TOPIC: Sex
SOURCE: An uncomfortable conversation between an acquaintance and myself in my living room last night around eleven at night. This was our first meeting in many months and she was talking my ear off. This acquaintance is a bit lost on social norms and taboos at times so this conversation shouldn't have come so much as a shock to me.
RELATION: As illustrated in Chapter 5 of our Robinson textbook, cultures do not agree on sexual norms. The traditional Chinese cultural norm viewed sex as a tool for creating male heirs while the other two cultures described in the chapter enjoyed sex and viewed it as not even necessarily directly related to procreation. This conversation I was unfortunately a participant in is an example of one viewpoint of American sexual standards that led me to ponder American sexual standards in general.
DESCRIPTION: I like to think I'm a friendly laid-back kind of a person, but there are some people that really test my tolerance levels. One acquaintance, let's nickname her "A" for the sake of anonymity, is one of those people. As a result, I have done my best not to spend too much time alone with her. This has worked out pretty well for me the last couple of months due to the fact I'm ridiculously busy with school and I literally haven't seen this girl since January. Yesterday, this all ended when she appeared at my house with one of my room mates and baking supplies. They had decided to make cherry pies for the house. Now don't get me wrong, A is really quite nice. She doesn't mean to be annoying or embarrassing, it's just a part of who she is. At times, she really goes out of her way to be a sweet and caring friend. When that happens you momentarily forget why you avoid her and don't invite her over more often. But then she opens her mouth and ruins it.
It all started with a joke she found on facebook or some other trendy website she likes going on. Something along the lines of "My girlfriend thinks I'm being a little cocky, well I can show her a little cocky! Wait...". I laughed a little bit for this one, it was about the hundredth she had read us, but somehow she felt I reacted more strongly to this one than the rest and posted in on my boyfriends facebook profile. I felt this was odd, but aside from protesting I couldn't very well hack her account. When my boyfriend came back from work he laughed it off and made a joke about threesomes, including an open invitation to me and A. A proceeded to further this joke by adding all the things she wanted to do with us, graphically. I was put off by this, maybe I'm just not sexually expressive or experimental because the thought of a threesome just sounds like a lot of work and is awkward to me. My boyfriend, who would love nothing better than to say yes to her proposals, even seemed a little out of his element by this time and made some comment about me probably not being comfortable with that. Then A bursts out "You know, that's how I always wanted to lose my virginity, in a three-way. Oh my god, I forgot to tell you Sarah! I finally lost my virginity." Thank you, A. I did not want to know that. Then she proceeded to try and tell me every detail. I really do mean every detail, this girl has no filter. Despite the fact I clearly did not want to hear about her sexual milestone, I now know quite a bit about it, except for the guys name or who he is.
COMMENTARY/ANALYSIS:
I know this sounds odd, but I only care about the sex lives of people I don't know. Honestly though, a lot of us are that way. We read tabloids and watch tv shows chronicling the sexual exploits of celebrities and fictional characters but one mention of our neighbors, coworkers, or parents having sex can turn us red with embarrassment in five seconds flat. Sex talk is very much taboo in our social parameters, talked about in whispers behind closed doors. The media, however, glorifies it.
My parents are severely strict followers of the Christian faith. We never talked about sex in my family. Ever. My father said things like "Never let a boy touch your 'no no place' " and "Cover your 'tata's' or you'll look like your cousin". What does that even mean to a five year old? My mother never even attempted to breach this topic until I came back from college and she abruptly started sharing stories of old flames and thirty year old gossip. It was terribly awkward and I was not equipped to handle that kind of exchange. Clearly, as my conversation with A shows, I am still very uncomfortable talking about sex.
I liked how you even titled this week's blog "The S word" displaying even further how taboo sex is, it's definitely the huge elephant in the room that everyone dances around. I also agree with the irony that we can not talk about sex in public but on television we have shows like "Sex and the City" that spend the whole 30 minutes talking about sex. A part of me respects the fact that "A" could so openly discuss sex with you but the other part of me feels that she should've used a filter and kept her private life,"private". Unfortunately I feel that this taboo is what keeps some people from educating themselves about proper sexual health and avoiding unwanted preganancies.
ReplyDeleteYour post was very honest about how sex is something that is fine when it is talked about people who you do not have a personal relationship. When the conversation turns to someone you do know then it becomes a very awkward and uncomfortable situation. My mother is also very religious and asked me on my first day of high school to stay a virgin until I was married. She said that partying and all of that is not allowed but her main concern was sex. Hollywood glorifies sex but when it comes to talking about it at home it becomes uncomfortable. I would have also been uncomfortable if I was in the situation with "A". It always amazes me the people who do not have a filter and they just ramble about something you could care less about.
ReplyDeleteIn agreement with the two previous comments, your blog post is very honest and intriguing. The title is quirky and you keep me reading intensely throughout the whole post. I like how you mention that you honestly do not notice the sex lives of people you know, and are more interested with those you do not know. I think this has to do with the mystery and uniqueness of each person's sexual point of view. TV shows show people who are very open with their sexual relationships, the glamour of sex, and the gossip that is involved. It does not go into detail to inform people in a way that is anything other than taboo.
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