Human Sexuality is complicated. Our society today
still thinks it is inappropriate to talk about sex, sexual orientation, and
identity openly which is why there are so many misconceptions surrounding these
topics. This video from http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/?s=sex
summarizes everything we have learned this semester about sex-related topics in
an elementary-like form. It gives you an easy visual to be able to distinguish
between sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, and sexual behavior. Today,
people assume that we should classify ourselves based on our sex. I feel that
our world is so naïve with this concept. Many people all over the world today don’t
classify themselves based on their sex. Some of us may think that is weird or
strange, but it is actually more common than we think. Every person is
different and unique in their own way. Assigning all of these crazy labels and
classifications to each human is a relatively new aspect. People several
hundreds of years ago would not understand these terms and probably consider
them to be somewhat absurd. Is there really a need for all of these labels? Are
they doing more harm than good? In my opinion there is no need and that they
are more harmful. All of these classifications—male, female, bisexual,
heterosexual, homosexual, transsexual, transgender, etc, complicate our lives more
and makes it even harder to discuss sex on a mature level. I feel that these
labels are making our society more judgmental each day. People won’t get to
know you if you are “strange” or “weird” or different than them. If people
would put these negative labels and classifications aside, you might open
yourself up to an entirely new world. You would be able to meet so many more
people and actually be able to know and understand someone on a deeper level.
If we as a society can look past a few meaningless labels then this could
become the norm. Although this is a far-fetched proposal, it is not impossible.
Back in the old days there was no such thing. Focusing our time and effort and
money into trying to get others to accept us for who we are is ridiculous. Who
cares who you like? Who cares how you classify yourself? Are any of these
things really going to be important in the far future or after life? Probably
not. I think it is just a big waste of time.
In the video, he shows the complex human example. He
first puts a dot over the person’s “private part” and classifies this as a
person’s sex. If you have a penis you
are a male, If you have a vagina then you are a female. Then he proceeds to say
that there are also intrasex individuals—making them sound strange and
abnormal. Does what parts they were born with make them any less of a human? I would hope not.
Next he highlights the brain to prove that our
gender identity is decided there and that our gender identities are separate
from our sex (although that is hard for our society to understand).
Next is the heart. The heart is where our sexual
orientation is decided. This is where we put a title on ourselves based on who
we are sexually attracted to. I also thought it was neat how he also did a “romantic
orientation” as well to show how relationships aren’t always about solely sex.
Lastly he describes sexual behavior as when other
people get involved.
All of these titles that he describes come together
to create a person’s gender role,
which is constructed by society.
In the video, he makes it a point to distinctively separate
each category. He states that each of these are independent from each other and
that there is a continuum —which is true, but should it really matter?
It is sad that a person has to make a diagram and
graphs to explain these concepts, concepts which are supposed to be natural. He
discusses a spectrum or range of each category. Adding all of these technical
terms make it more complicated than it needs to be. Just a thought…
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