The Changing Face of Sex. Wayne P. Anderson PhD

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      “A concept ever prevalent in Greek Life is the so-called walk of shame, which takes place after a girl sleeps in a fraternity house and walks home the next morning. A lot of guys clap and holler at them, yelling things like ‘Shacker.’ I’ve never done a walk of shame, but I can imagine it being pretty humiliating for the girl.”

      “I was in a line at Chipotle, and I couldn’t help but overhear what the two guys behind me were talking about. All I heard was guy #1 say, ‘He slept with her? What?’ Guy #2 responded with, ‘Yeah, he goes for quantity over quality.’ Then they both laughed.”

      Is this easy hooking up likely to change with maturity? For some people this is a definite yes, and many of the students in my classes are in semi-permanent relationships.

      “Being a senior, more and more people are in serious relationships these days.Have people gotten sick of sleeping around? Do they just want better sex with one partner? Or have they finally accepted that love and ‘having someone’ is worthwhile?”

      “Today, my friend broke up with a freshman and his exact reason is he ‘didn’t want to miss out on anything.’ She said that’s what she ‘gets for trying to date a freshman boy.’ But then we agreed that after about two years, they begin maturation and are more willing to settle down with a girlfriend. It’s almost like it takes them the first two years to get it out of their system. Obviously there are exceptions on both ends of that theory, but as notorious college bachelors begin to pair of, you can’t help but notice.”

      Influences on sex

      What is contributing to this behavior that not so many years ago we would have called promiscuity? A number of factors in our culture have made a big difference. I suspect the most important has been the fact that so many women are going on to college and planning careers and want to put off marriage and children to a later date. That means we no longer have the majority of young people married by the age of twenty or twenty-one. Here is how one of my women students framed it.

      “I talked with a friend from home today and found out someone we had known who was my age was married and pregnant with her second child. It struck me because at this point in my life I couldn’t imagine being in either circumstance this young. I thought about my friend again and then realized that if I grew up in a different time period or even part of the world it would be odd if I wasn’t married and having children by 20 and would be expected to around the age of 17 or 18 to work on a farm. Our standards of when we are supposed to start our sexual and marital lives have changed as we delay longer and long to go to college and start a career for ourselves first. I continued to think about standards for starting our sex life when we are older, and I think that may have had something to do with the sexual explosion from 1968 to 1972. Biologically our bodies have not changed, and they tell us we are ready to have sex younger than some of our parents would like. In this context it almost seems unnatural to bottle these sexual desires, and it is likely that this smothering of what our bodies are saying to us may lead to acting out in different ways.”

      Cell phones and computers also play a major role in shaping young peoples’ sexual behavior.

      “Sex has evolved with the new technology.For instance,the mass use of cell phones in our generation has completely altered the face of sex. Students our age send sexual text, arrange sexual rendezvous over the phone, and download porn to their cell phones. Not only have our lives become monopolized by cell phones, but so have our sex lives.” “I was checking my hotmail account and looked at the junk mail I had. Ninety percent of the emails I had received were adult hook up sites or penis enlargement cures. The Internet is hyper-saturated with adult material, and while I don’t mind it for the most part it has made getting my email increasingly irritating.”

      The social pressure for men to have sex with a variety of women is strong.This is pressure that has been on young men from the early years; but now with sex more readily available the feeling seems to be if you are a real man, you should be taking advantage of it.

      “I live in a fraternity house. I was sitting on the second floor couch and one of my friends claimed he’s had sex with more than 90 women since he’s been in college. His comment reminded me a lot of the pecking order. I think he was trying to exert his sexual superiority over all of us.”

      “At dinner I overheard a group of college aged guys talking about their weekend. One of them proclaimed loudly that he had “gotten some”from two different girls that weekend. The other guys applauded him.”

      One of the surprises to my students is that they had not been paying attention to how much sexual material exists on TV. Ads are loaded with sexual references, and TV shows are becoming ever more open about the sexual behavior of their characters, both in fiction and reality programs.

      “I was watching TV and I saw a sex scene that made me think. Most sex scenes are very glamorized and in some regards unrealistic. There is never any awkwardness removing clothing with its snags on an elbow or even the head. There is never any discussion of birth control or condoms beforehand that break the mood, and lastly the mood setting music that is playing in the background always seems to cover up any of the surprising or even humorous noises that occur when two bodies rub against each other.”

      “It’s amazing how many television commercials push the envelope,sexually.And it’s also amazing how many “dirty” commercials we simply ignore these days, having grown accustomed to a culture seeped with sex. These same ads, if aired in the 1950s, would seem obscene and indecent. One that my cousin pointed out was the Herbal Essences shampoo ad. An attractive, naked woman is lathering her hair in the shower. And that’s fine. But she’s also exclaiming, “Yes! YES! YES!” Obviously she’s simulating an orgasm brought on by lavender and chamomile in her all-natural shampoo. Even the tagline of the ad, ‘Herbal Essences—a totally organic experience,’ is a nod to a woman’s orgasm.”

      “I watched ‘Some Like it Hot,’ and it was the first time I’d seen the movie. Marilyn Monroe played the sexy, sultry, not-too-bright blonde. That got me to thinking how much our standards have changed for the leading lady. Now, women are stronger, more intelligent, and more powerful. Marilyn Monroe being the sex symbol was almost embarrassing to me because she was such the stereotypical dumb blonde, and of course, the leading man falls for her. I am personally very glad that now we have become more independent and strong.”

      And then there is just the sexualization of products.

      “Today is my 21st birthday, so to celebrate at midnight two of my best friends and I went out for a couple of drinks. Many of the beverages on the drinks list had overtly sexual names like: Blow Job, Sex on the Beach, Screaming Orgasm, and Slippery Nipple. The traditional way to drink a Blow Job mimics fellatio. As an aside, it does feel very strange to hear my friends say,‘I’d like a blow job please,’ to the waitress.”

      Parents

      I gather that most parents are either not in favor of this kind of behavior on the part of their children or deny that their children would be involved. Students seldom mention their parents in their reports; and when they do, the parents typically are rejecting their children learning about sex.

      “My mother was staying the night to go to an early meeting the next morning and commented on my Human Sexuality textbook. While flipping through the book, she seemed to be appalled. I think she might have missed the sexual revolution or at least not have been a full participant. She commented on the picture of a circumcision СКАЧАТЬ