Gender Roles and Homosexuality

There is a certain amount of fear and mystery and unknown around the idea of a homosexual relationship. I feel like these type fears are what keep people from fully experiencing relationships, whether homosexual or not. It’s not just the fear of being with someone of the same sex physically but it is also the insecurities that surround people’s gender and sexual identities. Homophobia, I believe, is rooted in these insecurities. I feel like people who lead a homosexual lifestyle therefore are freed from these gender and sexual roles. There is not as much fear and insecurity because there are no standards or norms that must be maintained. They are free to chose and go back and forth. I know that people who are homosexual feel just as much insecurity if not more than straight people while they are still figuring out who they are, but I feel that is not the same insecurity that causes homophobia. Once you tell yourself that you no longer have to fit into a gender role and that you can dress and act the way you feel there is a great deal of freedom that comes with that as well as insecurity in not knowing exactly what you want to be. I feel like people, straight, gay, lesbian, bisexual, whatever, would feel a lot more freedom in themselves and their relationships if they quit looking through a heterosexual lens. It is this lens that leads to misunderstanding around the subject of homosexuality. People’s expectations of gender and norms leads to relationships where there has to be definite feminine and masculine role. In a relationship where there are not black and white roles there is more freedom to switch back and forth.

everyone has sex! not just married people....

In country as affluent and “educated” as the United States, one would think that we would be ahead of other countries when it comes to teen pregnancy, infant mortality rates and sex education. The fact is that the United States’ infant mortality rate before age one ranks 44th in the world, that is 6.2 children out of a thousand will die before age one. Also teen pregnancy rates in the United States is a lot higher than other developed “western” nations; in 2002, according to the UN population fund, 51 other countries have lower teen pregnancy rates; ours sits at 53 live births per 1000 women ages 15 to 19. This does not include teens that were pregnant and had an abortion or miscarriage. Also in the United States only 71 percent of sexually active adults use a form of contraception. In most cases we are being outdone by a lot of countries, countries including China and India in some statistics taken. Granted China has a history of having strict population control, but in any case we still rank 52 in the world!
Why are we not even close to Japan or Switzerland or Canada? In my opinion I think it is strongly linked to our government’s funding of abstinence-only sex education, as well as our cultural ideas of sex being taboo. In 1996, attached to the Social Security Act, the government gave grants to states that promised to teach “abstinence until marriage” in schools. These programs are notorious for giving misinformation about contraception and excluding vital sexual information from sex education curriculum. This includes the “fact” that condoms aren’t as preventative as abstinence so don’t bother using them. Well nothing will ever be as effective as not having sex in preventing babies! But that doesn’t mean that some people might want to try it. So for those few kids who are going act on their raging hormones and fool around, they are less likely to use a condom since they have been taught that they don’t work. Why wear a condom when you will get pregnant either way? Makes sense. Besides if you teach kids about ways to keep from getting pregnant (that involve having sex) they are going to go out and have sex with all sorts of people.
Some of these programs promote ridiculous gender stereotypes. Guys are always horny and girls should say no to it. It irks me that these programs teach that it is the female’s responsibility to keep guys in line. Guys can’t help that they are horny all the time. So ladies make sure that you keep your skirts below the knee and cleavage lines up to your neck. Because if not you are giving these poor guys a hard time. And girls that are “asking for it” by dressing this way are sluts. This is the same line they use with rape. It is the women’s responsibility to keep rapists away. It is never the guy’s responsibility to quit thinking he is entitled to women’s bodies.
Also these programs are totally biased when it comes to sexual, gender and familial norms. It assumes we are all going to get married to a man that has the same feelings about waiting until marriage as you. In reality it excludes homosexuals leaving them feeling like they are social deviants. It also denies them really important information about how to prevent STDs and tells them they never will have a normal sex life. And what about people who don’t want to fall into the institution of marriage, I guess they will become celibate for life.
In order to lower our teen pregnancy rates we need to teach kids how to have sex in the real world. A world that recognizes sex as a normal, healthy activity. One that accepts diversity. One that realizes that there are some humans that don’t share the belief of waiting until marriage. And everyone, even married couples need to know about birth control and ways to prevent STDs.


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On Relationships

I think I am blessed and cursed at the same time when I think about how my model for a romantic and monogamous relationship was solely shaped by my parents growing up. They have a fairy tale type relationship. They met at age 15 dated, went to the same college, tried to date other people briefly and then realized at 20 “who are we fooling let’s get married!” And they lived happily ever after and still cuddle on the couch when watching TV. I feel blessed to have been brought up in such a loving environment free of abuse, arguing, or divorce. Honestly, I thought that this is what would happen to me up until age 19 when I broke up with my high school boyfriend.
I had thought I was going to marry this person when I was 19.
Since then I wish I could say that I have radically transformed my vision of relationships, but always in the back of my mind is the thought “could I spend the rest of my life with this person?”
Men are more laid back about relationships, and think about them in the present; rarely venturing into those future thoughts. I always wonder if this sort of difference between women and men is a natural instinct or is from social conditioning based on gender roles.
Are women inherently born thinking about starting families and nurturing children? Or is it because we were given doll babies, easy-bake-ovens and Barbies to play with? Maybe a combination. I think women are pressured to think about monogamous life partners when choosing men to date. Whereas men aren’t raised playing with toys that make them to think about family life. Men I am sure think about possible “life-partners” when they date. Humans for the most part want to have someone to spend their lives with.
I have female friends though who are appalled by thought of marriage and do not like the idea of serious relationships. I know guys who can’t live without a girl friend and think about getting married. It goes both ways. So maybe it is how we were raised. Our views of relationships are shaped by our parents from a very early age. If you grow up with a single mom or divorced parents or two daddies, you are probably going use their relationships as a yard stick to measure yours. Either avoiding their style or imitating it. We are brought up in a very narrow world view for the most part and therefore have very few relationships to learn from, before you start learning for yourself.