Human Sexuality Homework: Cheating, Love, and One Night Stands

This assignment delves into the multifaceted aspects of human sexuality, exploring the complexities of cheating, the implications of one-night stands, and the nature of love. The student's responses address the definitions and various forms of cheating, including emotional and physical infidelity, as well as cyber cheating. The assignment presents a critical perspective on one-night stands, highlighting potential risks and negative consequences. Furthermore, the student articulates their understanding of love, identifying key indicators such as constant thoughts, emotional connection, and long-term planning. The assignment incorporates relevant references to support the discussion and provides a comprehensive analysis of the psychological and emotional dimensions of human relationships.

Running head: HUMAN SEXUALITY
Human sexuality
Name of the student:
Name of the University:
Author’s note

1HUMAN SEXUALITY
Q. 12. What are your thoughts about cheating? What constitutes cheating?
Cheating is a common issue highly prevalent in close romantic relationship where the
one partner cheats over other without considering about the other person’s emotion and close
attachment. Cheating cannot always be defined as having sex with another outside a romantic
relationship; it is seen today in many forms. Whatever might be the types and forms of
cheating, such behaviour has a devastating effect on the person being cheated and they go
through a heart wrenching phase of emotional effects and depression.
The most common form of cheating includes emotional cheating and physical
cheating. I became aware about emotional cheating when I saw one of my friend going
through a sudden change in behavior and entering into extreme depression after her boyfriend
of about 5 years found to be cheating on her. He left her all of a sudden and my friend
ultimately got to know that he was entered into a relationship with another girl. This kind of
cheating is emotional cheating because the cheater is found to secretly engage in intimacy
and emotional closeness with another person instead of the person who is actually their mate.
The victim of cheating experiences emotional trauma and enters into a state of shock which
takes lot of time to recover. Another form of cheating is physical cheating which is the act of
entering into a sexual relationship with someone else instead of their spouse or partner.
Another form of cheating that is now seen a lot in the era of digitalization is cyber cheating
where one person flirts with other person on social networking sites and suddenly vanishing
away and leaving the person1.
1 Clayton, Russell B., Alexander Nagurney, and Jessica R. Smith. "Cheating, breakup, and divorce: Is Facebook
use to blame?." (2013).

2HUMAN SEXUALITY
Q. 14. What are your feelings about one night stands?
One night stand is a common term that we often hear in movies and television shows.
It is defined as a sexual encounter between two persons which last only one time and both the
person involved in such act never contacts the other person after the sexual encounter. I have
a very negative view about one night stands as I feel that the people who favour one night
stand might be just hungry for sex and such person will never give any importance to a
permanent and close relationship. They engage in such immoral practice just for having some
fun and fulfilling their sexual desire.
I find no good or moral rational behind practicing one night stand. It is an extremely
immoral action which causes more harm to a person than benefits. Normally sluts are found
to engage in such acts to gain some financial benefits in exchange of sexual encounter with
the partner. However, this is done secretly by common people too to fulfil their sexual desire
on a periodical basis. Mostly young children with rich financial support and middle age
people are found to engage in such acts. However, I think in exchange of few moments of
fun, they are inviting lot of risk for them. The most important risk is the health risk as sex
with voluntary partners is likely to increase the risk of sexually transmitted disease and HIV
in person2. Hence, few moments of pleasure can devastatingly change a person’s life.
Another issue that a person may face is that once the society knows about such act, they will
have to go through a pathway of shame. The person may also regret the act after a while,
however they cannot stay away from humiliation if the society comes to know about it.
2 Goesling, Brian, et al. "Programs to reduce teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections, and associated
sexual risk behaviors: a systematic review." Journal of Adolescent Health54.5 (2014): 499-507.

3HUMAN SEXUALITY
Q. 18 What is love? How do you know when you are in love?
Love is a state of mind in which people develop deep affection for a person and they
are very much passionate to live close to that person. Love has different forms. The love of a
mother for her child is different that of a wife for her husband. However, in all forms of love,
there is strong emotional attraction and personal attachment with the two person involved.
From the context of love for romantic partners or spouse, it can be said we can say we
are in love when we always thing about one particular person all the time and always develop
a pleasant feeling when the person is in front of us. Person who are in love often desire to
meet his/her romantic partner as often as possible. Another sign of being in love with
someone is that only that person makes our day better and our romantic partner is the first
person we think about when we wake up. I have also seen many friends who have fallen in
love and they expressed that being in love is an exciting and selfless feeling where the other
person’s needs and desire becomes the most important for her. Another common sign for a
person who is in love is that they start to think long term and spending their future with the
romantic partner. A person who is truly in love cannot imagine their future the person they
love. People in love also show signs of emotional dependency and possessiveness for the
other person3.
3 Wlodarski, Rafael, and Robin IM Dunbar. "The effects of romantic love on mentalizing abilities." Review of
General Psychology 18.4 (2014): 313.

4HUMAN SEXUALITY
Reference
Clayton, Russell B., Alexander Nagurney, and Jessica R. Smith. "Cheating, breakup, and
divorce: Is Facebook use to blame?." (2013).
Goesling, Brian, et al. "Programs to reduce teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections,
and associated sexual risk behaviors: a systematic review." Journal of Adolescent Health54.5
(2014): 499-507.
Wlodarski, Rafael, and Robin IM Dunbar. "The effects of romantic love on mentalizing
abilities." Review of General Psychology 18.4 (2014): 313.