Our views about sexuality come from various aspects of our lives. These views come in the form of our social lives, our various cultures and religions, it comes from history that we have learned, and can even be shaped by the communities in which we live. This is why views about sexuality are so different from one another, and it makes it hard to understand why some people feel so strongly about the issues that surround sexuality. In order to better understand how all of these different contexts can shape we must first start with our family of origin (Carroll, J. L., 2016). Individuals are socialized into practicing these different values—starting at very young ages—by their family, communities, peers, media, and religion.
Our sexuality journey begins with our family, which could be anything from parents, step-parents, grandparents, or guardians. We first learn how to express emotions, show affection, and when we begin to become curious about our bodies we learn the biology and biological function of our bodies (Carroll, J. L., 2016). In some households, talking about sexuality is not something that is done. In my own household, we were taught the basics of what type of sexual expression was okay and what was not okay. Depending on your parents, or the household that you were raised, most of the information we receive within our household does not go beyond our biological parts and our biological functions. With how society is changing today, sexuality is a much more discussed topic than it was when our parents were growing up. It is for this reason that accepting different sexualities and ways of expressing sexual identity is not something that comes easy to older generations (Carroll, J. L., 2016).
Throughout time, the majority of human beings participate in a variety of sexual relationships. Each society interprets sexuality and sexual activity in different ways. Not only does society create certain social norms, but it also places an extreme importance of conforming to these norms. This means that what a society deems as normal or acceptable in terms of sexuality and sexual behavior is based on the norms and values dictated by each individual society. Many changes have occurred regarding sexual standards in the United States, beginning with the industrial revolution in the U.S. Once artificial birth control methods were introduced, there was a major shift in sexual behavior. This introduction led to various social movements that paved the way for the advancement of women’s rights, LGBTQ rights, and helped bring massive changes in society’s perception of sexuality. However, compared to other industrialized nations, the United States are rather conservative when it comes to general attitudes towards sex and sexual expression.
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Around the world there are countless religions, each one that has developed its own moral codes and behaviors that guide sexual activities and sexual expression. This has been extremely prevalent in recent years with the issue of gay marriage and abortion. I know that for me, going to church every sunday we heard that sex was between a man and a woman in marriage. I had never given this much thought until my sister became pregnant a year out of high school and the first question my dad asked her was, “when are you getting married?”. He is a very religious man and it didn’t occur to him that she didn’t want to be married right away and that societies standards of sex before marriage have changed tremendously.
There are also religions who view sex as shameful unless used for procreation. In my own household, my grandma was extremely against using birth control, and is very against abortions. Throughout history, religion has been known to have the biggest influence on views on sexual behavior and sexual expression in the United States, but in recent years, the media has emerged as a stronger influence (Carroll, J. L., 2016). The media especially has a strong influence over american teenagers, as well as a large influence from friends.
The media influences us through movies, television shows, magazines, music, and various forms that continue to shape our society into believing what they feel is normal or appropriate sexuality. They target young audiences through the use of over sexualized and unrealistic body images, products that can be used to enhance sex appeal, and giving women and men this standard that they “should” be living up to. It is the media that perpetuates the sexual role of men and women, and creates social scripts about what sexual relationships should look like. It has been shown that these views on sexuality can have problematic effects on men and women’s developing sexual expression and attitude.
Even though sexuality has always been a part of human behavior, history has shown that collective supervision of these sexual behaviors have increased. This is most likely due to the fact that the population has grown much larger than in the past. This growing population has placed social regulations on sexuality. Because of this, gender roles around sexuality became much more extreme, and sexual norms began focusing more on the control of female sexuality rather than sexuality as a whole. How males and females are expected to express their sexuality have become very different. Though men still have a lot more sexual power and sexual freedom.
Different cultures have widespread differences when it comes to understanding and perceiving sexuality. Their different views influence expression of sexual beauty, their understanding of gender in regards to sexuality, and how they view certain sexual behaviors. Growing up I lived in a very small town of only 888 people total. Within our community and most small towns in general, options for friends and social groups are very limited.
It was for this reason, if you were different in any way you were considered an outsider. This can make anyone feel uneasy about expressing themselves in a way that communities deem unusual. I feel that most people know what they would like their sexual expression to be at a young age. For example, my little sister was always opposed to dressing extremely girly, and preferred to wear boy clothes. It wasn’t until she started middle school, and had more contact with the judgemental society outside of our family that she was more self conscious and decided to dress more “like a girl”.
At this point in age, people believed that she was old enough to start dressing more appropriately rather than wearing the clothes that she liked to wear. One of the rules for our basketball team was on game days the boys wear a tie, and the girls wear dresses. I believe this rule is extremely outdated and offensive, and it was one of the reasons that my sister did not feel comfortable expressing herself.
