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SHU student and alpha-blogger Neha Bawa recently posted comments on a survey from the India about marital expectations in the subcontinent. An excerpt follows, but I encourage readers to examine Neha's blog.
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I could live through a marriage being arranged for me because I honestly believe that they last longer and better than the "love marriages," but this is probably why they'll have to drag me to the mandap (altar) kicking and screaming.
This is word for word from a friend, except that the names have been changed for the obvious reason.
1.
From: John Law
To: Theodore Gnaus
09/20/04 12:51PM
Ted, had a weird dream just before I woke up this
morning: involved Buck,
Craftsman, others, me all vacationing in
Provincetown...I know, I know---it
sounds pretty significant, but I think it most
likely flows from the
anti-gay referendums in Louisiana (Right......Sure
John, that's it....).
2.
From: Theodore Gnaus
To: John Law
Sent: Monday, September 20, 2004 4:39 PM
Subject: Re: hey...
So, in the dream, were you all carrying jousting
lances?
3.
From: John Law
To: Theodore Gnaus
Sent: Monday, September 20, 2004 5:38 PM
Subject: Re: hey...
Well, I was. Leonard Cole was using a baby shrimp,
Herman Crenshaw had a
mushroom, Carrick had a peanut, Buck had a broken
piece of uncooked
spaghetti, Craftsman had an empty paper towel tube,
Jim Bennett had an empty
toilet paper tube, Earl Carter had a rose stem
with the flower clipped
off,
and you had some sort of hybrid giant
anaconda/hydra.... I believe I
slew
you all quite easily, though I did have some
difficulty with three of your
hydra-heads....
As Jeffrey Weeks notes in his essay, The Social Construction of Sexuality, "we experience sex very subjectively." This is an imperative notion to consider, not only for today's opinions of sexual liberalization but also of the past's perspective of it as well. Rather than focusing on the exact definition of sexual liberalization, the most important question to consider is to what degree liberalization can actually exist. Jeffrey Weeks states that "we must learn to see that sexuality is something which society produces in complex ways. It is a result of diverse social practices that give meaning to human acitivies, of social definitons and self-definitions, of struggles between those who have power to define and regulate, and those who resist." It is typical that one has the freedom to do as one pleases in the privacy of his or her's own bedroom. However, if indeed sexuality is a product of society, then, much like most societal institutions, it is therefore suceptible to control. Therefore, one must consider whether sexual liberalization is theoretically "true" or if it is instead just a set of patterns or trends during a period of time.
Take, for example, Week's five broad areas that "are crucial in the social organization of sexuality: kinship and family systems, ecnomonic and social organization, social regulation, political interventions, and the development of 'cultures of resistence'." What kind of control does the individual, who is being affected by these areas, have over these same areas? Is it possible for the people to be controlled through the five areas?
Thus, perhaps the concept of sexuality is that "it is what it is." For example, the homosexual debate that has consumed mainstream America over the past decades can be viewed as an ongoing process in the liberation of the homosexual community. This present-day perspective essentially claims the never-ending persuit of equality and tolerence. On the other hand, the ancient Greeks held homosexuality to another standard. To them, sex acts between men were commonplace in the military as a means to ensure that no one would leave their fellow soldier ("lover") in the field to die. Does this mean that one point of view is right and one wrong? No, because both were and are shaped by societies that are unique to each time period. And the same applies for the hundreds years in between as well. This does not mean that the opposite extreme cannot occur, as noted in William Bradford's "Wickedness Breaking Forth." However, despite an overall societal rejection of the activites, these sex acts and thoughts of such acts continued. But in the same as beastiality is looked down upon now as it was in the 1600's, the Puritans and sexuality were still a product of societal occurances.
Finally, Week's writes that "the strong emotions it undoubtly arouses [give] to the world of sexuality a seismic sensitivity making it a transmission belt for a wide variety of needs and desires: for love and anger, tenderness and aggression, intimacy and adventure, romance and predatoriness, pleasure and pain, empathy and power." And in the same way as this duality, the powers that affect sexuality can warp the trends for good or bad.