Everything about Sexual Norm totally explained
A
sexual norm can refer to a
personal or a
social norm. Most cultures have social norms regarding
sexuality, and define
normal sexuality to consist only of certain legal sex acts between individuals who meet specific criteria of age, relatedness or social role and status.
In most societies, the term '
normal' is actually a
spectrum. In other words, rather than each act being simply classified as "acceptable" or "not acceptable", in practice many acts are viewed as "more or less accepted" by different people, and the opinion on how normal or acceptable they're greatly depends on the individual making the opinion as well as the culture itself. Based on information gained from
sexological studies, a great many ordinary people's sex lives are very often quite different from popular beliefs about
normal, in private.
If non-restrictive sexual norms are regarded positively, they may be called
sexual freedom, "
sexual liberation" or "
free love". If they're regarded negatively, they may be called "sexual licence" or "licentiousness". Restrictive social norms, if judged negatively, are called
sexual oppression or "compulsory heterosexuality;" if the restrictive norms are judged positively, they may be regarded as encouraging
chastity, "sexual self-restraint" or "sexual decency", and negative terms are used for the targeted sexuality, for example
sexual abuse and
perversion.
Sexual norms and sexual practice
Studies have shown that
human sexual behavior doesn't generally fit neatly within structures imposed by societies or
religions, with
masturbation being almost universal, and
pre-marital sex,
serial monogamy,
adultery,
paraphilia and
homosexual and
bisexual behavior being far more common than these societies are willing to acknowledge. Many societies which aggressively regulate sexual behavior tend to have high levels of hidden
child sexual abuse or
spousal abuse, the public discussion of which is
taboo in polite society. This behavior has been documented in
Greenland, and
Victorian England.
Social attitudes
In the West, many people have relaxed the traditional definitions of normality, choosing instead to define normal sexuality as any sexual practice which doesn't involve what are regarded as
sexual perversions. However, using this definition makes use of a long list of sexual perversions which themselves show up hidden assumptions about cultural norms. Recently, in Western society,
consensual paraphilias are becoming more acceptable, in particular "any activity, not otherwise illegal, performed between consenting adults in private."
This liberalization of attitudes has resulted in the
legalization of
homosexuality in many countries, following the ground-breaking
Wolfenden report in the
UK.
There is a tendency in Western countries towards
serial monogamy as a normal heterosexual lifestyle. In the reverse direction, there's also a movement towards recognizing long-term homosexual relationships (
see same-sex marriage).
There is also greater acceptance of sexual relationships (partnerships) without requiring the sanction of a form of marriage recognised by the church, state or legal system. In other words, there's freedom from the interference in people's sex lives by institutions. Sexual relationships are seen as a matter for individuals rather than for society as a whole.
These liberalizing trends can be contrasted with
conservative social trends that seek to reverse these patterns of behaviour, with encouragement for young people to choose traditionally accepted roles, beliefs and behaviors, and to exercise
sexual abstinence or non-
promiscuous lifestyles before marriage.
There is an opposing trend in reaction, that views such changes as a socially destructive force, and is opposed to them. It is often, though not exclusively, associated with people who have strong
religious feelings, and are prevalent in much of
Christianity in America, as well as
Islam in the
Middle East and
Asia, and other devout religious groups such as
Hasidic Jews in
Israel. In such countries there's often strong criticism of
non-traditional sexualities and
sexual liberation.
Some social unrest in both Eastern and Western cultures is due to this conflict between these two trends, and views upon acceptability and control of social and sexual norms.
Further Information
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