Our final paper focuses on hegemonic sexuality and how it is either reflected, maintained, or challenged. I chose to analyze song lyrics and after going through many songs by various artists from varying genres, it was quite apparent that hegemonic sexuality is maintained in a majority of all the songs. By actually having to look at the lyrics in depth so I could see what the artists were saying, it helped to see how people view the way that things work in our everyday lives. Take music for instance, probably all of us in this class alone listen to music almost everyday of our lives. What do we continuously hear? Songs that tell of broken hearts, money, sex, love, family, tough times, etc. All the while, almost all the subjects maintain the normative views that we have been raised to believe and not question at all. Well, this got me thinking to the grand level that we have been influenced to think this certain way. Almost everything around us, screams maintain hegemonic sexuality (with a few exceptions)! Sports, billboards that we see when we are driving on the streets, pictures of models posing together, t.v. shows, movies, commercials, stores in the malls, cars, alcohol, cigarettes, cologne, perfume, deodorant, soap, shampoo, laundry detergent, etc. Almost everything that exists is made based off of male and female gender stratification and re-enforces these notions that the male gender is dominant, i.e deodorant for men called Axe and for women Secret.
Even condoms are distinctively differentiated: condoms for women are called “Her pleasure” and are purple in color, whereas for the names are “Trojan”, “Magnum”, “Champion”, and are black and gold. Again, the notion of men being the penetrator and women being penetrated and being submissive is represented by condoms. When it truth, a man cannot penetrate a women unless is gives approval, and vise versa for men also. (of course under other horrible circumstances such as rape) Therefore, the act is and should be viewed as equal.
The more I have realized just how sexualized everything around us is, the more I want to try to use the things I have learned in this class to try to change it. Ever since our class discussion regarding sexuality and telling people that that we’re not homosexual, heterosexual or bisexual when someone asks us, I began using this in my life. I have tried to convince some of my friends to start doing the same but I have had a hard time explaining and changing their mindset. However, I sometimes get frustrated because I feel like I have gained so much knowledge from this class that I want everyone around me to gain some insight so that they could change their way of thinking. In the last class, we talked about what we can do with all the things that we have learned about in this class and I truly feel like this is the greatest challenge after taking a class like this. When things happen now, thoughts are triggered from this class and I think about the theories and class discussions we have had in class.
Knowledge truly does give us power, however, only if you know what to do with and how to influence others with that knowledge.I feel like I have grown and have changed many of my previous thoughts and beliefs. I look forward to using the things that I have learned from this class in my life from now on since the sociology of sexuality is truly prevalent in our lives.
THINKING SEX 