I took a small hiatus. I really did need it. And now I'm back, and more ready than ever to blog your brains out with many examples of systems within the ever growing world of sexuality.
Let's take a fairly classic example of sex ratios within America-
At given point in history, there has always been more x than y until there's more y than x. In this case, I'm speaking of men and women but the meanings behind x and y aren't nearly as important as realizing that both x and y have their own guidelines for being x and y. And when there are more than one over the other of either (men or women; stay with me) the overall guidelines for that group, or society, or even country, shift as well.
From the depths of human nature, men and women have their "needs." Men need to use as many women as possible to, as they say, spread their seed. Meanwhile, women need to latch onto a stable, etc etc etc, man from which she can raise her children and be taken care of and so on and so forth. Anyways, it's not so grand -from the male's perspective- to have the women of the area having sexual relations with the other men. Men, biologically speaking, want to pass on their own genes. But on the other hand -from the women's perspective- the mixing of immune systems is all the better for a women and her children.
At least this is how it was explained to me in my very first human sexuality course.
The point, dear readers, is that when these simple biological urges -these urges, if you will- find their way into modern society, you find that male dominated cultures have much less sexual "openness" than those in which the women are the more dominant.
Lemme rephrase, if there're more men than women in any given whatever, that whatever is going to be more conservative (i.e. the conservativism after the second world war ended and the men "re-upped" in America). If there're more women than men in any given whatever, that whatever is going to be a lot more liberal (i.e. the sexual revolution of the sixties and seventies).
And now the real point: these levels of "openness" shift! Back and forth this pendulum of sex ratios swings leaving us constantly in the wakes of sexual repression and sexual salvation.
Now, I really could go on and on about this- and I think I will, actually- but I need to shoot an email to my human sexuality professor first.
Stay tuned.
So the sexual revolution, as you put it, was caused by women dominating society during the sixties and seventies? I'm assuming then that this is not a correlation but a causation of the civil rights movements during those decades? Do you have other examples of 'whatevers' that are more liberal because of a female majority?
ReplyDeleteYes, I want to hear more about this line of argument too (and what others in our class might think of this!)
ReplyDelete