I was reading the single stigma thread which I wrote, but this didn't really fit there I think. Last night I was talking with a friend of mine, and we came to the same conclusion basically, even though she's heterosexual.
We were talking about how we think a lot of what people believe, like gender roles and their attitudes towards romantic relationships, come from the media and socialization- basically that if at one point it was instinctive, now a whole lot of it is just influenced by the reason to 'conform'. You guys should have been there. We stated it so eloquently. It's amazing our conversations when we put our heads together.
Anyway, I was astonished because she was talking about how it seems like males and females at a certain point, how she described it, was that they become 'physical' people. They don't seem to want a romantic close relationship if there isn't physical things involved, meaning sex. She was talking about how all of the guys she knew growing up are like this now and it's frustrating for her, and that it wasn't only the guys,the girls are like that too. She was talking about how society seems to place this stigma, that a relationship is bad if you aren't having sex with one another.
When I think about it, the reasons people don't have sex are usually nothing to do with not wanting to have sex...usually it's like, they're waiting for marriage, or they can't for medical problems....etc. It's never just a pure choice. And my friend here, like I, doesn't even believe in marriage and she says she won't be getting married. Her parents are married, but she doesn't think marriage is required to show you love someone and she thinks marriage is more of a way to show others around you that you're in a serious relationship, because just like if you aren't having sex, if you aren't married, people don't think the relationship is all that serious or that it's going to last.
So my friend described that she thought emotional closeness was much more important than being close physically, and she stated that her boyfriend is her boyfriend not because they have sex but because he is closest to her, like a best friend that is a little bit higher up on her list of priorities than everyone else is. She was talking about how realistically she doesn't see herself being with him forever, and she doesn't understand people who would, she can't look that far ahead....just like me.
Her comment about why emotional closeness was so much more important than physicalness is that her parents have been together for 30 years, and she knows they don't sleep together anymore, but they still love each other deeply. Her mother went to the hospital for a simple checkup and her dad was crying because they found something wrong, which they fixed, but he was crying hysterically like a little boy, and she said watching her dad cry like that over her mother made her realize, wow...their love is so real, it's realer than just being physical with one another, that has nothing to do with their love.
So then, why do we place all of this, as a society, emphasis on people having sex to signify that their relationship is good and healthy? If anything, I'd think sex would just detract from it...and I know a lot of people like to deem it 'making love', but still, even then, it seems like being emotionally close is way more important than doing that and society seems to place a big bang on sex=happiness in a relationship.
We were talking about how we think a lot of what people believe, like gender roles and their attitudes towards romantic relationships, come from the media and socialization- basically that if at one point it was instinctive, now a whole lot of it is just influenced by the reason to 'conform'. You guys should have been there. We stated it so eloquently. It's amazing our conversations when we put our heads together.
Anyway, I was astonished because she was talking about how it seems like males and females at a certain point, how she described it, was that they become 'physical' people. They don't seem to want a romantic close relationship if there isn't physical things involved, meaning sex. She was talking about how all of the guys she knew growing up are like this now and it's frustrating for her, and that it wasn't only the guys,the girls are like that too. She was talking about how society seems to place this stigma, that a relationship is bad if you aren't having sex with one another.
When I think about it, the reasons people don't have sex are usually nothing to do with not wanting to have sex...usually it's like, they're waiting for marriage, or they can't for medical problems....etc. It's never just a pure choice. And my friend here, like I, doesn't even believe in marriage and she says she won't be getting married. Her parents are married, but she doesn't think marriage is required to show you love someone and she thinks marriage is more of a way to show others around you that you're in a serious relationship, because just like if you aren't having sex, if you aren't married, people don't think the relationship is all that serious or that it's going to last.
So my friend described that she thought emotional closeness was much more important than being close physically, and she stated that her boyfriend is her boyfriend not because they have sex but because he is closest to her, like a best friend that is a little bit higher up on her list of priorities than everyone else is. She was talking about how realistically she doesn't see herself being with him forever, and she doesn't understand people who would, she can't look that far ahead....just like me.
Her comment about why emotional closeness was so much more important than physicalness is that her parents have been together for 30 years, and she knows they don't sleep together anymore, but they still love each other deeply. Her mother went to the hospital for a simple checkup and her dad was crying because they found something wrong, which they fixed, but he was crying hysterically like a little boy, and she said watching her dad cry like that over her mother made her realize, wow...their love is so real, it's realer than just being physical with one another, that has nothing to do with their love.
So then, why do we place all of this, as a society, emphasis on people having sex to signify that their relationship is good and healthy? If anything, I'd think sex would just detract from it...and I know a lot of people like to deem it 'making love', but still, even then, it seems like being emotionally close is way more important than doing that and society seems to place a big bang on sex=happiness in a relationship.
