more attractive. The knowledge of sex actually acts as a great stimulus. It is also very difficult for male virgins to be viewed as adults in our societies. Men are expected to have a myriad of sexual relations by our society. When other men get to know that their male friend is still a virgin, they view him as still being a child and pressure him to engage in sexual activities so that he can be able to be initiated into adulthood. Both men and women have also proved to have a preference of someone who is sexually experienced and can be able to show them new skills. The movie "The Forty Year Old Virgin” also reveals how male virgins are being viewed. In the film, the principal character is a forty-year-old man who is jeered and belittled because he is a virgin. Because he is forty years old makes the situation even worse since his age is way passed the age the society thinks one should lose their virginity. Youths in Canada have joined the list of countries having more young girls, and boys who are sexually active around the globe Teens in Canada are losing their virginity at a young age; with some losing their virginity at the tender age of fifteen years. These trends have proved that Canada is joining countries like United States in having a high number of very young people being sexually active. The average age that teens are expected to lose their virginity is at 15.9 years old. The age of 15 is almost one year younger than the expected age. In the UK, teenagers get sexually active at the age of 15.3 while in Germany and France is 15.6 and 15.8 respectively (Canada News Wire, 2014). These trends reveal that more teenagers are getting sexually active globally with those teenagers who are sexually active at a much younger age having more sexual experience than those who start at a later age. The media, role models of teenagers and their peers have greatly contributed to the rise of sexually active teens. Teenagers are great imitators, and they learn best through observation. When the media plays movies and songs that contain sexual activities, this causes teenagers to think that sex is something that is cool and very pleasurable making them become sexually active at a much younger age. Pornographic films being available to teenagers cause them to want to practice what they see. Both men and women fancy the sex they see in pornographic movies. Pressure from the peers of teenagers who are already sexually active is one of the major causes of teenagers losing their virginity at an early age and also seeing their role models engaging themselves openly in sexual activities lure teenagers in becoming sexually active, seeing it as a means of getting great pleasure The days in which virgin females were considered to be more desirable to marry and were not at risk of getting pregnant, which would make them not to be candidates for marriage, are long gone. The augmenting technologies of reproductive health like contraceptives and condoms and also legalizing of abortion in the majority of countries has resulted to women manipulating their reproductive health and the number of unwanted pregnancies reducing. Modern women have the privilege of more sexual freedom than they formerly did, and the use of reproductive health technologies has been normalized. With female sexuality being separated from motherhood; this change has caused the value of virginity to reduce. With a very small number of teens waiting till marriage for, them to be sexually active with most of them not taking much concern with the consequences associated with being sexually active like being pregnant. Despite the fact that contraceptives are available for use by teenagers the social problem of unwanted pregnancies is still evident in our modern society. Most teenagers do not practice safe sex with most of them admitting to not using contraceptives such as Condoms during their first sexual intercourse. Those who do not use Condoms during their first intercourse are more likely not to use them in their future sexual experiences. Those who use condoms during their initial sexual experience are more likely to use them in their future sexual experiences (Canada News Wire, 2014). Most of the teenage pregnancies are always unplanned making the rates of childbearing and abortion very crucial in showing the degree to which teenage girls are capable of controlling their sexual and reproductive health. Today the number pregnant teenagers have decreased considerably. The decrease is however not because of an increase in the number of virgin teenagers. The continuous decrease in pregnancy among the teens is an indicator of increasing use of contraceptives, more teenagers being able to easily access reproductive health services, teenagers getting more sex education and change in social norms. All these provide support to young women enabling them to make their own reproductive choices (Canada News Wire, 2014). This has also resulted to the rates of childbearing and abortion among young women in Canada to decline more as compared to countries such as United States and England, where the decline has not been that great. United States and England have a high number of teenagers who are sexually active with most starting to practice sexual activities at the tender age. In America teenagers have easy access to contraceptives in most states apart from Texas and Utah, where before receiving contraceptives teenagers need to provide parental consent. In Texas, abortion is done when parents of the teen are notified and give their consent. These laws may prove to contribute to the slow decline of childbearing in United States (American Teens, 2014). The fact that several young women who are virgins in our societies has declined has resulted to some selling their virginity. This act has become quite popular today. Online advertisements for possible defoliators are not that shocking and have become common. An example is the German student known as Alina Percea, who was required to pay taxes because of auctioning off her virginity. Despite the fact that individuals are free to control their sexual behaviors and do what they please with their own bodies, auctioning off ones virginity is an act that is very shameful and shows no respect to human sexuality. Selling off their "first time “shows the extent to which modern girls do not value or treasure their sexuality (Hall, 2014) Some societies however view virginity with great importance. Members of those communities, especially womans value and treasure their virginity. Young women in Arab societies who have lost their virginity before marriage are faced with big problems of having committed this taboo of engaging in sexual activities before marriage (Abou & Sills, 2010). Some young Arab women who have lost their virginity before marriage go to a medical clinic in Paris and have their virginity restored through surgery. These young women take this step because they are likely to be ostracized and even murdered if their family members know they are not virgins. By having this surgery, they are able to save their lives and secure the future of being married and having a family in their societies. The surgery does not come cheap with some paying 2000 Euros to have their hymen restored; this however seems cheap to them considering the price they would pay if their secret got out. Those who have not been lucky with restoring their hymen through surgery have opted to committing suicide to escape the harsh punishment from their societies (Abou & Sills, 2010). With our society giving much importance to premarital sex and having multiple premarital sexual experiences before being considered as an adult has caused us to live in societies in which one of four teenagers have STDs and are even more exposed to HIV, which is a killer STD. Adolescents are mostly at a higher risk of getting infected with STDs and HIV since majority of them are not practicing safe sex and are engaging in sexual behavior at a young age (American Teens, 2014). Relevance to Sociology Various disciplines have different ways in which they view and explain human sexuality. Disciplines dealing with humanities focus on thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that are linked to human sexuality. Science focuses on creating and getting access to comprehensive explanatory theories. These disciplines include anthropology, sociology, biology, psychology, family studies and women studies (Hyde & DeLamater, 2006). Sociologically, sexual theories are based on the main assumption that an individual’s behavior is shaped by the society in which they live in with all their actions having being learnt socially. Sociology provides cultural learning as an explanation as to why we practice the sexual activities we engage in, where we chose to express ourselves sexually, when and how we express ourselves sexually and finally who we chose to be our sexual partners. With regard to virginity, our culture and status quo determine when we should lose our virginity. Sociology employs two frameworks in its study of sexuality. This includes: scripting theory and symbolic interactions. Symbolic interactions focus on how individuals construct their realities regarding sexuality. Their sexual realities in turn act as the foundations to their sexual practices and beliefs. The notion of the scripting theory is that our behaviors are influenced by detailed prior learning which educated us on the etiquettes of sexual behavior (Hyde & DeLameck, 2006). The key sociological organizations that greatly influence human sexuality include law, religion, medicine, economy and family. Each of the institutions has precise sexual discourse. The family, a social institution, is majorly concerned with the role of families in child bearing and giving support, norms that are associated with fidelity together with taboos that are associated with infidelity and incest. Family is also concerned with virginity and its importance and considers having sex out of wedlock as a taboo. When studying human sexuality, we can be able to look at it from different perspectives. These include the biological perspective, cognitive perspective and learning perspective. Hormones do not greatly influence human sexual behavior since human beings rely more on personal experience and cultural perspectives. Hormones and sexual behavior are mostly correlated when one is studying the sexual behavior of animals. When we view sexuality from a learning perspective, we are able to see that personal experience highly influences one’s sexual behavior since one is able to establish their preferences and that individuals brought up indifferent cultures have different sexual behavior. Examples being a young woman in the Arab society and another one brought up in United States have different views regarding virginity. Learning concept mainly deals with environmental factors and status quo which influence our behaviors. Behaviorism stresses on the significance of punishment and rewards during the learning process. The same notion can be used in learning of individual’s sexual behavior. When an adolescent is given the freedom of exploring their bodies without being criticized by their parents; they are then able to know what makes them feel good and continually do it. By doing so, they would have established their preferences (Hyde & DeLamater, 2006). Example being if adolescents are brought up believing that engaging in sex prior to getting married is a taboo and that they are consequences if they do engage in sexual activities before marriage then they are more prone to value and treasure their virginity. Young people’s sexual behavior is also shaped through observation. Books, pornography films and song greatly influence young people’s sexuality. Most people also have a tendency of copying the sexual behavior of their role models or celebrities and becoming sexually active at a tender age. The brains cognitive activity rapidly increases or stops the cycle of sexual response. Cognitive activity includes perception and evaluation. Perception comprises of detection, attribution and labeling. In detecting, an individual is capable of knowing if a stimulus is present or differentiate it from the rest of the stimuli. Labeling involves categorizing a stimulus event attribution explains the perception. All these affect sexual behavior; they may result to an individual being unable to note a sexual stimuli, wrong labeling and misattribution of sexual arousal. Evaluation involves distinguishing bad and good events. When an individual analysis a sexual stimulus as being good, such as having sexual relations with a partner who is sexually experienced, this will in turn augment sexual arousal, and when the sexual stimuli is analyzed as being negative, it greatly decreases the sexual arousal (Hyde and DeLamater, 2006). Conclusion Human sexuality is greatly influenced by the status quo and regulation that control human sexual behavior. Individuals tend to practice the current sexual activities in their societies and as for children brought up in the same societies follow what they see other people doing since they are great imitators. The reason as to why people lose their virginity at a younger age before they are married is because the modern society no longer values virginity and tends to belittle individuals who are still virgins and are above the age of twenty. With social norms changing in various societies’ sexuality, is also bound to change. References American Teens Sexual and Reproductive Health. (2014). Retrieved from http://www.guttmacher.org/Pubs/FB-ATSRH.html Abou, Najlaa & Sills, Linda (2010, April). The Virginity Industry. Retrieved from http://www.news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8641099.stm Avesian, Erica (2013, August 29). Guys Take On: Girls Who are Still Virgins. Retrieved from http://www.hercampus.com/love/dating-hooking/guys-take-girls-who-are-still-virgins Canada News Wire (2014, September 21). http://www.fact.on.ca/newpaper/Cw990921.html. Hall, Allan. (2014,July). Teen Who Auctioned her Virginity For 8000 Euros May Lose half. Retrieved from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1185928/Teen-auctioned-virginity-8000-lose-half-prostitutes-Germany-taxed-50earnings.html Hyde, J. & DeLamater, J. (2006). Understanding Human Sexuality (9th ed). Boston, MA:McGraw.Hill. Papadopoulos, N. G., Stamboulides, P., & Triantafillou, T. (2000). The psychosexual development and behavior of university students: a nationwide survey in Greece. Journal of Psychology & Human Sexuality, 11(4), 93-110. The 40 Year Old Virgin. (n.d.). Movies77. Retrieved July 29, 2014, from, http://www.movies77.net/watch-the-40-year-old-virgin-online.html Read More