Today in Psych of Human Sexuality (fun course!), our prof asked for a show of hands about a variety of things. She asked once to see who would be willing to completely disclose everything sexual about themselves to researchers, and those who would be comfortable engaging in sexual acts for the purpose of being examined and studied.
I raised my hand, and it was slightly surprising to me that the vast majority of the 400-something people in the lecture hall didn’t.
Call me an exhibitionist or a pervert or whatever, but I don’t see anything wrong with something safe, confidential, and solely beneficial to the cause of science. Not to mention I’m already very candid (if asked) about my private life, or really anything I do. It was just interesting to me to see so many people be so hesitant about something like that.
Well, it is sex. If that’s not private, I don’t know what is… and I’m pretty sure a bunch of people didn’t raise their hand to keep from being called “desperate” or something like that… I’m not saying that being a test subject for something like that wouldn’t be pleasurable, but, believe it or not, I would do this to benefit research, not to just get my rocks off.
Eww Jeffrey is gross!!!
how did i not know you were in that class? i’m in there too.
You didn’t? I’m pretty sure we waved at each other once. 😛 And I spoke today, about issues with pride, fear, shame, etc.
I don’t see anything wrong.
Maybe people are just shy in general. I know I usually have trouble raising my hand in class, even when it’s not about sex.
But you gotta write about it, if anything neato happens with researchers. Or does that mean you’re breaking their experiment by talking about it? Oh whatever.
hehe…you said “get my rocks off”
hehe…you get rocks off…hehe
You know well enough that I have no problem disclosing information about my various sexualities and I think most people are ok with that themselves to a certain extent. However there’s a great deal of perfomance anxiety in the wake of Abraham that tells us all to become schitzophrenic (sp?) if we want to ever actually have sex. In that I mean we’re (americans) taught as children by our judeo-christian society that sex is something you’re not supposed to acknowledge. It’s dark and evil and mentioning it could banish you to hell. So to function on this planet the every day consiousness must be separated from the very necessary sex consiousness. This duality causes by various means a great bit of shame, miscommunication, and most dreadfully ignorance as to how to get your rocks off and not do it daftly.
actually, that’s just a christian view. the jewish view on sexuality is very different.
That’s actually exactly what a video we watched yesterday talked about – it was basically the new discoveries about sex due to the leap people made by defying society and going on with this sort of research.
It’s funny, one couple interviewed in the film that was also interviewed by Kinsey when he was alive said that they were originally taught in church that having sex is touching your finger to someone else’s finger as you both hold a prayer book. And yeah, without this willingness to drop all this shame associated with moving the human race along, people would still be taught stuff like that to retain innocence until it’s too late.
Perv! XD
I didn’t raise my hand either. Like I’ve already mentioned in my journal, sex is a very taboo subject in most Asian cultures. My parents have never talked about it, except only mentioned it vaguely like, “If you sleep with someone, you’ll have babies.” None of my relatives have talked about it either, and hardly any of my “traditional” Asian friends have ever talked about it. Plus, the very first time I learned about sex was through a short sex ed thing in 5th grade. After that, I just got really uncomfortable and grossed out when the girls in my class started talking about their sexual experiences during PE in 7th grade, and my thoughts were, “…Ewww, OMG. You guys had sex already?? ….Okay then, I’m moving, I don’t want to hear the rest of this.” O_O;
Yeah. When I was in middle school and I heard about all the drugs and sex that was already going around, it sorta hit me. I have since stopped becoming surprised about basically anything, because I don’t really have high expectations for people around me. Huh, around 80% of people in my high school smoked at some time? Sounds good to me. :\
I was watching this video in Just Plain Ol’ Psychology in my HS senior year about this town in Georgia where sex runs completely rampant, and it’s because of the extreme cliquiness of the people in the town… they even interviewed these 3 girls that
1) wore the same thing
2) had the same bleached hairstyle
3) were all smoking
4) when asked to recite their favorite lyrics, all 3 simultaneously busted out into some sort of “bitch bitch ass bitch” song
…it was pretty frightening. Eh, I’m getting carried away, but basically all I’m saying is that shock value has meant nothing to me simply because I feel as if I’ve seen so much…
ok either i went to a weird middle school or you did, because no one at mine was doing anything like that. high school yes, but not middle school.
How are you so sure? I didn’t see any of this either, but then all throughout high school I heard first- and second-hand accounts of all this stuff going on as early as 6th grade.
well at least amoung my circle of friends and acquaintances (sp?) we were fairly nieve. sure i had my first boyfriend in 7th grade, but it was the silliest thing ever. it was a private school, so looking back i would have thought there was more going on because everyone had money, but that wasn’t so. but i know my brother did shit in middle school that i wouldn’t have even contemplated when i was his age.
I’m not sure how the economic stature of families is. I’d assume that the poorer people are, the less protected and sheltered they are, but you’re right, those who are richer find these things more affordable.
Of course this topic broadens to a wider scale with questions like how these people got poor in the first place, or why they continue to be poor – perhaps the constant, high price of drugs. I dunno.
All of my friends in middle school were total nerds, so we were too busy playing video games and didn’t get bored enough to do any drugs. 😛
Drugs
Are
Really
Expensive
this is new original and exciting
not really, but i thought it was funny 🙂
Forgot to mention that the interviewed girls were 13.
well damn.
That’s quite…I don’t even know how to describe how wrong that seems too me.
Oh forgot to mention they had all recently lost their virginity! And they were disappointed since all their friends beat them. 🙁
…
holy crap.
would that be their boyfriends, or just everyone in general?
🙁 indeed
Oh wait, I read this for a 10th time and I think you misread: their friends beat them, as in they won at being first at losing their virginity. I don’t know if these girls were actually physically BEATEN. 😛
Ahh, well, that makes it a little less bad…barely. Hurrah for being too literal with the words!
well, that’s interesting. i wouldn’t go so far as calling you gross, though. i’ll just stick with the customary pervish. =P
I like to watch.
my two cents
I would have raised my hand. I think I would like to participate in a sexual acts for research not purely because it would be fun (although it most likely would), but also to help with the whole getting comfortable and to help get rid of anxiety. I figure, the more experience you have, the better you’ll know how everything works. if I ever found someone I loved, it would make, if nothing else, the sexual part of the relationship run a lot smoother in my opinion.