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Assignment 05

This article was very interesting to me, and explained many things which I have noticed, but didn’t fully understand their history.
It seems that the main assumption in this country in particular is that if you are not a married heterosexual couple who practice sex for reproductive reasons and never stray outside of “normal” then you are accepted as allowed to be a sexually active individual. If you fall into any other category then you are not fully accepted, but there is a hierarchy of how unacceptable you actually are.
I found it very interesting how she explains the theory that sex is not only biological, but it is also cultural and this makes a lot of sense to me. Growing up where I did, people are very open about sexuality and sexual orientation, etc. however, I grew up in a catholic family so sex has always had a sense of guilt behind it to the point that even talking about it can be uncomfortable. On one hand I am comfortable with other people and sex, but not as much when it comes to myself, and this seems to me very much connected to my background. I also find it interesting that even today we still have such a “hush-hush” mentality surrounding sex and sexuality. The fact that people still need to “be in the closet” seems insane being that the only reason our society considers heterosexuality normal is because we as a culture decided that was normal. There is nothing normal nor abnormal about any sexual orientation.
Going into education the censorship in sex education is something I am concerned with being that I am not willing to tell anyone that abstinence is the only option and I know that will get me into trouble in certain contexts and areas. What is so crazy about that idea is it clearly does not work, yet we keep using it.