Sexual Relationships
Sex is about relationships. In fact, most sexual behaviour occurs in the context of relationships. Reflecting on peoples’ lives, you will clearly see that sexual relationships are central to the way we live. Marriage, cohabiting, many boy-girl relationships, parenting and a host of other social activities have sexual relationships as a vital ingredient of their existence.
Perspectives of Sexual Relationship
Sexual relationships may be viewed in three perspectives. First, they are very diverse and they:
- May be approved and recognized by society. They may be illegal, hidden and disapproved by society as in the case of prostitution, sex with minors and homosexuality in Kenya
- May be mutually fulfilling, unhappy, one sided or abusive
- May involve very similar or very different partners
- May involve two or more individuals
- May be centred around sex or have sex as just an incidental occurrence
- May be motivated by a sense of duty, physical attraction, emotional bonding, desire to have children, pressure to conform, desire to rebel or a need to make money
The second perspective is that true sexual relationships are not ideal relationships. All the participants in the relationships do not get precisely what they set out to get. Therefore the relationships are maintained by a spirit of give and take, the spirit of compromise when the partners get something close to what they wanted or results they can live with.
Not all sexual relationships endure the imperfect nature of their outcomes. Some will endure while others disintegrate due to the conflict created by unsatisfactory results of the relationships. For example many African marriages collapse because the couple is unable to get sons and the man is usually the partner who finds it impossible to live with the unsatisfactory outcome of daughters only. While we scientifically know that men are responsible for their own inability to sire sons, it is still the woman in an African Marriage who is blamed for giving birth to daughters. Thus she becomes a victim of ignorance and myths. Education and communication would help a lot in such cases. So African ladies, next time you are getting married, discuss the matter of your anticipated babies’ sex with your husband-to-be and fully get him convinced that he is solely responsible for the sex of the babies. If he still insists you will be responsible, then he will not be worthy getting into a marriage with.
Lastly, sexual relationships and sexual behaviour exist in a moral context. Each of us has a sense of what is right and what is wrong. This sense is influenced by a variety of factors including our upbringing, life experiences, grasp of the law, religious beliefs and ability to reason. It has even been suggested our genes may have something to do with our sense of right and wrong.
Unfortunately, people do not share precisely the same moral sense and they do not necessarily agree on if some universal code of ethics governs all human sexual behaviour and all sexual situations. But then human beings are reasoning beings and the basic principle of right and wrong should be “Wrong is what I would not like to be done to me and therefore I shall not do it to others”.
At infotrackea.co.ke, we shall not bestow upon ourselves the title of “Moral Judge” telling you what is right and what is wrong. We shall provide you with information, explain the positive and negative consequences of the various actions and leave you to make choices of what is best for you in your sexual relationships. That way, we hope we will have informed and empowered you to make appropriate decisions in your life.