My final say before midnight

My thinking has changed in all sorts of ways from this class. We didnt talk about anything I really hadnt heard of before. However, I found it very insightful to listen to everyones opinions. By listening it either enforced my opinions or made me think of something in a new light.I think the most signifigant take away learning from this class just how many various opinions there are on certain topics. Its hard to reall narrow in on one specific thing because I thought the whole journey of the class was one big take away learning experience. This class made me realize that there are people who are not as open about sex as I am and I just find it hard to believe and understand because my family,friends and boyfriend have been so open about it. I thouroughly enjoyed our class disscussions and found the talk about masturbation really interesting. I never really thought about how taboo it was to talk about it before. Its not something that I think needs to be disscussed on a daily basis or anything but I never thought about how people dont talk about it because there is a kind of shame attatched to it. Our disscussion on abortion was also interesting. The one guy in the back corner on your right..Justin is his name I think. Anyways he always had something insightful and interesting to say and i enjoyed listening to his opinions on our various disscussions. I really enjoyed this class and I'm sad it has come to an end. Thanks so much Rob! I feel so privleged to have taken part in your class. :)

Monogomy, Polygyny and Polyandry

We were asked in class awhile ago if we were naturally monogamous. I feel that we are strongly influenced by our culture and society. We are influenced so strongly that our culture and society seems natural. I know I consider my society and culture natural because I have grown up in the setting it has presented. Thus I feel monogomy is natural to me because I have grown up under that influence. However, if i grew up in a society that practiced polygny and polyandry then I'm sure I would feel that was how I was supposed to naturally act. I dont think we are naturally born with this idea that we are going to be with one person or even many this is something we learn from our external influences, such as, our family society, friends and so on. I think this is how it works in the animal world as well. Most animals live together in a pack and they are to follow and obey the leader. If the leader has sex with many, they will follow suit. Same goes for if they have sex with one the others will follow to stay a member of that pack.

The sesond part of the question asked in class was which is a mor common form of polygymy polygyny or polyandry. The answer is polygyny, the practice of many wives. I believe there is actually a tv show on tlc about it.The following is a link to their disscussion about it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytmOlq3Q1pM&feature=fvsr (Again the links dont seem to wanna work so just copy and paste it into the tool bar and it should work for you)
There are a few video clips and I just find it interesting that it is something they all chose and something they are allright with. I know I wouldnt like it I want to be the only wife to my future husband. However it does not bother me that not everyone practices that.

The Relationship Market Place

I liked how you reffered to looking for someone as the relationship marketplace. So I thought I would expand on that analogy. When you go to the marketplace to pick out fruit you are initially drawn to the prettiest looking fruit whether it is a shiney apple or a yellow pear. They may look pretty but perhaps upon closer examination they are bruised or rotten. Perhaps you realize that you dont like them at all and would much prefer a peach. You may decide on the peach and carry it through the store for quiete sometime but as you near the cashier and she rings through you peach, you realize that it costs more then its worth at this point in time or maybe forever. Eventually you will search through the marketplace again searching for the perfect one.

Willow Smith, "I whip my hair"

I think this is quiete possibly the worst song I have ever heard.
One because it is an extremely annoying song and secondly it is a 10 year old girl singing about "whipping" her hair. Its one thing when children of this age are listening to this music and an entirely different situation when they are singing about it. They are publically singing about promiscuous things they don't even realize they are singing about. Not to mention that the music industry is doing nothing to stop it. In fact it seems like they are promoting it. I just find it crazy that this is in the public eye and could very well be played at a bar. A ten year olds song playing in a bar, thats just insane.Not to mention the dancing she does in the video. Its just insane that she is 10years old and people are allowing her to dance and sing about things that are way above herage level. I dont really have much else to say about this besides how crazy I feel that it is. I think more needs to be done so this sort of thing does not continue on in years to come. Here is a link to the song so you can take a listen to it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymKLymvwD2U (you will have to copy paste this link in the toolbar for it to work because for some reason it doesnt want to work)

Prostitution

I found it intriguing to hear that they are now calling prostitues sex trade workers. Im not really sure what I think of this actually. Changing the name and calling it a trade makes it seem like its an ok thing for people to do. It confuses me because I dont really know if i consider prostitution wrong. I mean I wouldnt do it myself, but if someone else chooses to sell there body what makes that wrong? If both people are willing its not rape.However, I want to make it extremely clear that I think there is an extreme difference between people who want to engage in prostitution and children and women who are forced into it and used as a sex slaves.However, I want to point out that there are women who chose to take that route. So the next question is why do some women want to sell their body? I believe this want that some prostitutes have, is largely influenced by this heavily thrown about concept of sex. I know there are some women who feel they must meet a mans sexual desires and they have no objection against it. So who are we to tell them that their beliefs are wrong? Thinking deeper into it I wonder if it is wrong to most people cuz the element of money is involved in it. I think of this because there are people who will sleep around with lots of people just for the fun of it but they have more dignity then a prostitute and the only thing that seperates them is this concept of money. It really is curious why does money make something so wrong. I mean it seems like society is somewhat testing our limits. In the movie get him to the greek the main character states what is the point of being monogamous when there are soo many women out there.So why is somewhat less of a problem for people to go to a bar every weekend and come home with a different guy each time, then it is to get money for doing that? Is it because somehow it reflects on society as a whole? This issue about what to do about prostitution is so complicated and incorporates many elements in life. If you wanna stop prostitution you have to stop strip clubs, porn, and sexual exploition. Well it is nearly impossible to shut down all of those things. I mean just think about the media they stem around this sex sells idea. They make a lot of money off of it just a prostitutes make money from having sex. Our society contradicts itself because in a round about way we are promoting it yet at the same time we are saying its wrong.You can have someone tell you prostitution is wrong then go listen to a song they like thats about banging bitches(excuse my language)Prostitutionhas stemed from many other influences and to get rid of prostitution you would have to get rid of all the other things that cause it. With such a complicated issue I believe more needs to be done to control it. Because as we know just because people are told something is wrong doesnt mean they are not going to do it. The people who sell and buy prostitution need to be given other oportunities to fulfill there wants in a way that is not harmful to either person

Sex Ed

If I were to teach sex ed I would go about it in a different way then when I was taught. In highschool we were taught sex ed only in grsde 9. I found it reallyakward because it was boys and girls.It seemed like the teacher was rushing to cover both sexes. I also didnt like that there was a heavy focus on drugs. It seems like from grade 5 onward there was constant disscussion about drugs. I heard stories ranging from people peeling their skin off because they thought they were an orange, all the way to videos of coke addicts showing their scars. When I was told about the lady trying to peel her skin off in grade 5 because of drugs, it was engrained in my brain that I would never touch them.So if I were to teach sex ed in a highschool setting I would keep it segregated and teach it much like this class. I would focus not so much on sexual intercourse but all the elements that are apart of sex and sexuality. I would have to say that this class has been the most beneficial human sexuality course I have been in. I believe that the disscussion of homosexuality needs to be disscussed in highschool. There is so much bullying related to it that there needs to be talks about it in a sex ed class rather then just not talking about it. Because I believe that is only making the problem worse. I think if I taught sex ed I would be able bring something new to the table that my teachers didnt.

My comfort zone

Today in class we were asked what arecontours, or limits for our comfort level? and why? I have never really thought about it before. I feel Im fairly open and feel very comfortable in most settings.I suppose if I were to focus on perhaps my limits on sex I am a little uncomfortable with the idea of sex toys and such. I was a bridesmaid at my cousins wedding and for part of her bachelourette party we had a passion party. I didnt mind it but i personally dont understand why its called a "party" all it was was a lady trying to sell sex toys.So I think that leads into my discomfort a bit. It feels very natural for me to talk about sex I have had with another person. However, to talk about how a vibrator made me feel or something like that just seems really weird to me. I would probably be really uncomfortable if someone were to randomly just talking about their sex toys or something like that. I feel its so personal that no one needs to know.On a slightly different note it makes me uncomfortable when older men flirt with me. It just creeps me out when someone the age of my dad comes through my til, and says you know you are extremely beautiful. Its like thanks for the compliment but I find it inappropriate.While watching the little clip from kink I didnt feel uncomfortable at all I realize people have different kinds of relationships and sexual relationships. So didnt feel the least bit surprised or uncomfortable. Except for when the one couple was packing a bunch of their sex toys. I was just thinking do you need all those? But everyone explores sex in different ways. My comfort levels are pretty high and someone would have to do something really out of the normal for me to feel extremely uncomfortable

Abortion

Abortion is a very sensitive topic. While discussing it in class I realized that there are endless amounts of opinions and one little thought can skew your whole opinion. I personally do not agree with abortion l except if you have been raped or your life is in danger. But even then I am apprehensive because who am I to decide on whether or not that potential life/life is less important or will have a bad life. The fact is you can’t. I strongly believe that everything happens for a reason and if I became pregnant it was meant to be. I’m not saying I don’t take precautions or feel I am even ready to take care of a child but if I did become pregnant then I would fit my life accordingly. I wouldn’t just terminate my pregnancy because it was an inconvenience for me to have a child at this time. I feel that sometimes abortion is just a quick fix for people a form of birth control. If you are not ready to have a baby, don’t have sex. I know saying that seems easier said then done but there is a big difference between want and ready. I think that if you engage in sex there is a part of you that has to be mentally aware and accepting that you could become pregnant. Once you think about this you really have to view it in a cost benefit sort of manner. You need to question yourself, what will happen if I become pregnant could I handle that? Could I work my life around that? If you find that in no way are you mentally prepared for that possible chance then you don’t have sex. I know this is how I decided when it was right for me to engage in sexual activity. I think abortion allows a woman to play “god” in a way and that’s not how life is supposed to be. This thought reminds me of my English class and the notion that how you take away the aspect of death, what would keep you from committing acts of evil? I relate this idea to abortion because if you can have sex without the worry of being pregnant, how are we going to form a type of responsibility for our actions. Since more or less abortion is removing the consequences for our actions. It’s a touchy subject and a lot of aspects are involved including all of Haberma’s Paradigms. You can look at it in each sense, (critical theoretical empirical analytical and situational interpretive) and come up with different ideas and opinions for each of those modalities. I believe that it is something that has to be debated on a very sensitive and in depth level.

Attractiveness

What determines attractiveness?Is it your face shape? What you wear how your voice sounds? Well it could be all those things and more. It is said attractiveness can be taken in 3 forms, Beauty, Non physical, and long term. We intitially are attracted to someone because of their looks wether they have awesome hair a nice smile and a fabulous body, We as humans all look for similiar attributes but to each individual these attributes are judged differently. Attraction can be broken down into 3 different categories, Beauty, Non-physical traits and longterm. If you were to consider your relationship right now or assess how you get into a relationship you would find that all the qualities could fit under these categories. In order to want to be with someone you have to be physically attracted to them. Then in order to contines the relationship or perhaps even engage the relationship there has to be certain qualities in that person that you are attracted to. For example I am attracted to my boyfriends humour and outook on life. If the relationship goes well then you start looking for qualities that are more long term. For example what are their dreams and aspirations do they want kids? where do they want live? and that kind of thing.Our attraction for someone can diminish over time essentially because they are not meeting one or more of your desires in any of these categories. Attraction is a funny thing it can range from shallow to deep and you never know where it may ultimately take you

Gender and Justin Bieber

I was thinking about gender the other day, and how we learned that gender is learned rather then assigned like sex. This made me think of Justin Bieber. I often here comments towards Justin Bieber in a negative way. People will say things like he sings like a girl maybe he will be better when his voice drops. Now i would have to agree that his voice probably would sound a lot better if it dropped down a bit. Due to this comment i realized that the main reason a majority of people dont like Justin Bieber, is because he is to "feminine". Our society has a specific set of standards your required to meet for a specific gender role. If you dont meet these requirements you are bashed for it. This is not to say that everyone dislikes Justin Bieber, there are many who do like him. However I assume that a majority of his fans are indeed females. I believe more females like him because he shows a more feminine side. However this is what causes more males to dislike him. Males may not even realize that the underlying reason they may dislike Justin Bieber, is because he doesnt fit the specific gender role, that has been established for a male. The media most often wants to portray males in the most manly way and females in the most feminine way as possible. Perhaps because most people look up to celebrities for their gender ideals. I think this is why their is so much love and hate for Justin Bieber. Males dont want to aspire to be Justin Bieber. But perhaps for females this is what they aspire their "ideal" man to be. Our society is based on these gender roles and ideals we have to be able to seperate what we want from what society wants so we can better assess who we want to be.

My opinions about Sexy inc: Children Under the Influence

Today in class we watched a video about young children, who are being influenced in a certain sexual or "sexy" manner. I agree that in certain cases there are young children acting or dressing way older then they should be. However i think in this video they went a little over the top. There was one lady talking about a bra for a young girl saying it was sexually seductive and that no little girl should have a pink lacy bra with buttons on it, because it was seductive.Last time i checked my 10 year old sister doesnt want pretty bras because she wants to seduce boys. Little girls want a bra thats pretty because it helps them feel happier about their body. When a young girl is developing breasts they rend to be insecure about their changing body.So why would they not want to cover it up with something they consider sparkley or pretty. Having this sparkly bra in essense is letting the little girl that she is pretty and that her browing breasts is not something gross or bad.Secondly getting a bra is a part of growing up. A little girl essentialy wants to be like her mommy. She wants to develop full breasts and cover them in a way that makes them feel good about their appearance. If the little girl feels her mom is pretty or just in general a little girl wants to copy their mom. I think if they are going to be all technical they may as wellsay that giving a child a doll to play and take care of, is teaching them to be seductive. For when you give your little girl a doll your trying to teach her to look after it and be a "good mommy". Of course since your teaching her to be a mommy, the little girl now automatically thinks she is to go have sex and make a baby. Of course your not implying this nor does your daughter even think that.The same goes for when she mentions the girl on the bag to clearly be a prostitue. A little 5 year old is not going to go omg mommy a prostitute! The 5 year old should not even have access to this vocabulary. Perhaps what im getting at is that children interpret sexuality the way their parents go about it. A child is not even going to know what porn is most likely until you tell them. In fact i was discussing this with my mother and my little sister asked "whats porn?" My mother said nothing more but it is " naked people who could be having sex, not a nice thing" I believe that depending on how a parent approaches such topic as this really molds how a child is going to act. If the parent does not make a big ordeal about how wrong or how it is slanderous to women etc etc the child will dismiss it and deem it as unessecary. It is like the Gender Schema theory, the child processes what you have said about porn and reacted to it and from saying it is "not nice" or "icky" the child comes to the conclusion that porn is bad and not something they should do. Without realizing it this simple act has shaped how the child portrays there gender. I think that the women and men in this video were far to paniced about all the sex that is around younger children when most dont pay attention to the meaning of it all. I do agree that some children fall into it but that is when a parent needs to step in and say "dont do that it is inappropriate because...." I believe that if the parents intervene and guide their children through all the sex that it is out there, children wont lose their childhood.

Commonalities and Differences in Sexuality

I have created a type of online poster to demonstrate the commonalities and differences in human sexuality here is the link http://jessrawr.glogster.com/human-sexuality/

Sexual Response

Today I thought you might enjoy something a little more exciting then reading about my thoughts on sexual response. So I have created a video of an interview with Rosemary Basson. Her opinions are based on the way I thnk she would react in this kind of interview. Just to warn you since it is a computer some of the words may be pronounced a little funny but i think you will get the idea. So sit back and enjoy. http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/7405363/

Love the way you lie

The following is a link to the song I am disscussing in this blog http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uelHwf8o7_U&ob=av3e

Today I want to talk about the song "love the way you lie" by Eminem ft. Rihanna. I feel that this is an extremely powerful song. This song quite clearly discusses physical and mental abuse, however there is a sort of deepness spilling out of this general idea of the song. In my opinion what makes this song deeper is the fact it has both perspectives. Eminem is singing as the abusive boyfriend however if you listen to the lyrics its as though he cant help himself. A particular lyric that shows this uncertainty and confusion of his actions is "As long as the wrong feels right It's like I'm in flight." This is his justification to his actions, even though he knows his action may be wrong he doesn’t care as long as it feels "right". At the end of the video it shows him burning up as well as his abused girlfriend. At first I was confused by this as the girlfriend is the one being abused. However, I think that him burning up shows how he is also abused by himself. He is tormented inside as if he has two parts of his mind that are in constant battle. I’m not in anyway justifying him or any other person who physically or mentally abuses. I am more or less just making it aware that the abuser does have a tormented mind as well; otherwise they wouldn’t commit the act in the first place. While looking into this further I realized that there are indeed 3 ways to look at this as we learned in class, scientifically, politically, and personally (empirical analytical, critical theoretical, situational interpretive). If we were to look at an abuser scientifically we would research and decide that something was mentally wrong and they had some sort of “disease” not to make this sound like a bad way of viewing a person its just a very straightforward manner in viewing a person and only considers facts. Looking at an abusive person in a political way pry’s a little deeper deciding perhaps there is more to this maybe the person is acting out because something is going on with their specific cultural group, or perhaps the media has influenced him in some way. Then on a more personal level they would look at the abusers childhood, home life, etc. to see if perhaps they were physically abused. I believe that you need to take all 3 views into consideration when analyzing someone and there behavior.
As the song continues you can see the typical process of how an abusive relationship works. The relationship could be going good for awhile then it takes a turn for the worst and the abusive member of the relationship will act out and the abused person will leave. However, in most cases a false apology can bring the abused back and in extreme cases, this could be there last . I think this is shown in the very explicit lyrics "I apologize even though I know it's lies I'm tired of the games I just want her back I know I'm a liar If she ever tries to fucking leave again I'mma tie her to the bed and set the house on fire". He knows he is a liar but he doesn’t want her to leave because he "loves her". In reality what he loves is the control he has over her. The lyrics that Rihanna sings are very powerful because it is usually how an abused person looks at the situation. Rihanna sings " Just gonna stand there and watch me burn that’s alright cuz I like the way it hurts Just gonna stand there and hear me cry But that's alright because I love the way you lie I love the way you lie I love the way you lie". The abused person feels helpless and hurt but feels its ok because they love their "abuser" and the abuser “loves” them. This as you may see creates a very destructive circle that can ultimately lead to mental and physical death. Perhaps even a mental death of the abuser. Because when you think about it, if the abuser causes a physical death out of pure hatred, you could argue that they have killed part of their mind.


As a little side note i wanted to comment on the song title, love the way you lie. You could first think that she loves the way he lies to her and secondly you could think that she loves the way he lies beside her. I think its neat to think of it in both contexts.

Perspectives

About a day ago when i was i human sexuality, we were asked what perspectives people may have on sexuality.
I began to think of different perspectives that people could and do have. Off the top of my head i thought that some people view sexuality in a very cultural way. Some countries are far more open with the type of clothing they wear....or dont. While in other countries it is a must to cover up and respect ones body. As i thought of this it opened up other view points such as, family,age, friends,media,government and so on can all influence your own perspective on sexuality. With this in mind i wondered what my perspective on sexuality was. After mulling it over in my mind i realized that i view sexuality in many different ways, because I am exposed to so many influences. I am very open to say disscussing sex with my parents. Some people are very uncomfortable talking about that sort of thing with their parents and find it foreign that I do so. However, my parents have been open ever since I was little so as i grew older it just became common ground. I think the media plays a very big part on my views simply because i see what the media thinks as appropriate. In seeing that i am able to decide for myself if im comfortable with that view of sexuality or i find it degrading or so on which helps add to my views on sexuality.

I believe that by the end of this class my views will have expanded and changed as i learn more about sexuality as a whole