Presentation Tomorrow!

Hey everyone,

I have a laptop that's not a mac so I can bring it to class tomorrow and hopefully it'll sync up with the projector. 

Zach

Almost there!

Alright,

So for tomorrow, I have the essay and the references page printed. The video looks amazing you guys, I can't wait to show it to the class!

And speaking of that... I don't think you can hook macs up to those projectors, so does anyone have a non-mac we can use?

Write-up

Hey guys

So Zach and I got together today, and have competed a rough draft of the written portion of our group work. I'm just finishing a final edit right now, then Zach is going to look it over. When it's all done we'll email both of you a copy so you can check it out and see if there's anything you'd like to add!

Also, what was the final decision regarding the voice overs? Are you guys going to do that part or do we need to figure out a time to meet so we can record all four of us?

Talk soon!

Hey guys!

So ashley and I are about halfway done the video (without audio). I'll just give you a little breakdown of what we have done so far.

Introduction:

- Virginity Title

- Slang Words for virginity

- What is it?

Dictionary Definition followed by Hits from google

- Confused? why is virginity SO confusing

Education:

- late 19th century view of sex education (semen theory and scare tactics)

- 1960s view of sex education (started showing up in schools but was based around "human relationships - encouraged and promoted marriage and families)

- Todays views on sex education ( 1-8 curriculum still advocates abstinence - introduces the concept in grade 7)

- connector to government = over the last 12 years the American Government only provides federal funding for programs promoting AOUM.

Government: still in progress

Religion: still in progress

Media:

- music

- tv shows

-movies clips

- pictures

- how the media is now promoting sex = confusing for kids

Ashley and I were thinking that we should all get together sometime at the end of the week to decide how we want to wrap up the end of the video and capture the statement that we want to get across.

Tutorial Recap

Hey everyone,

Just to make sure I understood everything that we just discussed in tutorial, I've got a few follow-up questions:
1. We are now focusing on the fact that there are opposing social forces (ie religion vs. media) that are telling us different things about virginity and thus people are confused as to how to interpret these messages. 
2. Are we still sticking to the progression part of the progression vs. promiscuity, because we argued that people have choice now in whether they want to have sex before marriage or not?
3. I know we said that the majority of the video will be focusing on the double-standard of virginity and how it creates confusion, but how are we going to relate it to the broader sexual culture?
4. I think our key message at the end is going to be something to the effect of: as with most things that are socially constructed, your personal opinion on virginity is a product these competing forces and so it is unique to each person. 
5. I'm not sure how we decided to end it; is there a solid concluding or lasting statement we want to make?

 

Effects of Television Content on Adolescents

As I was doing some research I came across this interesting article about the effects of television on sexual activity of adolescents. Here is the link if you want to take a look: http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB9068/index1.html

The article discusses two recent studies and their findings. The first showed that the amount of sexual content that adolescents view on television can result in sooner initiation of sexual activity. The study looked at 1762 adolescents between the ages of 12 and 17. They were surveyed in regards to their sexual experiences as well as the amount and type of television they watch. One year later they were surveyed on the same information. There were three categories of sexual content that they looked at. The first one was the amount of kissing, touching and depictions of sex. Second they looked at amount of discussion about sexual desires and plans, and third they analyzed amount of talk about sexual risks, waiting, and contraception. They found that those who reported watching the highest levels of category one or two content were more likely to have initiated sex one year later. Furthermore, those who viewed the highest amounts of category one or two content compared to those who viewed the least were two times more likely to have initiate sex one year later.

The second study analyzed effects of watching a single episode of the television show Friends. In this particular episode one of the main characters found out that she was pregnant even though she used a condom. The episode gives specific facts about condom efficacy. The results of surveys taken after watching the episode showed that the majority believed condoms to be effective, 10% talked about condoms with their parents after viewing the episode, and the majority of those who discussed with their parents said that their perceptions of condom use were changed. It was found that 1.67 million adolescents watched this episode when it first aired.

The results of both of these studies indicate that adolescents do pay attention to what they are watching and develop their values and morals accordingly. In addition they demonstrate that information about contraction can help education and increase communication with parents regarding sensitive issues.

I think that this information will be helpful in proving that media has an effect on virginity. It will also demonstrate that this effect is not always negative. I will continue to look at the effects of media by looking at other sources such as music, movies, and the internet.

RAND Health Publications. (2004). Does Watching Sex on Television Influence

Teens’ Sexual Activity? Retrieved November 10 2010 from

http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB9068/index1.html

Update on Progress

Here is an update on what we discussed at our last meeting. There are some links to videos and article if you would like to take a look.

Video Outline:

- Google search

o Video of someone doing the search

o Show what comes up for image and web search of virginity

- Textbook definition

- Introduce concept of “virginity” as just a word

o While flashing slang words for virgin (deflower, v-card, pop her cherry, maidenhead, v-gripped, virg)

- Indentify focus on North American Society

- Why do these words have such meaning?

o Media, education, government, religion

- Education: Found these good videos about sex education in Ontario…(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJajAFCZPM4&feature=fvsr) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIz498m2X6Y&feature=related)

- (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PbhBgqLnPU&feature=related)

o Quotes

o Try to find an old sexual education video

o Pictures emphasizing how ridiculous the story is

o Emphasize how it still has implications today

o Talk about sex education in schools today

- Government: What else has government told us? age of consent, etc

o Look to authority to clear things up

o Should the government pay for women wanting to revert their virginity?

o Government spending on abstinence only (http://www.advocatesforyouth.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=409&Itemid=336)

o Video that we found (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5Xy-RQgLFI)

- Religion: who else emphasizes abstinence only?

o Use of fear to delay sex

o Cartoon

o Bible quotes

o Virgin Mary scene from a walk to remember (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GD08zTvaNl4)

- Media: recent outlet for sexual presentation

o Television comparison (I love Lucy vs. Sex and the City)

o Reality show (women selling virginity)(http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv/2010/05/10/2010-05-10_australian_filmmaker_takes_virgin_auction_reality_show_to_las_vegas_after_threat.html)

o Purity rings

o Music content (article about how music content effects teen sex)

- When you take the social meaning away from the word, at the end it is still just a word…so why does it have such impact on society?

To do: work on script for next meeting

Cross-cultural ages of females' first sexual experience

I found a pretty interesting article that compares the ages of when girls have their first sexual experiences across cultures.  It touches a bit on early marriages and promiscuity and what that implies in terms of sexual health.  I think it could be pretty useful...check it out! http://www.ined.fr/fichier/t_telechargement/8633/telechargement_fichier_en_pesa391.pdf

Sex Education. 1890-1920

I found this really fascinating article on sexual education from 1890- 1920. I think it really relates to our topic of virginity because the education people were receiving was completely based on the fact that sex was for procreation ONLY – and people were therefore expected to wait until they were married.

Some interesting points that were discussed:

1.) The Semen Theory – boys were told that semen, through some process that was not yet understood, secreted special cells. If semen were not expended these cells would be reabsorbed into the blood and would allow for a boy to develop a deep voice, and grow a full beard. It was also though that if there was excess of semen cells that they would be reabsorbed into the blood, and travel up to the brain and would allow new thoughts and critical thinking. It led boys and men to believe that not having sex was necessary for the growth and develop of society

2.) What women were told: it was through sexuality and love that a woman fulfilled her “destiny”, which was creating a family. This was because families were thought to be, “the primary cell in which society flourishes.”

3.) Everyone was told that sex was for procreation. If men had sex with their wives for pleasure it was considered “legalized prostitution.”

4.) Believed that children were just curious and that if they taught them the general plumbing that their curiosity would be satisfied

5.) They feared “mental masturbation” (sexual fantasies) were more dangerous than actual masturbation because mental masturbation could be practiced with no limit

6.) Believed that dangers in reference to sex differed drastically between girls and boys. Boys were active, spontaneous, and aggressive and needed to be taught self-control. Girls were passive and were at risk of being “awoken” to external stimuli so they need to be scared (pregnancy) into becoming unresponsive and frigid.

7.) They believed that if they could convince children that sex was for reproduction only that they could eliminate premarital sex, prostitution, and excess sex in marriages.

8.) Attempted to instill the belief that the ideal relationship between a man and a woman was the one that a boy had with his mother and sister, or that a girl had with her father or brother.

9.) It was thought that masturbation would lead to sex for pleasure, so masturbation was NEVER talked about. Boys were also told that they were NEVER to touch their genitals and that if they had to for hygiene/medical reasons they were to do so with a pair of tongs. Girls were told to,"keep the opening of the nest covered, and to never touch it except to clean.”

Used venereal disease to help regulate behaviour by telling men that, “any girl who has given herself to you has probably given herself to others who have diseased you”

11.) Wanted to introduce sexuality to kids using books but were afraid that the books would fall into the hands of small children – ideally wanted to give information in one-on-one sessions but that was not practical. They began to secretly put it in other courses, like science, using plants and animals to describe reproduction.

Strong, B. (1972). Ideas of the Early Sex Education Movement in America, 1890-1920 .History of Education Quarterly, 12(2),129-161

A lot of these ideas probably led to a lot of the weight and values we place on virginity today. At one point in time men used to think that if they masturbated, or had too much sex that they would expend to much semen (along with specials “cells”) get sick and die, while women were taught to be frigid and unresponsive to sexual advances. Though today we all see that many of these ideas and strategies are ridiculous, I believe that they still have had lasting implications on how society views virginity.

I am now in the process of comparing the sexual education beliefs from the article above to those from the Canadian Guidelines for Sexual Education, 2004. So far, they are drastically different.

Virginity and the State: Government Policies

Just as an initial clarification, I'd like to inform our readers that we have bounded our topic through choice of place. In order to keep the information consistent and contained, our research shall pertain to North America and in some cases when stated, Europe. Although it would be ideal to explore the concept of virginity in a variety of cultures and countries, within the confines of this assignment and our selected topic this will not be possible.

Having said that, I think we are all aware that it is often difficult to obtain research and statistics from just Canadian documents and therefore may need to resort to info relating to the United States and in some cases Europe as well.

I have already found some interesting articles relating to virginity and government policies, however this may be an area that has yet to be fully explored. So far I've found a lot of overlap between several of our selected topics, so communication will definitely be important. I have saved an article relating to both government policies and religion that I will bring to tutorial on Friday which should provide some valuable ideas to both sides.

I found this fairly fascinating article online which I think we could definitely incorporate into our presentation, or at least touch on within our work. Since we choose such broad topics to focus our research around (religion, government policies, education and the media) we left out quite a few interesting subtopics which are definitely worth mentioning.

The medicalization of sexuality is a topic we discussed in detail in class, and I think that the medicalization of virginity is a concept worth exploring as well.

Check it out:

http://www.theprovince.com/life/More+Canadian+women+getting+controversial+surgery+restore+virginity/3236826/story.html

As well, the Department of Justice website has some interesting information on it relating to state policies and virginity. For instance, the official legal age of consent to sexual activity is 16 years old. But here's a quote directly following that information:

However, the age of consent is 18 years where the sexual activity "exploits" the young person -- when it involves prostitution, pornography or occurs in a relationship of authority, trust or dependency (e.g., with a teacher, coach or babysitter). Sexual activity can also be considered exploitative based on the nature and circumstances of the relationship, e.g., the young person's age, the age difference between the young person and their partner, how the relationship developed (quickly, secretly, or over the Internet) and how the partner may have controlled or influenced the young person.

I found it very interesting that we provide one age of consent for regular sexual relationships, and a different one for exploitative relationships. By that I mean... why is there an age of consent for illegal or exploitative relationships at all? To me that just creates an atmosphere in which it becomes progressively easier to get away with illegal activity through the law. It mentions classifying exploitation based on the relationship of the two individuals to one another... then lists options such as teachers or coaches. Is there a difference between sexual relations involving a teacher and an 18 year old, versus a 16 year old? If the nature of the relationship is exploitative or is taking advantage of an individual, why is there a clarification regarding at what age this exploitation may begin?

I'm sure many of these questions and more, will be answered as further research is conducted. Thus far, I am having difficultly locating information regarding ages of consent in past years. If anyone comes across anything that looks like it could help, please let me know!

Also, I think as a group we need to make a decision based on when we are going to start our time frame... 1900, 1920, 1950? Ideas?

Assignment Introduction

As a group, the contemporary issue in sexuality that we have collectively decided to discuss is the concept of virginity in today's society and how it has changed over the past century.  Our plan is to create a youtube video that illustrates the contrast between historical and present views of virginity and how the society we live in shapes these views.  The four main components of society that we will be focusing on are: government policies, religion, sexual education and media portrayal of sexuality and virginity.  We will also discuss whether the shift in the view of virginity is a positive progression for sexuality or a  negative symbol of increased promiscuity in our society.