Let's Talk About Sex!

Let’s talk about sex! Not just any kind of sex, but sex between friends, better known as friends with benefits (FWB). There are people all over the world thinking this is the best thing since sliced bread. These are relationships that stem from already existing friendships that cross the line and move into the physical world.

The beginning stages are the best as there are no strings attached. Good sex with no obligations after the deed is done. Both parties are satisfying a natural urge without having to rely on a one night stand.  Sounds great right? Wrong. Overall, girls get very emotionally involved and want commitment, while the guys still only want the physical benefits. 

According to a survey done at Michigan State University of 125 students, 60% of those surveyed have had a physical relationship with a friend. 10% of these FWB relationships turned into committed relationships. 33% stopped having sex and continued their friendship, and 25% stopped talking altogether. (Carey, 2007)

So why do people choose to enter into a FWB relationship? Is it because of attraction, passion, romantic feeling, or is it just trying to fill a need for sex? These types of relationships are seen as ones where the people have sex without feeling or emotional ties. However, when sex gets thrown into the mix, things inevitably get complicated because men and women have different ideas on what the benefits entail. Women are much more likely than men to place more emotional weight on a friends with benefits situation and they also have a tendency to feel more involved in the relationship.  Men focus more on the sexual aspects of the relationship as they see a friend with benefits as carefree sex or a reliable booty call. This difference in perception of what the relationship is creates issues that people would rather avoid in a supposed just sexual relationship. (McGinty, 2007)

Here’s an example of a friends with benefits situation gone wrong from one of our group members:

“A high school friend and I began talking after years of not seeing each other, initially just to catch up, but eventually we got more and more physical while still maintaining the friendship we had…or so I thought. We never talked about feelings because we didn’t want them, we just wanted to fool around and have fun, we both understood this and were ok with that. One day though, she looked me dead in the eye and said, “I love you.” This floored me, what I thought was just casual sex with a friend had escalated so quickly and now she was saying that she had this strong feeling for me. I had no idea what to do so I just brushed it off. But after she said that things got different, we started talking about more serious things and began hanging out more often outside of the bedroom, we were in a full blown relationship just without the label. The lack of a label made things worse as she started going for other guys which hurt me and I started going for other girls which hurt her. Eventually what we had turned into a mess and we fought about things and stopped talking all together.” – Chris B.

Chris’  experience shows how things can turn bad very fast if you aren’t clear as to what you want in a relationship; he thought it was just sex, she turned it into something more which lead to them no longer talking to each other. Since they had different ideas about what they were doing, they acted how they thought was appropriate, yet in the grand scheme of their relationship, it didn’t work. Friends with benefits seems like a good idea, but it can get sloppy fast and often times leads to a de-escalation of the relationship back to friends or a complete termination of the relationship. If you want carefree sex with someone, don’t go to a friend, find a stranger, it’s harder to get emotional with them. 

 

 Citations

1. Carey, B. (2007, October 2). Friends with benefits, and stress too. New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/02/health/02sex.html

2. McGinty, K. (2007). Friends with benefits: women want "friends," men want "benefits".

"Dude, You're a Fag!"

                Why is it that a step outside of our designated gender boundaries leads to embarrassment, mockery, or disgust by others?  It is at a very young and impressionable age we learn what it means to act in a masculine or feminine way; and as we get older, these become ingrained in us.  Specifically, intra-gender interactions follow a set of unspoken guidelines that are telling of just how important it is for us to stick to our gender roles.

                We are drawn to people for many different reasons, varying from physical, to sexual, and social attraction.  We often associate physical and sexual attraction together, however, they are very distinct and separate factors.  When we are physically attracted to someone, we are drawn to physical aspects of them, whereas sexual attraction brings about feelings of arousal in their presence.  A clear example of this difference is when heterosexual people discuss feelings of attraction to their same sex.  A girl will recognize when a hot girl walks by, and she is likely to say something to her friends.  

 In this picture from facebook, girls are complimenting this girl on how pretty she is.

In this picture on facebook, guys are complimenting the guy on his keg-stand. They aren't saying anything about how attractive he is, unlike the girls in the photo above.

A guy, on the other hand, may notice an attractive dude, but he wouldn’t dare acknowledge it.  Even if a girl specifically asks for a guy’s opinion about another guy, he is hesitant to give his opinion.  If he does, there are very few things he can say so he doesn’t sound gay. He can be “good looking, decent looking, or alright”.  These compliments are all acceptable, but anything past this, and he’s crossing the masculine line.  A guy can NEVER call another dude hot. When assessing another guy’s buffness, it’s masculine enough to say “that dude’s jacked”. All of these convoluted rules stem from gender differences that are established very early on in life. Parents make it clear to their children what is acceptable behavior as a boy and girl, and most parents don’t allow any mixing of this behavior.  

Intrigued by these gender roles, C.J. Pascow spent a year and a half in a high school ‘studying guys’.  She wanted to study masculinity in both males and females.  She found that “fag” was the worst word a guy could say to another guy, and that girls rarely used the word.  Guys used the word, fag, as a means of policing the behaviors that lacked masculinity in their male peers. (2)

When it comes to discussion of the girl a guy is getting with, it is more than likely his friends will confirm her hotness.  When guys do compliment each other, it is usually by his choice of girl.  Guys will say things to each other about his girlfriend that girls would never say to each other.  This may be indicative of the fact that a girl would take a compliment about her boy’s attractiveness to heart.  She may interpret her friend’s compliment as ‘I want your boyfriend.’  On the other hand, guys are comfortable and encouraging in discussion of their friends gals.  When a girl does compliment her friend’s boyfriend, it is only when her friend has asked for her opinion.  Otherwise, she may get upset and think her friend is trying to steal her man.

                When girls complement one another, they are often looking for a compliment in return. Sometimes girls give complements to their friends specifically because they want to hear something nice about themselves.  In fact, she will make it very clear that she’s waiting for one back, by staring at the compliment-giver and making her feel uncomfortable.  Guys don’t seem to feel this ‘chivalrous’ necessity to return complements, so as not to hurt their dude’s feelings. 

                So, at the end of the day, there really isn’t much research done in regard to these abstract rules we follow.  However, we can conclude that these rules are most important during our teen years because as we get older, it seems that one man telling his business partner he looks nice in his suit isn’t so ‘gay’ afterall.

1. "Intra-Gender Communications." May 5, 2007. Online Posting to Can't We Talk? (from: You Just Don't Understand. Web. 6 Nov. 2011. <http://forum.netmuslims.com/showthread.php?6568-intra-gender-communications>.

Schoepflin, Todd. "Dude, You're a Fag: As Exemplary Ethnography." Everyday Sociology Blog. N.p., April 28, 2011. Web. <http://www.everydaysociologyblog.com/2011/04/dude-youre-a-fag-an-exemplary-ethnography.html>.

Ew, That's Gross! Gender Differences in Feelings of Disgust

         Disgust is one of the 6 main emotions everyone experiences. We wouldn’t normally think that disgust plays that big of a role in our lives, but we actually experience disgust every day. Disgust can be described as “something revolting, primarily in relation to the sense of taste”. The reason that disgust is a primary emotion stems from the evolutionary perspective; things that aren’t healthy to eat often taste bad.  Long ago when people needed to find their own food, they also needed to make sure the food was safe to eat. Experiencing disgust when eating rotten foods prevented people from eating more of that food, therefore saving them from possible food poisoning. Today, we attribute disgust to many more situations besides just bad food. We think sexual relations of two people that are very different in age is disgusting; we think bad smells are disgusting even though we’d never have that bad smelling object in our mouth. 

There are many things that are universally thought of as disgusting, however there are many things that some people find disgusting that others don’t. Interestingly, there are gender differences when it comes to disgust, and certain reasons why those gender differences occur. Women tend to show greater disgust sensitivity than men. In order to study differences in disgust, the 3 domain disgust scale was created which measures disgust levels of pathogens, sexual and moral domains. A study was conducted by members of the department of Psychology in Amsterdam, and the results were as follows. 

                One domain measured in this study is moral disgust. Some of the questions resulted in similar disgust levels for both men and women. One of these was deceiving a friend, and this may be because there is a universal understanding about what a friendship is and what the relationship entails. This means that if a man or woman was to deceive his or her friend, he or she would feel similar levels of disgust. On the other hand, men and women feel differently about other moral issues, such as cheating on a test to get good grades. Women were more disgusted by this, and we are led to believe that cheating brings along feelings of guilt that men are better able to deal with than women.

                Sexual disgust is another domain in which there are both similarities and differences among men and women. Both men and women have identical feelings about watching pornography. This may be because sexual activity is an animalistic behavior, and we don’t like to think that we act like animals.

Another domain where there are significant differences in men and women’s disgust level is bringing someone you just met back to your room to have sex. This may be due to the double standard; it is commonly accepted for men to sleep with multiple women; it often results in praise from other men. If a woman were to sleep around with many men, she would be considered promiscuous.  

The double standard can be explained by the "master key" analogy; if a key opens a bunch of locks, it's called a master key, but if a lock is opened by a bunch of keys it's just a bad lock.  

While some areas of disgust are considered equally disgusting by both men and women, overall women are more sensitive to disgust than men. Women feel worse when experiencing guilt, and women tie emotions into sex whereas men are less apt to.


Citations:
 

Tybur, J. (2009). Microbes, mating, and morality: individual differences in three functional domains of disgust. Retrieved from http://www.csom.umn.edu/assets/137596.pdf

Tybur, J. (2011). Personality and individual differences. 343-348. Retrieved from http://www.debralieberman.com/downloads/pubs/2011_PAID.pdf

Rohrmann, S. (2008). Gender differences in psychophysiological responses to disgust. 22, 65-75. Retrieved from http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=buy.optionToBuy&id=2008-07565-001

Are Our Parents Coming of Age?

We, as members of the now generation, consider texting to be commonplace and a distinct technological barrier separating us from our parents.  Most parents started texting because it was an easier way to get a hold of their children, but lately parents are increasingly making their presence known to the world of texting.
         Four years ago, the media was concerned that parents were being blinded by the cryptic messages their children send via text and web. Kids were sending texts to their friends with acronyms that parents didn’t understand, so police advised parents to learn the things their kids were trying to hide from their parents. A news station created a list of 20 Internet acronyms all parents should know.  Some of these include KPC (Keeping Parents Clueless), TD2M (Talk Dirty to Me), and PAL (Parents Are Listening).  ("20 internet acronyms," )   

Studies are showing that many parents prefer texting as a means of contact with their children throughout the day.  The wireless provider, AT&T, has just released data from two of its studies that support this claim.  Families, friends, and romantic partners alike are using SMS more and more to communicate.  The studies found that not only do parents find texting a quick and convenient way of keeping tabs on their children, but they feel texting their kids is also a ‘cool’ and ‘hip’ thing to do. ("Parents want to," 2011) Parents are now even creating their own acronyms we must learn to decode! AT&T states “text messaging can help reduce the communication gap that sometimes exists between parents and their kids.”  There are many reasons for this, including the instant communication factor of a text, versus maybe having to play ‘phone-tag’ with each other. Texting is an easy way to get a quick answer from your child. If all a parent needs to know is whether or not their child is coming home for dinner, texting is the best means of communication. Children agree with this, and think texting is a much more efficient means of communication with parents because they don’t need to have a long conversation with them. Also, when kids are with their friends, they’re more likely to answer a text from their mom rather than a phone call. A text is discrete, which is a benefit for teenagers who don’t want their friends knowing they’re texting their mom/dad. Tone of voice becomes a nonissue, eliminating the problem of conflict on the phone, which often occurs naturally when a child and parent are talking. Another benefit of textin say and how tg is that it allows people to think about what they want tohey want to say it before pressing the send button. Texting is also cheap for those who have unlimited texting! Phone calls take up minutes on a cell phone plan, and phone conversations can go on much longer than originally planned. ("Text messaging: a," )  

Just as parents are embracing their inner youth through text, children are right on board with them.  In fact, we are encouraging their creativity in text form to share with our peers on the web.  WhenParentsText is an online website where parents and kids send in funny and entertaining conversations between each other for the online community to read. In these conversations, the parents are trying to embrace their inner youth by joking around with their kids and talking about things that probably wouldn’t come up in a face to face conversation. Some of these include a dad texting his daughter saying “Live, Laugh, Love”, and a mom explaining how she “boob dialed” her child. It is simply entertaining and an LOL experience!  Check it out for yourselves and post your favorites here for discussion! ("When parents text:,")

Citations

20 internet acronyms all parents should know. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.wgal.com/news/13658646/detail.html

Parents want to be "cool," are using sms with their kids. (2011, August 01). Retrieved from http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2008/10/parents-want-to-be-cool-are-using-sms-with-their-kids.ars

Text messaging: a family affair. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.att.com/Common/about_us/files/pdf/parent_teen_factsheet.pdf

When parents text: the 13 most hilarious fails from mom and dad (pictures) . (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/03/when-parents-text_n_817331.html#s233842