Female Sexuality Female sexuality has been a controversial subject that plays a crucial role in our everyday lives. There is a constant double standard women face. In terms of sexuality both males and females are more similar than society deems them. It begins with parents; they have a great impact on how their daughters view sex and their own sexuality. Also female sexuality is considered taboo when they become mothers. There is a never ending battle of hypocrisy that women face when it comes to sexuality. These problems are influenced by gender roles, socialization, and even religion. It is considered a conquest for men to have many sexual encounters. We as women are considered sexual objects but are expected to be virtuous. When a woman is open about her sexual desires and needs, she is condemned or depicted as a slut. A woman withholding sex is considered a prude. These common clichés that women face are degrading and allows us to see how flawed the system is. Parent’s sexual beliefs impact their children’s sexuality and view on sex, they learn from what they see and are told. What they learn remains with them. When a female becomes a mother, her lifestyle usually changes. Society doesn’t seem to accept mothers being sexualized. Basically when you become a mother you shouldn’t be sexual. Daughters grow up knowing her mother wasn’t a sexual person because she is a mom. This follows the daughter, when she becomes a mother the pattern will most likely repeat itself.
Freedom, opportunities, and information are some features of this modern society. Clearly, humans are now having a very different life compared to the past. Along with this well-developed world, people get more chances to express how they think, do what they want, and love who they love. Especially young people, they become more independent and are capable of living their own lives. However, while society provides people a lot of benefits, it actually makes their lives even more complex at the same time by leaving them pressures and confusions of who they really are. In her essay, “Selections from Hard to Get:Twenty-Something Women and the Paradox of Sexual Freedom,” Leslie Bell mentions that while in this new-in between developmental period American twenty-something women have more freedom and opportunities about their sexual lives than previous generations, they are struggling with the paradoxes of their relationships and desires. Bell suggests that social expectations and culture guidelines, which are conventions of female sexuality and stereotypes of being a good girl, prevent these young women from pursuing their sexual desires and limiting their relationships with men. However, even these women have chosen the way they live and what kind of sexual life they want in order to be bad girls to break those old rules, they ended with losing their identities. In general, female sexuality is impacted more by establishing a women’s identity rather than clinging on
This is Damian form your Monday's & Wednesday's 12:30 pm class , it came to my attention that there seemed to be some problems relating to the test we just took on chapter 2 of the Human Sexuality class. Personally, im under the impression that i took the new exam although it had no timer applied to it and some of the question's apparent responses seem a little contradictional. On this questions for example # 1; "Which of the following statements regarding the desire phase of sexual response is true?" , #2; In which of the following areas would Masters and Johnson's research on sexual response be least helpful?, #3; Which of the following most accurately describes the plateau phase?, the book clearly states that this is
During the early 1800s into the nineteenth century it was believed that men and women came from two separate spheres. These spheres influenced the way gender roles were shaped and perceived. Suggesting that women belonged in the household, apart of the private sphere and men belonged in the economic world, apart of the public sphere. Men and women were understood to be polar opposites and because of this, women were oppressed. Female sexuality was defined as “passionlessness,” and only for the purpose of reproduction. We learn that women were considered “voracious” for expressing their sexuality however, men were encouraged to express their sexuality as part of maintaining power, prestige, and masculinity. (Cott, 1978, 222). Men
With the constant push for conforming into what society deems as acceptable, it is no surprise how much of an impact society plays on limiting the perception of what one’s sexual relationship should be. Society manipulates women into behaving in a certain manner in order to fit into this ideal mold of how women should be. Yet only to a certain point, “Be assertive, but not aggressive. Be feminine, but not too passive. Be sexually adventurous, but don’t alienate men with your sexual prowess.” (Bell 26) Due to all of the conditions, which limit women, it is no wonder how many young women feel “weighed down by vying cultural notions about the kind of sex and relationships they should be having.” (Bell 26) Although these limitations proposed by society can cause personal battles between oneself, it is possible to change one’s perception of how one should act regarding their own sexuality. Bell points out that by using “strategies of desire of the Relational Woman”, (Bell 30) this will assist woman in navigating through their sexual and romantic lives. It is normal for women to feel a desire for relationships and it is inevitable that conflict will arise. If women are able to develop and fully accepting their desires, despite the limitations from society, this will to lead women to building lives that are filled with self-acceptance.
Dracula can be read as an almost transparent metaphor for the confusion, guilt and anger over what is considered to be the ‘proper’ role of women in Victorian society. The ‘vamping’ of a human female - such as in the case of Lucy - succeeds in adding a sexualised and sexualising element to women, who - according to the time period - are then only ‘purified’ through further sexual and violent acts, such as being penetrated by a wooden stake (Skal, 31).
In this patriarchal society, women find practicing sexual agency difficult because there is a double standard that exists in which being either “slutty” or chaste has negative consequences. Marilyn Frye (2004) explains this concept as the “double bind,” which Frye defines as “situations in which options are reduced to a very few and all of them expose one to penalty, censure or deprivation” (p. 184). Women cannot express their sexualities, wants, or needs in a legitimate and safe way because they will face punishment if they happen to be on either end of the continuum. Kristen Firminger (2006) suggests that women’s magazines define for
People do not like to accept fact that women have sexual desires and experience sexual pleasure as men do. In the book, Steven, a high school junior said “his male friends always hang out with the freshman girls known as ‘sluts,’ not because they like those girls, but because they can ‘get some” (p. 77). These boys dehumanize the girls that are experiencing the same sexual feelings they are. Instead of females with natural desires, they are reduced to being called sluts and being used for sex. While the girls and boys had equal sexual desires, only the girls’ desires were considered deviant of expectations of their gender expectations while the boys lived up to theirs. By not living up to the expectations of femininity, girls who are sexually active lose their identity as females and are treated first as sluts- as sexual objects with lesser value than a feminine cisgender female who remains abstinent and a good girl in the eyes of
Attitudes towards different issues in society are adopted depending on the prevailing beliefs in such a society. Every trending issue in a society helps shape the attitudes that people develop and greatly influences their behavior. There is no question that every society has a prejudged perception and possible reaction to any event that may occur within the realm of the society. This prejudgment and reaction is often informed by the various experiences that the society may have undergone through in the earlier instances of occurrence of specific events. Leslie Bell, the author of “Selections from Hard to Get: Twenty-Something Women and the Paradox of Sexual Freedom,” largely focuses on female sexuality detailing the often confusing situations
With today’s society growing more accepting sex has never been harder to define. Historically society has found ways to conceptualize everything from sex to sex work. However, with conceptualization come consequences. The language we use, the historical concepts we hold on to and the approaches we take on topics effects our views. Our language can change depending on who is being talked about and our historical concepts can become weak the deeper we discuss a concept. Sex is a complicated topic and can cause tension around negotiations in recognizing different ways of understanding it. All of these approaches to sex have always been, and still is, the locus of so much debate precisely because what is being investigated has never been, and likely never will, be completely agreed upon.
It is common in the united states that women, especially younger women, are in a bind where neither sexual activity nor sexual inactivity is all right. (p.11) Women are viewed as being affiliated to men, and society judges women’s characters and personality just through sexuality. If a woman chooses to have sex, she will be labeled as a “slut” or “unprincipled”. On the other hand, if a woman refuses to have sex, she will be called “man-hater”
Everyone who does not fit the idea of masculinity has been placed in the other category. Kids have a hard time to self-identify themselves because of all the masculine role moles that present themselves in the media. Masculinity has created a structured binary that makes their role the ideal role for society to be. That ideal role is traced back to a long history of old traditions, that society cannot look past. This ideal of masculinity has created complications within gender and sexuality that have made people hold onto heteronormative ideals. The heteronormative ideals have created a privilege society where the white males dominate the world and place everyone who does not fit in their binary into the other people category.
However, when a woman is known to obtain multiple sexual partners, her reputation is tarnished and is seen as a harlot. A woman being promiscuous will ruin her name and condemn her to a negative label under the social construct where women
“How we think about sexuality is conditioned and inhibited by a complicated history and, to make our problems worse, that history is in the power of those who have necessarily been antagonistic to women for a very long time. Males generally have been economically and socially superior to women since they became the primary producers and possessors of private property.” (Murphy Robinson, 1984: 251)
This article was about females’ sexual arousal and masculinity- femininity. It began by stating that it doesn’t matter what the female’s partner’s sex is, they can be sexually aroused by both genders. Their sexual arousal is dependent on other factors such as the context, social, or culture. Because of this, there can be more variability among females’ sexual orientation, attraction, or arousal.
expression of female sexuality has been perceived as a threat to men throughout history by many