ME2!

Editors Note: What follows is one person’s observation of interaction between the genders in the past century. The thoughts are not based on scientific research or confirmed by an accumulation of data but one person’s experience. It may seem offensive, demeaning, sexist, or any other disparaging reaction. It is meant to continue a thoughtful reflection and constructive discussion. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

There is an interesting campaign starting by women who have been sexually harassed, abused or raped. The “Me Too” posting on social media shares what I thought every female (and perhaps males) went through.

First of all, I appreciate the courage of women finally standing up for their dignity to unwanted advances.

Second, the old adage of “No, means maybe” was never proper, but culturally accepted.

Virginity is the state of a person who has never engaged in sexual intercourse. There are cultural and religious traditions that place special value and significance on this state, predominantly towards unmarried females, associated with notions of personal purity, honor and worth.

Like chastity, the concept of virginity has traditionally involved sexual abstinence. The concept of virginity usually involves moral or religious issues and can have consequences in terms of social status and in interpersonal relationships. Although virginity has social implications and had significant legal implications in some societies in the past, it has no legal consequences in most societies today.

The term virgin originally only referred to sexually inexperienced women, but has evolved to encompass a range of definitions, as found in traditional, modern, and ethical concepts. Heterosexual individuals may or may not consider loss of virginity to occur only through penile-vaginal penetration, while people of other sexual orientations often include oral sex, anal sex or mutual masturbation in their definitions of losing one’s virginity. The social implications of virginity still remain in many societies, and can have varying effects on an individual’s social agency based upon location.

Growing up every girl was pure and chaste and there was no talk of pedophilia. The family handled inappropriate actions with the assistance of the church and the hush gossip of the neighbors. Every “good” girl was expected to be a virgin until her wedding night.

 

‘Making-out’ is a term of American origin and is used variously to refer to kissing, petting, and necking, but may also refer to non-penetrative sex acts such as heavy petting.

Studies indicate that at the beginning of the 20th century, premarital sex increased, and with it, petting behavior. By the postwar period, necking and petting became accepted behavior in mainstream American culture, as long as the partners were dating.

The sexual connotations of the phrase ‘make-out’ appear to have developed in the 1930s and 1940s from the phrase’s other meanings of ‘to succeed’. Originally, it meant ‘to seduce’ or ‘to have sexual intercourse with’.

‘Making-out’ is usually considered an expression of affection or sexual attraction. It covers a wide range of sexual behavior. It typically refers to kissing, including prolonged, passionate, open-mouth kissing (also known as French kissing), and intimate skin-to-skin contact. The term can also refer to other forms of foreplay such as heavy petting, which typically involves some genital stimulation, but usually not the direct act of penetrative sexual intercourse.

The perceived significance of ‘making-out’ may be affected by the age and relative sexual experience of the participants. Teenagers sometimes play party games in which ‘making-out’ is the main activity as an act of exploration. Games in this category include ‘seven minutes in heaven’ and ‘spin the bottle’.

Teenagers may have had social gatherings in which ‘making-out’ was the predominant event without chaperones. These ‘make-out parties’ were generally not regarded as sex parties, though heavy petting may have been involved. 

A time of puberty and testosterones and little education, the ‘make-out parties’ was a source of exploration. The groping, rubbing, persuasion and rejection taught young people who would go ‘all-the-way’ and who was a ‘prude’. At the same time, to lose virginity was a passage to adult status.

Consent gives permission for something to happen or agreement to do something. Consent is an agreement, assent, acceptance, approval, permission, authorization, endorsement, support, informal go-ahead, thumbs up, green light, or an OK.

Did anyone ask?

 

Moral concerned with the principles of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ behavior and the goodness or badness of human character. Moral is virtuous, good, righteous, upright, upstanding, high-minded, principled, honorable, honest, just, noble, incorruptible, scrupulous, respectable, decent, clean living, and law-abiding. Moral is concerned with or derived from the code of interpersonal behavior that is considered right or acceptable in a particular society.

Ethics are the moral principles that govern a person’s behavior or the conducting of an activity. Ethics are the moral code, morals, morality, values, rights and wrongs, principles, ideals, standards (of behavior), value system, virtues and dictates of conscience. Ethics are the branch of knowledge that deals with moral principles.

The ‘ethics’ or ‘moral’ within a society that was prosperous and wanton for more and bigger and faster and better taught the youth, through movies and magazines and television, conflicting with religious vulgarity and abstinences. Boys were shown girls to be subservient as secretaries, housewives, cocktail hostesses, etc. always serving the male. Girls were shown glamour and fragrances and hairdos and runways high heels and bikinis as the vision of what attractive women should look and act like. Culture presented Playboy bunnies, filter cigarettes, binge drinking, fast cars and heart-shaped beds as aspirations for popularity. Little was said of abortions, domestic violence or sexual harassment.

In biology, mating is the pairing of either opposite-sex or hermaphroditic organisms for the purpose of sexual reproduction. Copulation is the union of the sex organs of two sexually reproducing animals for insemination and subsequent internal fertilization. For the majority of species, mating is between two individuals of opposite sexes.

The church preached restraint from such behavior until marriage while culture showed that fanny patting, forced kissing, single mothers were acceptable. Games were presented to entangle bodies while alcohol fueled the ‘action’ to wear the badge of going to 1^st base, 2^nd base, 3^rd base or home run.

BDSM is a variety of often-erotic practices or role-playing involving bondage, discipline, dominance and submission, sadomasochism, and other related interpersonal dynamics. Given the wide range of practices, some of which may be engaged in by people who do not consider themselves as practicing BDSM, inclusion in the BDSM community or subculture is usually dependent upon self-identification and shared experience.

The BDSM community often uses ‘predator’ as a term for someone who seeks out dominance and submission parties that are new to the lifestyle. These parties would use the submissive or dominant in a manner that suited their personal needs instead of encouraging them to grow and learn on their own about this culture. In this same circle and in broader circles, there are also predators who are simply hunters who seek a certain type of personality, age group, fetish, or play style; they often refer to themselves as predators and enjoy the game of Hunter/Prey.

Misogyny is the hatred of, contempt for, or prejudice against women or girls. Misogyny can be manifested in numerous ways, including social exclusion, sex discrimination, hostility, andocentric, patriarchy, male privilege, belittling of women, violence against women, and sexual objectification. Misogyny can occasionally be found within sacred texts of religions and mythologies, and various influential Western philosophers and thinkers have been described as misogynistic.

 A sexual predator is a person seen as obtaining or trying to obtain sexual contact with another person in a metaphorically ‘predatory’ or abusive manner. Analogous to how a predator hunts down its prey, so the sexual predator is thought to ‘hunt’ for his or her sex partners. People who commit sex crimes, such as rape or child sexual abuse, are commonly referred to as sexual predators, particularly in tabloid media or as a power phrase by politicians.

Some U.S. states have a special status for criminals designated as sexually violent predators, which allows these offenders to be held in prison after their sentence is complete if they are considered to be a risk to the public.  The term is applied according to a person’s moral beliefs and does not necessarily denote criminal behavior. For example, a person who cruises a bar looking for consensual sex from someone else could be considered a sexual predator by some.

Third, as a privileged white male growing up in a middle-class neighborhood where no one questioned the social norms and little education in the act of intimacy or consequences, wandered through the smoke and mirrors and tried to behave correctly.

Did I not see or even participate in harassing behavior? I did but if it felt or looked uncomfortable avoided it. Did I not see forcible rape? I did but had no power to stop it. Did I not try to convince a young lady to go farther than she had wanted? Guilty as charged, but always conceded to her request.

What is the difference?

Respect.

Even if I wanted more than anything at the moment, somewhere along the way I decided to respect the other person over peer pressure or passion.

Between the church, my parents, and whatever other influences directing my decisions, I tried to conduct myself in a proper manner to believe my date was more than a ‘great rack’, ‘boobs’, ‘knockers’, ‘jugs’, hooters’, etc.

Forth, will this posting change the sexual culture? Like other prejudices from years of discriminations it will take generations to retrain our behavior.

One last point, the person(s) who have been accused of repulsive actions have already been tried and found guilty by society. The allegations, whether proven or forgotten, have produced their intended results to shame and shock. Stay tuned for more to come.