This is http://www.essayz.com/a9103111.htm Previous-Essay <== This-Essay ==> Following-Essay Click HERE on this line to find essays via Your-Key-Words. {Most frequent wordstarts of each essay will be put here.} ========================================================== %SEX BEHAVE RESPECT HEALTH INTEGRITY BALANCE HONEST 910311 Not all sexual behavior merits respect because there are some kinds of sexual behavior which clearly involve disintegrative violence and violation of important values, ideals and principles. It is important to be clear about which values, ideals, principles and other realities may not be violated within healthy sexual relationships. Sexual behavior probably does not merit respect if: 1. It involves physical violence and harm which leaves a person who has been involved resentful and/or in need of medical attention; even if entry into involvement was willful and without coercion. 2. It involves coercion or manipulation of one person by another person through the use of physical force, or involves manipulation through the use of superior power which is based upon abusive consideration of an imbalance in age, authority, economics, dependency, trust, knowledge, skill, experience, social status, role, etc. 3. It involves a real risk of an untimely pregnancy because those involved in the sexual relationship are not prepared to responsibly serve as parents to a new child and/or avoid pregnancy and disease. 4. Those involved in the sexual relationship are ignorant of: the risks of sexually transmitted disease, the risks of initiating pregnancy, the nature of sexual motivations and responses, and the nature of common unhealthy kinds of sexual relationships. 5. The relationship is part of a pattern of addictive, codependent and/or collusive behavior on the part of one or more of the participants in the sexual relationships; i.e., involving in significant ways: dishonesty, deception, misleading secrecy, manipulation, coercion, violence, compulsions, unhealthy fear, confusion, forgetfulness, preoccupations with control, seeking fixes; and may also involve the lack of balance, lack of mutuality, lack of respect, and lack of tenderness. 6. The relationship is being used by one or more of the participants as a means to achieve goals which are not openly and honestly agreed upon by participants. 7. The relationship is engaged in primarily for the purpose of fulfilling or conforming to the demands, expectations, requirements, and other coercive considerations of others who are not vulnerable participants in the sexual relationship. 8. The participants in the relationship find it impossible to be open and honest with anybody outside the relationship about the nature of the relationship; i.e., the relationship occasions alienation of the participants from others outside the relationship. This may involve overt dishonesty and/or withdrawal from open and honest dialogue, conversations and presence with those outside the relationship. 9. The participants in the relationship do not have the time, energy and other resources which are necessary to fulfill the needs of the relationship with personal integrity; and so are prone to engage in dishonesty of some form to deal with the disparity between hopes and expectations on the one hand, and real possibilities on the other hand. 10. The participants in the relationship find that they cannot continue to be open and honest with each other about the various aspects of their relationship as it evolves and changes. 11. The participants in the sexual relationship behave in ways which cause harm and/or distress to people outside the relationship; distress which those outside the relationship cannot reasonably and responsibly and avoid with personal integrity. 12. It encourages participants to desire, hope for, expect or anticipate unrealistic, dishonest or unbalanced levels of rescue, dependency, fixing, boundary elimination, affirmation, satisfaction, pleasure, or fulfillment. 13. It undermines the faithful and honest fulfillment of reasonable responsibilities freely accepted and commitments freely made. The above considerations and others which are similar in kind to the above considerations will in a particular situation lead to suggestions which are wise in that particular situation. Those suggestions cannot with integrity be imposed upon participants in any situation. People who are not involved in a sexual relationship have healthy reason to be concerned about the sexual relationship; but only to the extend that the relationship will inevitably have harmful consequences to them, consequences which they are not free to avoid with reasonable effort and personally integrity. People who are distressed by their knowledge of (or suspicion of the existence of) a sexual relationship with which they are not personally comfortable---do not by virtue of their distress have a right or responsibility to question the sexual relationship, if the other considerations above fail to suggest that the sexual relationship is not worthy of respect. Their distress is their own personal problem with which they themselves should deal and seek to resolve. The participants in the sexual relationship (real or imaginary) are not responsible for that distress, and it is not properly their problem to deal with. (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy) ==========================================================