Let's talk about sex...

            I enjoyed class this past week. Starting our individual projects has been great. I enjoyed the highly competitive start to the projects with Audrey’s basketball project. Getting to play basketball reminded me of how competitive I am no matter what the sport. Which made me proud that my inability to quit competing allowed my team to come back from a discouraging 2-6 to tying it up at 6-6 and then I scored the final game winning point. It was quite a rewarding experience. Then Holly’s writing was amazing. It was so great and awe inspiring really to learn that not only does she write her short stories for pleasure, but then she actually takes them into her classroom and gives them to the students as tools for them to use…that’s just remarkable. I greatly look up to Holly for her creative ambition. Rounding out our first class of projects was Madelyn’s jiu jitsu. I don’t think anything has ever made everyone suddenly seem as shy/intimidated as practicing to break each other’s arms and strangle one another. However, hearing Madelyn’s story that went along with it was also remarkable. It was interesting that she was so intimidating to new men coming into the art that they’d try to man handle her to save face, which just makes them look that much weaker.

            This week we read about sexuality in our Corey and Corey book. I enjoyed reading this chapter because it made me think about my group’s conversations about sexuality and how just the mention of such things can make some of my group members squirm because of their shyness about talking about the subject and how vulgar it is to them to openly discuss sexual preferences/likes/dislikes/etc. I’ve never had a problem discussing my sexuality with others, in public, with my partner at the time, or with anyone because to me it’s just like anything else; if you aren’t able to appropriately communicate what you want the chances are slim of you just finding someone who gives you everything you want without you telling them what that is. It will also be hard for you to tell them what you want if you don’t try new things and experiment so you know what you do and don’t like. Unfortunately, because (especially for women) it has always been looked down upon to embrace your sexuality and enjoy yourself, not many women are able to be as free as I am with my sexuality and knowing exactly what I want/don’t want. I feel that this idea ties in well with our previous discussion about male versus female and what’s appropriate for each gender because it has always been acceptable for men to talk about their sexual exploits and investigate what they might like/dislike, however if girls do the same thing then they are labeled negatively even if their exploits don’t mean having as many partners as most men attempt to have, but rather just trying out new things to find what they like. Perhaps I’ll never understand the inequalities between men and women because I don’t feel the need to live my life by the differences imposed by our ancestors.

            Lastly, our online article this week was about jealousy. I wasn’t very interested in it because I think intentionally making someone jealous is ignorant. I’m not saying I’ve never made anyone jealous while in a relationship, because that’s obviously nowhere close to accurate. However, I’ve never intentionally done something to incite that jealousy. I think people that go out of their way to incite jealousy are childish and have low self-esteem.

References:

Corey, G. & Corey, M. S. (2010). Sexuality. In Brooks/Cole (9^th edition), I Never Knew I Had a Choice (256-278). Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole, Cengage Learning.

Fleishmann, A.A, Spitzberg, B.H., Andersen, P.A., & Roesch S.C. (2005). Tickling the monster: Jealousy induction in relationships. The Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, Vol. 22(1): 49–73.