Respond to the information and give a great opinion.

In Chapter 4 of The Social Construction of Sexuality, I learned that sexuality is also a basis of our identity. We tend to express ourselves without even thinking about it, but in certain societies sexuality isnt used as a piece of their identity as often. I think that sexuality should be a private matter and something that the individual decides on when they are ready, not necessarily needing a specific label generated by society. Everyone should be free to make this decision on their time and not fill out a form with a fear of being stereotyped for their answer. A very good point that I think that was made in Chapter 4 is that heterosexuality was the foundation of society and procreation before these other ways, such as artificial insemination, were invented. The point made that heterosexuality changed from simply being a way to procreate into an entire sexual identity is something that began this wave of confusion due to how homosexual, bisexual, or transgender people felt. This instant standard made people discovering other sexualities feel as if they were wrong for feeling the way they do. This chapter also goes over the way that each gender male and female, are separated into certain stereotypes such as men being rational and women being emotional.

British studies from this chapter also found that most high school students began to establish their heterosexual norm by bullying students of any other sexuality. Being so young, these children will think that these false beliefs will set the norm for their own thoughts. Another challenging discussion they brought up was how heterosexual people want to express themselves without demeaning gays and lesbians. The coming out process and other important boundaries around sexuality are not talked about as much in this chapter. I think all of these steps which help make this easier and more comfortable for people should be respected and not necessarily everyone elses business, unless the individual wishes that so. Keeping your business private is always what I believed to be the better option, but never because you are ashamed of who you are. I think especially with this topic that mindset can easily get confused. All of these anxieties can cause so much stress around sexuality that sometimes people might feel a burden of addressing it, when it should be something happy and freeing. As time is going society is becoming more open.