Abstract
The gender roles of men and women are continuously changing in heterosexual relationships alongside the ever-increasing flexibility and variation of preferences, choice, agency, and individual needs. This paper delves into the role tradition plays between men and women in intimate relationships regarding marriage proposals and surname changes, as well as which sex initiates more when it comes to physical intimacy, emotional intimacy, and long-term commitment.
Highlights
Three primary characteristics of intimate relationships are physical intimacy, including sexual and non-sexual touch; emotional intimacy, including the sharing of thoughts, feelings, and mutual and individual experiences; and commitment, including cohabitation, living apart together relationships, and marriage. Pertinent to these three characteristics of intimate relationships is the act of initiation: who is it, men or women, that initiate more when it comes to a sexual relationship, an emotional connection, and commitment to each other? According to heteronormative stereotypes, it is instinctual to assume that men are the initiators of sex and women the initiators of emotional intimacy
For the purpose of this paper, the terms gender and sex are used interchangeably as the information that follows is an analysis of intimate relationships between heterosexual males and females (American Psychological Association, 2020)
As relationship dynamics continue to change between men and women, where cohabitation, divorce, sex before marriage, women prioritizing careers, and men taking on stronger roles in the household, has the way in which we form our most intimate relationships changed as well? It is my hypothesis that while intimate relationships between men and women have evolved drastically over the last century where rigid gender roles have softened and strict courtship rules have loosened, the essence of male initiation and female receptivity remains the instinctual, preferred method of relating to the opposite sex while coming together to form an intimate heterosexual relationship on the part of both men and women with or without emotional involvement
Summary
Three primary characteristics of intimate relationships are physical intimacy, including sexual and non-sexual touch; emotional intimacy, including the sharing of thoughts, feelings, and mutual and individual experiences; and commitment, including cohabitation, living apart together relationships, and marriage Pertinent to these three characteristics of intimate relationships is the act of initiation: who is it, men or women, that initiate more when it comes to a sexual relationship, an emotional connection, and commitment to each other? It is my hypothesis that while intimate relationships between men and women have evolved drastically over the last century where rigid gender roles have softened and strict courtship rules have loosened, the essence of male initiation and female receptivity remains the instinctual, preferred method of relating to the opposite sex while coming together to form an intimate heterosexual relationship on the part of both men and women with or without emotional involvement As relationship dynamics continue to change between men and women, where cohabitation, divorce, sex before marriage, women prioritizing careers, and men taking on stronger roles in the household, has the way in which we form our most intimate relationships changed as well? It is my hypothesis that while intimate relationships between men and women have evolved drastically over the last century where rigid gender roles have softened and strict courtship rules have loosened, the essence of male initiation and female receptivity remains the instinctual, preferred method of relating to the opposite sex while coming together to form an intimate heterosexual relationship on the part of both men and women with or without emotional involvement
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