Sex is a phenomenon that can be defined in many ways depending on who defines it and what their interest is. Since it is a sophisticated and intimate thing, the bottom line remains that it involves one person exposing themselves to another. It is therefore imperative to not think about sex as only a physical act alone but also psychological. It should be connected to the thoughts of humanity. The question of belief on sex thus becomes a whole conundrum. What is right and wrong? What is moral and what is not? Everyone has a different answer to these questions, and so the experiences and exposure come to play. It all depends on how the person is exposed to sexual information. And with the world of different cultural beliefs and norms, sexuality is expressed in a plethora of ways (Caplan, 2013). This paper will discuss sexual my philosophy.
Knowledge of sex and sexual behavior is the most important thing that will define how a person approaches the phenomenon (Chandra et al., 2013). When we are born, our reproductive system is not developed and undergoes development as we grow. The older we become, we get exposed to some information about sex (Angelino, 2015). During my growing period, my sources of sexual information have been a number. First, there are parents and family. Parents, especially mothers, use their past experiences to shape you into a better person. So, the way they taught me was to be mindful and soberly approach sex knowing that the world out there is cruel. By cruel, they meant there are STIs, HIV, and other diseases. So theirs was for me to practice safe sex all the time. In simple terms, the parents instilled in me the sexual morals and the good behavior of sexuality (Yarber et al., 2013). Up to now, I have in mind the ways to approach safe sex through this guidance.
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Peers are the other sources of information. This source is slightly different from the parent one. Whereas I was taught the morals of sex, peers introduced me to norms of sex. They are the ones who bring us the news of how enjoyable sex is and what ways to approach it to satisfy ourselves. Peers are also known to introduce us to new things that we did not know. And, given that they have tried themselves, it means we can also do it (Angelino, 2015). Peers exposed me to new experiments on sexual behavior. They sparked the curiosity of sexuality in me. They do not always look at what is moral, but what is standard and practiced by other people. It is this notion that made me have an urge always to try new practices in sex.
Religion should not be left out in this list. Known as the guide of what is sinful and what is holy, religion and religious leaders shun sex before marriage and adultery. They say sex is a divine intervention from God and it should be glorified only when a couple is legally married. It is not uncommon for people, including me, to find this statement having negative experiences towards sexuality. The feeling about sex becomes a sin when you put the aspect of religion in the thoughts. When one thinks about sex when they are not married, they feel like they will be judged at the end of time. Thus, they have negative thoughts about it. Religion made me guilty as a teenager.
Mass media has been the companion of the youth for decades now. It has been providing a lot of information on how to get about the sex topic. It gives education on safe sexual behavior while at the same time giving explicit contents. To me, it has caused some of the thoughts about normative sexual behavior to be developed. For instance, when I watch a couple kissing on the screen, it gets embossed to me that kissing in public is not a crime. This has shaped my sexuality in that it is no longer private to engage in sexual talks, to participate in sexual relations, and to practice sex. It is all in the open, as I see it on the TV. So until now, I am comfortable living with the moral values that the media exposes me to.
Finally, the events and experiences I have had vary so much with age. When I was young the exposure to sexual experiences only meant that someone had to get into a relationship with another person and then over time, they would be engaged in sexual experiences. But over time, I have come to realize that there is a revolution on sexuality where people just get hooked-up and have sex with another person. My experience is that people nowadays just engage in sex anywhere with anybody. To me, the prior experience seems moral because you get to know each other more and hence make sober decisions. The hookup experiences lead to regrets and negative thoughts.
All the above information sources create a sense of the development of values according to one’s exposure. To me, several views of interest warrant a discussion. First and foremost, it is important to note what normal and abnormal sexuality means. To me, being normal has very many fronts of approach. It means that an individual grows naturally to have sexual urge with another person (Giddens, 2013). Thus, anyone without the sexual urge as an adult or youth is considered abnormal. Sexual urge is natural and manifests in us like in the animals. Also, normally is subjective, cultural, statistical, and idealistic, and everybody has their interpretation for this (Caplan, 2013). Then, normal to me is the fact that a woman and a man are opposite and thus attract each other for sexual pleasure through contact. So, what is normal to me is the male-female attraction. Although it is not right to call homosexuality abnormal, I don’t see any logic to why people of the same gender can attract each other.
This brings me to the gender roles. The society has molded the norms that men and women must follow to be considered their genders (Connell, 2014). They have to practice some things and abhor others. These expectations make the gender roles. It influences how men and women interact and behave, including their attitudes, feelings, and sexual behavior (Chandra et al., 2013). The expectation categorizes humans into two categories based on their biological gender and making them have different behavior. In a sexual context, girls and women are seen as vulnerable and can express their emotions publicly. Thus, there is a need to protect them from the men’s sexual advances. The gender roles make women and virginity a highly prized commodity. The values of sexuality and sex roles are mainly used to control women and to make them inferior to the traditional patriarchal system (Connell, 2014). It makes the men feel superior and should not express their feelings in public. This makes the males to have control over sexual experiences. They are solely mandated to make the decisions from approaching a partner to proposing having children to protecting the woman.
Sexual orientation is a hotly discussed topic in the recent history of humanity. Sexual orientation is the description of a person based on the gender they are attracted to (Ward et al., 2014). Traditionally, we were known to be attracted to people of the opposite sex, which was seen as normal. But as time goes, some people are drawn to the population of the same sex, or both sexes. The topic has hit the front of various campaigns, including that of the head of states, aimed at making freedom of sexual orientation a fundamental right to citizens. Some communities prohibit the orientation of same sex (Ward et al., 2014). But it is now an enduring pattern that is here to stay. Thus, my values are that respect to a person’s sexual orientation is paramount because no matter how hard we try to align them towards ‘normal,’ we will never decide for them. So it is only important to accept everybody the way they are.
Also, there is an aspect of appropriate and inappropriate sexual behavior. People always engage in sexual activity in different forms. Sexual behavior can be defined as activities that lead to sexual arousal. To classify a behavior as inappropriate, it means that it has been abhorred by the society or personal conviction. They range from solitary to partnered practice. To me, sex is not a destination but a feeling process where one has to experience what makes them feel whole and happy. On individual behavior, which includes masturbation, the person is at liberty to create arousal for themselves as long as it is not chronic. When now the frequency is high, say three times a day, it becomes inappropriate and thus may lead to other social disadvantages. What is also appropriate is the partnered behavior where the sexual activity leads to the satisfaction of the other party. When now one partner wants to take control of the whole process and then apply other effects that lead to happiness but the suffering one party, like in BDSM, this becomes inappropriate. Sex is not a bondage that someone has to suffer just to satisfy the other party, but a mutual satisfaction where everybody is healed. Socio-sexual behavior which is appropriate to me is heterosexual intercourse where people of opposite sex engage in the arousal. Courtship should come after dating and then the desires to increase sexual contact later.
On life cycle, we develop different behavior at different stages in life. For infants (0 to 5 years), the sexual activity is still subtle (NSPCC. “Healthy Sexual Behaviour…”). They express kissing and hugging, showing curiosity about the genitals, or even showing them off. At the school-age stage (6 to 9 years), privacy will set in. They will start showing curiosity for private parts. They will touch and rub their private parts, or show them off to others. Also, kissing and hugging is common here. School going pre-adolescent stage (10 to 12 years) sees the children exposed to sexual materials and information. Here, they will start experimenting with sexual behaviors and dating other kids (NSPCC. “Healthy Sexual Behaviour…”). They also continue with the self-stimulation. In adolescence stage (13 to 16 years) sexual behavior manifests clearly. This is the time when the boys will start to produce sperm and girls menstruating. They can make their own decisions and know the consequences of their sexual choices. It is at this stage that the first penetrative sex can occur when experimenting with other adolescents. At youth stage, the people will advance their experiences on sex and become more decisive and open. They can now express their sexual desires to others in public and be in relationships.
Relationships is another topic altogether and need attention. It is here where the decision to stay with one person comes in (Chandra et al., 2013). In general, humans are not monogamous and prefer diversity just as much as we are diverse ourselves. But now when the society creates the fact that there must be a monogamous relationship, infidelity creeps in. People lose attraction to others as time goes and sees the ones outside their lives as the best. In marriages, many couples admit that the fact that they have children is what makes them together. Though I am not married yet, I become worried by the fact that I will have to choose only one person to be with for the rest of my life. What if I discover I don’t like them? To me, a relationship, marriage included, is based on the ultimate decision, which one must weigh the outcomes carefully.
According to me, sex is not only for procreation, as experienced in animals (Foucault, 2012). The complexity of human life is one that has so many hormones that cause different feelings. Thus, the process should be to make someone get the best of the sentiments. Though procreation is necessary for continuity of a generation, sex is not necessarily based on this. As a result, sex education is important to teach the children and the youth on the safe practices of sex to prevent the unwanted consequences such as unplanned pregnancies and infections. Sex education is also important in demystifying the ancient taboos and making sex an accepted and open thing because even if it is private, people still engage in it. Pornography is a vice that thrives on the lack of public sex education. People tend to look for answers but are afraid of the shame that comes with openness towards sex. Thus, they resort to the private searches on the web. Lastly, on prostitution, this is just a waste of human dignity. Selling one’s sexual pleasure is not different to slavery.
For future development, I have my original philosophy based on the fact that human comfort is the most important factor of consideration. Happiness from within is a force that should be manifested in people when they are young. The society brings with it rules that try to suppress the expression of these sexual feelings. Thus, I have developed my sexuality standards. The first is that sex is not a taboo. I am glad to be from a family that does not consider sex to be a taboo. But it hurts to see some other communities and families treating sex as a foreign or unclean affair. Sex should be an open topic if all the bad images about it are to be erased. Positivity about the phenomenon should be passed from one generation to the next. The second one is to respect other people’s sexuality (Yarber et al., 2013). Not everyone in this world is the same as us. It is therefore not right to treat anyone who is different as “abnormal.” We should accept them the way they are, and they will also do the same to us. Finally, sexuality is a choice that cannot be forced into someone. If people choose a path to follow, all we can do is guide them but not choose for them a different path.
References
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Giddens, A. (2013). The transformation of intimacy: Sexuality, love and eroticism in modern societies. John Wiley & Sons.
Caplan, P. (2013). The cultural construction of sexuality. Routledge.
Yarber, W. L., Sayad, B. W., & Strong, B. (2013). Human sexuality: Diversity in contemporary America. McGraw-Hill.
Connell, R. W. (2014). Gender and power: Society, the person and sexual politics. John Wiley & Sons.
Ward, B. W., Dahlhamer, J. M., Galinsky, A. M., & Joestl, S. S. (2014). Sexual orientation and health among US adults: National Health Interview Survey, 2013.
McConaghy, N. (2013). Sexual behavior: Problems and management. Springer Science & Business Media.
NSPCC. (n.d). Healthy Sexual Behaviour: Retrieved 28 September 2017 from https://www.nspcc.org.uk/preventing-abuse/keeping-children-safe/healthy-sexual-behaviour-children-young-people/
Chandra, A., Copen, C. E., & Mosher, W. D. (2013). Sexual behavior, sexual attraction, and sexual identity in the United States: Data from the 2006–2010 National Survey of Family Growth. In International handbook on the demography of sexuality (pp. 45-66). Springer Netherlands.
Foucault, M. (2012). The history of sexuality, vol. 2: The use of pleasure. Vintage.
