The first time I visited a sexual consumer site was in 1999, in Mayport, Florida with my then boyfriend, now my husband Juan. It was late at night and the building was poorly lit. I remember feeling uncomfortable and embarrassed. I kept wondering if I would run into anyone I knew or if anyone saw me entering the building. At the time visiting the sex shop was part of a rite of passage that also included getting into my first 18 and over club and getting my first tattoo. I remember that I felt ashamed and dirty entering a small store filled with porn VHS tapes and dildos. Still, I was an adult this meant that I was old enough to vote, buy cigarettes, and buy porn.
Now, 17 years later I walked into the Déjà vu Love Boutique in El Cajon, with my husband on a Saturday afternoon. It was a bright and sunny day in the East County, this visit felt different than when I was a teenager. I no longer cared about who was watching my husband and I enter the “sex shop.” Possibly if experience, maturity, and/or wisdom contributed to the new sense of normalcy that I felt as I entered the two-story building in a busy plaza. My 18-year old self would not have had the courage to enter a sexual health consumer site in broad daylight.
It has been a few years since I last visited a
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This was a large store that was well lit and had an enormous sign welcoming patrons. The assortment of products was overwhelming. The first floor was filled with women’s lingerie and costumes the back of the store had lubricants in an assortment of colors and flavors. I was surprised at my own coolness and amazement as if I had been a regular at sex shops. Nonetheless, I felt emotional because I had the memory of my first visit to sexual consumer site with my husband. I thought about how our marriage has changed through the years and how different we are in comparison to our teenage
I found myself in the dining room observing everything and everyone. The dining room was set up to have an intimate feel to it. There were fresh flowers on every table and each table had some privacy. The
Sternheimer, K. (2009, October 19). Everyday Sociology Blog. Everyday Sociology Blog. Retrieved January 20, 2014, from http://nortonbooks.typepad.com/everydaysociology/2009/10/sex-its-not-what-it-used-to-be.html
[3] Since the 1950’s, a sexual revolution has spawned in America, accordingly downgrading previous anathemas in society, like pre-martial sex, masturbation, and homosexuality. For example, according to an article describing the sexual revolution, “In the 1950s, less than 25 percent of Americans thought premarital sex was acceptable; by the 1970s, more than 75 percent found it acceptable” (Stossel 74). Norman Podhoretz recounts how in the early 1950’s obtaining pornography was like trying to buy illegal drugs. But Playboy changed all of that, as it emerged as an “acceptable” form of pornography in 1953.
For centuries, society has placed a remarkably large emphasis on protecting the young from the many perceived errors of growing up. Effective sex education is resisted in many locations across the country in favor of somewhat comical biblical suggestions for abstinence until marriage even while the majority of those targeted teens are viewing the world as a more and more sexual place. So many views are weaving in and out of teenagers' newly formed adolescent minds that any effective argument for responsible attitudes or analysis of sexual behavior in teens should be expressed with a certain minimal degree of clarity. Unfortunately, this essential lucidity of advice is missing in the short story “Where are You Going, Where Have You Been,” in which the misguided Joyce Carol Oates creates the character of Arthur Friend as a cliché personification of the inner demon of uncontrollably budding sexuality. Instead, the murky characterization of the antagonist presents nothing more than a confused and ambiguous view of the meaning of the story.
When the lift doors opened at the sixth floor, a wave of dim light and buzzing voices greeted me. It was as if I'd taken the lift to a dark movie from the 70s. Facing me was the entrance to a supermarket selling all types of candy, weird foods, and random home items. Wondering what about the market attracted so many eyeballs and footfalls, I began walking around the floor, and then from floor to floor, observing the many stylistic and curious shops.
Shmoop Editorial Team. "Brave New World Theme of Sex" Shmoop.com. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008.
HBO's Sex and the City has become a cultural icon in its 6 seasons of running. Based on Candace Bushnell's racy book Sex and the City, the show exhibits an unprecedented example of the sexual prowess of women over the age of 35. The result is an immense viewing audience and an evolving view on the "old maid" stigma that a woman's chances of finding love are significantly reduced after thirty-five. In this paper, we will closely analyze the characters and themes of Sex and the City to explain the significance of what the show represents in American culture.
thoughts delving into our minds to make us reflect upon feelings or experiences that we neglect in life when awake. Connie often flirts with her feelings about sexual encounters. In fact, Larry Rubin believes that “Connie’s intense desire for a sexual experience runs head long into her innate fear of having such an experience” (58). Connie’s tendency to eventually dismiss these fears forces the reader to make the connection between her experience wit...
In prevalent culture, the term “sex sells” acts as a beacon in the minds of many young girls: What used to be just a simple terminological play on words to express the sexually explicit culture of magazines and the sale of fad products, is now being used in a literal sense. Teen girls have grown to believe that selling or “giving away” their sex has become the norm and saying no is now the equivalent of writer Sylvia Plath sticking her head in a stove, or in other words, committing social suicide. Many of these girls do not know that they are being sexually exploited because of this. They believe in their heads that they have no choice when it comes to performing these sexual acts and fail to realize they are being exploited by men (or women), which more often than not ultimately results in dire situations in the end.
A woman is rethinking her experience from the night before and telling it through vivid description. It tells exactly how she feels and her thoughts. She describes what exactly love and lust feels like with a man she doesn 't know well. She starts out saying that she was afraid but goes deep into emotions of the sex between the two of them. The woman is describes each movement during the sexual innuendo. After the intercourse, she cuddles in his secured arms till they fall asleep.
During the 1960s, American culture took a drastic turn. With the growing availability of birth control and the rise of counter culture, women were finally given the ability explore their sexuality without the intense stigmas that existed decades prior (Brinkley 731). Yet as the sixties led into the seventies, a rapid growth of social conservativism began to eat away at this sexual revolution. Though the conservative views did bring back a negative stigma on sex, it could not bring back the more traditional view of what sex should be. This mix of two cultures gave birth to a double standard for women and their sexualities that exists to this day. In Susan Minot’s short story “Lust,” our narrator, an unnamed teenage girl, brings us through her sexual exploration during a
It is in my discovery that, something that was once an intimate and special part of a person’s life is turning into somewhat of a game for others. I do not mean to argue that everyone views sex as meaningless, but some people do, and this downplays sex and sexuality in human culture. An article written by Rachel Hills from TIME titled, “What Every Generation Gets Wrong About Sex,” examines the similarities in the sexual culture of the early 1900’s to the 21st century. Hill contends that in 1964, “[s]ex was no longer a source of consternation but a cause for celebration; its presence not what made a person morally suspect, but rather its absence.” Here she is agreeing that today, sex is seen as an
Hookup culture is a new pattern for American college students involving transient sexual intercourse and having no expectations of a traditional romantic relationship. Hookup activities may include a broad range of sexual behaviors, such as kissing, dancing sexual, oral sex, and having sex. In recent years, hookup culture has become more popular than it was in the past, and sexual behaviors have changed over time in the United States. Popular media representations of sexuality demonstrate the pervasiveness of sexual hookup culture among emerging adults. The themes of books, plots of movies and television shows, and lyrics of numerous songs all demonstrate a permissive
In the critical essay “Lust,” Janet Ellerby summarizes and analyzes the short story “Lust.” Janet Ellerby describes the author’s theme for the short story. The narrator of the story is “unprepared to face the pressure of male desire” and does not know the emotional connection of intimacy. In the short story there is a difference between the desire of men and women, and the attachment of emotions. Susan Minot also describes “what it might mean to open the heart.” The narrator feels that she cannot open her heart to the boys she has encounters with. Ellerby describes that when the narrator lists her encounters she does it without any emotional connection; it is “more like a grocery list than an emotionally charged account of an erotic past.” This shows the narrator trying to give more of a male attitude towards the encounters. Psychologically, the narrator has no emotional attachment to her partners at the beginning of the story, and seems withdrawn from her experiences. The story starts to take a turn and the narrator is negatively affected psychologically.
The coffee shop I decided to do my observation was the well known Starbucks just a couple blocks away. The reason I chose this coffee shop was because of it 's style inside, it attracted me. For example, one side of the wall has a glass top, and the lower part of the wall, made of wood and painted in a bright red color, which was one thing that attracted me and stood out. Outside of the shop people can actually see through the glass wall and get to see what’s happening inside of the coffeeshop. By the entrance you see these two red ceiling lamps which were shaped in a flower bud and these two tall green plants. Once you were in, on the right of the shop there was a counter with food and things to put in your drinks such as milk, sugar, chocolate, etc and the colors and how the food was displayed and served was appealing to my eyes. Behind that counter there was a long table with different electronic devices plugged into the wall. On the middle of the those there is a fridge just for ice and when I turned to the other side and I noticed a big menu on the wall. Further more into the shop, there was an area filled with tables, chairs, and sofas. The tables were in different shapes, one was round and the others rectangular, also there was four bamboo baskets and I looked around and noticed that the walls in that area were decorated with paintings.