The End of men

I found this documentary very informative I've never thought about when men loose their jobs how much pressure is put on them by the stereotypes that men should being the provider of the family.  I though that the stereotype of men being the provider for the family had dissolved now that so many women are in the work force.  However the realization that men put this pressure on themselves that they feel like they've lost their masculinity when they can no longer provide for their families was made in this video. I believe this feeling of men loosing there masculinity when they aren't able to provide for there families will never truly go away because of the pressure men put on one another and the ways society portrays men on t.v. shows and movies.   

Sexual relationship patterns in adult

In today's society many people are living with their parents longer.  It use to be when you turned 18 you moved out on your own finding your own way on life by either getting married, working or going school.  Now many young adults are living at home till their mid 20's why they try to figure out what they want to do with their lives or while they go to college or university.  Many people are also waiting longer to get married most of our parent or grandparents where married and having children by the time they were nineteen or twenty.  Today people are waiting till their late twenties to have children they try to get there schooling done or get themselves a stable jon and a house to call there own.

Cohabitation is also a new trend in relationships instead of people getting married then moving in together, many couples live together before marriage or live in a common law relationship with no intent to get married.  

Sources Of information about sex

For first time I learned about sex besides what I'd seen on T.V was in grade 4 sexual education class. In oour school we did our sex ed as a class so everyone was in one room it was weird to learn about stuff that was gonna happen to your body with the other sex in the room.  This learning situation also made it difficult for me to ask question as i wasn't comfortable talking about this kind of stuff to start but then you throw guys into the mix made it even harder to get me to talk. If i ever have to teach sexual education class I would suggest that the class be split by sex, which I hope would help the children to open up a bit and make them feel more comfortable about asking question they have.  If the school does not have the ability to split the classroom by sex I would put a question box out for the students to drop there questions in to they are answered but whoever asked the question remains anonymous.I also was never told about the other places as a student where you could go to get information about sex, I believe in today society when so many youth are having sex it is important to make these sources available to them.  

Masturbation and sexual fantasy

Sex should be an enjoyable experience for those participating.  In order for people to enjoy their experience I believe you have to know what you like what works best for you. How are you to tell your partner what you like and how to do it if you don't know yourself.  Masturbation for some people is a embarrassing thing to talk about they feel like they can't get a partner so they have to perform a sexual act by themselves.  However I look at masturbation as a way to explore your own body to find out what turns you on and places that when are touched drive you wild.  When you yourself know what works best for your body you are able to show your partner what they need to do to make your sexual encounters enjoyable and fulfilling.

I believe that sexual fantasy is a normal part of a sexual relationship.  If people didn't fantasies I believe they would get bored with their sex lives and we would be more likely to move on to another sex partner when we got bored.  Sexual fantasies add excitement to the bedroom and mix things up for both partners so they don't get bored of the same thing over and over.  
  

Abortion

Abortion is a touchy subject to start a discussion on  my views on abortion may be completely different from the next person and it may cause conflict and fighting between us because of our person values.  However myself i could never have an abortion i couldn't personally deal with the though that I could of had a beautiful baby and I took their life away.  However when it comes to other people and their choices whether to have an abortion or not it is totally their choice, If they believe they aren't in a place in their life to have a child that is their call or health reason puts their life or the baby's life in jeopardy.  The only time I do not condone a person to have an abortion is when they use this as a birth control method I believe you have one freebie if it happens again and you aren't using the proper protection you should have to deal with the consequences or go through with the pregnancy and give the child up for adoption if you don't want to keep it.

Teen Pregnancy

The discussion of teen pregnancy is a topic that as of last April became very important to me, as my 17 year old sister Kari gave birth to my beautiful niece Kennedy.  My sisters always kept her dating life private until 4 months before she gave birth.  My mom was first told that my sister may be pregnant in September of 2010 from one of my sisters friends.  When my mom approached my sister about the issue my sister denied, my mom let her be and told her it was not something that she could hide. By December my sister had gained 40 pounds and for her that was a lot as she's always been very slender girl.  My mom finally took her to the doctor at this point she was felt more comfortable talking about being pregnant with my mom and me but still wasn't telling many of her friends as i think she still felt ashamed of getting pregnant even though many of her friends had children. 

The First time I met Anthony Kennedy's dad was when Kari was in the delivery room.  After Kari was back at home Anthony was over every day whenever he could to help Kari.  However going from being able to do whatever they wanted whenever they wanted to being parents was stressful for both of them and caused fighting.  Anthony and Kari broke up and he maybe comes to see Kennedy once every two weeks. He also has not given my sister any support money to help with the expenses of a child though he's working full time.  My mom has had to help my sister out with baby supplies.

With more and more teens becoming pregnant communities and government programs have created support groups and programs to help them deal and continue with there lives.  A program in our community to help teen parents is a school program where they can bring there child with them to school and day care is provided, while they work to complete their high school education.  These programs are great way for young parents to get the education they need to go to college or get a job that will pay them enough to support themselves and their child.   

Relationships

Today in class we talked about the social exchange theory.  This theory looks at relationships in terms of the relationship being a cost/benefit analysis.  What this means to me is that you looks at the pro of staying in this relationship and the cons of staying in this relationship if the con's out weight the pro's.  I believe that everyone in non arranged relationships has used this theory to decide if they should stay in the relationship or not.

When relationship start you take certain steps to get to know one another.  These 5 steps are outlined in George Levinger ABC(DE) model
Attraction- when two people just meet and always wanna be together
Building- getting to know one another building on the relationship making commitment to one another
Continuation- deciding to continue the relationship
Deterioration-one or both members of the relationship decided the relationship isn't working any more
Ending- end the relationship

Communication in relationships is very important.  When to people are living together or with one another for long periods in time they need to be able to express how they feel to one another if they can't express how they feel or what they think it can lead to troubles in their relationship such as fighting, anger, or resentment towards the other partner. Couples need to talk their problems out with one another and to be comfortable enough with one another to talk about the issues and problems they're facing,  You also have to realize you partner can't read minds so you have to verbally communicate.  At the same time you need to be supportive of your partner by letting them know your always their to talk to

Love Triangle

Today in Class we learned about Sterberg's triangle model 



This triangle describes the different types of love.  Personally for myself I have been in several different stages of this triangle but have never reach the type of love that is in the centre of the triangle. For myself I believe that I have experienced Liking, Infatuation,and toward the end of my relationships I believe my love is companionate love.  I hope to never be in a relationship with anyone that is empty love.  I have a friends who's parents have been together for 27 years the last 10 years of their relationship has been empty love, they don't seem happy and seem to always be fighting. This is not how I want my relationship to be, I want to be that old couple who sit and hold hand and are still as passionately in love with one another as when they first met.

David Buss

In class today we talked about david Buss evolutionary perspective for long term attraction.  David Buss believes that:
1.  partners in a long term relationship do tend to have simular personalities traits and attractivness in the culture.
2.we tend to be in relationships with people around us (those we work or go to school with)
3. women tend to look more for attitude simularity
4.men look for attraction simularities
5. we tend to like those who like us

All of David's evolutionary make sense and i believe to be accurate however these concept are almost to obvious. The same personality trait s of people that are in a long term realationship I beliviethis happens because you are around them for so long that your personalities rub off on one another.  As for being in relationships with people around us this is true because the people you don't work with or come in constant contact with you usally don't get to know them on the other hand internet dating is becoming very popular so you can meet people who aren't around on a daily basis. I'm not sure if i completly agree with davids Third and fourth point in todays society there are many successful independent women so they are not as concerned about finding a man who can support them but i believe they still look for the family man.  the fourth point I believe works for both men and women I think attraction plays a large role in both sexes for long term if there's no atraction the relationship would be very dull.  The point that we like those who like us I know from experiance is true you don't really pay attention to someone till someone mentions that they heard he likes you you tend to pay more attention to them.

Gender Typing Psychological

As we grow up there are four psychological aspects that play a role in gender typing 

Psychoanalitc approach- in the begining we identify only with our motheras time goes on we begin to identify with father 

Social cognitive approach- we learn how to become masculine or feminism by observing role models and how people react to those role models 

Cognitive Developmental model- The child develops cognitive schema's about what masculine and what feminine 

         Gender Schema Theory- We develop notions of masculine and feminine and as time goes on we                   blend our notions with societies notions 

      I think the most influential psychological gender typing is the social cognitive approach we all watch other and how they behave and how people react to them if it's a desirable reaction we want to act like them even as adult I believe we still use this approach when trying to be feminine or masculine.\

     Gender schema theory I believe to be the hardest to fully achieve as perception of people change as we get older and personally I find depending on which group of friends or member of my family who I'm with can change the way I act and how they think I should act as a female.

Gender Ideal

Today in class we talked about celebrities that give of the ideal masculine or feminine person.  For masculine I choose Brad Pitt, Channin Tatum, and Paul Walker.  I chose these actors because they are muscular, have all played the strong badass role where they hold their own in the bad situations they get into.  My person perspective of a man being masculine is a built man who hits the gym regularly, the protector and being handy able to fix many thing.

When it comes to famous women that are perceived as being feminine I choose Carrie Under Wood, princess Di and Michelle Oboma all these women are/were  caring, nurturing, supportive.  I think that culture perceives feminine characteristics to be motherly taking care of others.

Sexy Inc: our children under influence

The film Sexy inc comes from a 2nd wave feminist point of view.  It shows young girl students sitting around talking about pop artists music video's and how the sexuality behind the songs.

I agree with a lot of the perspectives these young girls have that artist like Brittney Spears and the Pussy Cat Dolls pretty music videos and lyrics are mostly about sex but we can't only blame the artist they need to make money and unfortunately in today Northern American culture sex is what sells. This is unfortunate for young girls growing up cause artist that they look up to and see as role models who they want to be like cause they are famous and popular.  As women it important to find a balance between being sexy and conservative we need to teach the younger generation that these artist dress like this when they are at work when there job requires them  perform but on a regular days they dress in modest fashion. We also need to boost girls self confidence in themselves so that they believe that they do not have to dress like these artists in the videos to get attention.    

Brene Brown

Brene Brown talks about the importance of vulnerability in our lives.  Browne begins by talking about the research that she had done comparing two groups of people.  One group of who had a feeling of shame and fear the thought of not being good enough. The other group where people that had a sense of worthiness (a strong sense of love and belonging).  In her research  she found a simularity between these two groups and that was vulnerability; In order to find that sense of belonging and love we have to put ourselves on the line and face that chance that we may be shut down.

This was a very enlightening speech for me as I tend to bloke myself of from being my vulnerable to others. I'm scared of either their judgment of what they think of things I say or opening up emotionally or romantically  to people in fear that I will be hurt.  This Video made me look at the reason why I block myself of to people; I believe on of these reasons for worrying about people judgment about me comes from being made fun of when I was younger for speaking what was on my mind this lead to me thinking about what I was about to say and thinking how people would react to what I would say.  The reason I block myself off emotionally and romantically from other is having a sense that emotions made you weak (only babies cry)and Romantically watching my mom go through two divorces makes me scared that relationships that I'm in will also fail and end in pain

This speech has me gradually putting myself out there talking more in groups and not caring how they react to my opinion as time goes on hopefully it will allow me to open up to more people and accept that leaving myself vulnerable to others will lead  me to that sense of belonging and love.    

Male Anatomy

In the movie Private Dicks had several men talking about there penis and cultural misconceptions of penises.  I found this movie to be very informative I liked it better then the vagina monologues, having the guys just sit there and talk about their experiences I believe was more affective at getting their points across then trying to make it comical.  Was also weird to learn that men have self confidence issues when it comes to there penis because of what culture has told men such as size matters, if you expose yourself to other men or talk about your penis to other men it makes you homosexual.  

As a female i believed that men had it easy but after watching this movie I see that they have just as much cultural and media influences on them as women to obtain the cultural norm of a perfect male body.

   

Female anatomy

 In class today we learned about the 4 waves of feminism and watched some of the vagina monologues

The four waves of Feminism are:

1. 1st wave- 20th century North America and Europe political rights for women 
2. 2nd wave- 1960's is an extension of the first wave obtaining complete equality for women in ways such as educational rights, same pay equality, they also believed that sexual representation of women was degrading 
3. 3rd wave- believe that sexual representation isn't degrading (you should use what your momma gave you) 
4. 4th wave - Are concerned with spirituality and global harmony, building peace   

The clip from the Vagina monologue was a skit of 4 ladies talking about there different experiences they had due to family and culture when it came to getting there first period.  When they described there different experiences the audience would laugh; I believe the audience laughed when it came to these descriptions because it was their way to deal with experiences that in culture is taboo to talk about.  In today;s culture we don't talk openly about what is happening with our bodies we are ashamed.  This is a weird considering that what is happens with our body is a natural and every person is going through it.

I liked that this skit discussed the different experiences that these ladies went through when they had there periods but I didn't like the way they went about it in a way bring to make it comical.

Kinsey

Alfred Kinsey conducted large scale interviews on sexual behaviors.  Though his interviews were grounds breaking they did have some flaws, he mostly interviews were white educated middle class, prisoners in jail and prostitutes which caused him to have a sampling bias.  Kinsey wrote a few books which are considered to be classics in the study of human sexuality.

We watched the 2004 film Kinsey in class which gave Kinsey story of how he came to be interested in studying human sexual behavior.  Watching this film it reminded me of how up tight or how little was known about sex  during Kinsley`s time. When it came to sex, today we are so open about sexual relations weather talking about it with our friends, or the majority of shows on t.v. have some sexual content; you can also drive through a town like Red Deer in a matter of 3 blocks there is 3 sex shops.  The norm of the view of sex since the time in which this video was portraying have changed incredibly, we are all so educated about sex and I would also guess that seventy percent of  people don`t wait till marriage to engage in sexual activity

Kinsey educated people that there is no such thing as sexual normalcy       

Principles of critical Thinking

In Class we talked about the principles of critical thinking; the main points are

1. Be skeptic- Don't accept unsupported opinion for fact
2. examine definitions of terms- you have to examine what you mean by those terms 
3. examine the assumptions of argument
4. Be cautious in drawing conclusions from evidence
5. Consider alternative interpretations of research evidence
6. Consider kinds of evidence- opinion is not good scientific evidence
7. Do not over simplify
8. Do not overgeneralize 

In Class we were asked to do a human sexuality research activity using the scienticfic method.  My research question was does tv shows with sexual content play the role in teen pregnancy?  My hypothesis was that these shows do play a role in teen pregnancy.   There would be two ways to test this hypothesis one would be to conduct interviews and surveys the other would be to have a controlled group that wasn't allowed to watch t.v. programs that have sexual content and another group that was and compare the two groups. I believe t.v. programs with sexual content influence teen that to be cool you should be having sex which leads to pregnancy.  

Habermas Paradigms

In class we discussed Habermas' paradigms. Habermas paradigms has three concepts to it
  1. Empirical- analytic which is the scientific approach
  2. Situational interpretive which is subjective and concerned with a persons experiences
  3. Critical thinking, the way we see thing represents a dominant theory of the group there is much more under the surface

We were asked to take an issue that deals with human sexuality and use one of Habermas paradigms to describe it.  I choose the issue of birth control and safe sex.  When thinking about this issue from the critical  thinking perspective there are many different beliefs that people in Canadian culture are having sex before marriage.  It is important that we teach them to practice safe sex, by using condoms and birth control and  to educate our children about the issues that face them if they do not practice safe sex.  While other including many religious groups believe that we should teach our kids to sustain form sex completely till marriage.  If they stubstain from sex till marry they don't need to worry about unplanned pregnancy's or contacting a sexually transmitted infection.