SA 21 G "Let's Talk About Sex"

SA 21 G

Gian Corpuz

Wesley Dela Cruz

Jose Carlo Ignacio

Kiko Plaza

Ace Wy

What norm did you violate?

We violated the norm of using decent language when interacting with strangers through the usage of sexually related words such as “titi,” “puke,” “suso,” etc.

Describe the breaching experiment in detail. What was the activity? Where did you do it?

In our breaching experiment we approached random strangers in UP Town Center and engaged in a conversation with them. During the conversation, we would drop some of the sexual related words casually in a vulgar manner. We would then observe their reactions as we mention those words. After the conversation, we would debrief them and ask some follow-up questions to get their point-of-view of the experiment.

What were the different reactions of the people? List all possible reactions you observed. Why do you think they reacted this way? What caused these reactions? Did the deviant act re-affirm/reinforce the existing norms based on these reactions?

Male to Female (Respondent)

• She was caught off guard. She didn’t expect someone to say those words. “Sobrang naweirduhan lang talaga ako”
• Shocked, she couldn’t respond properly throughout the conversation anymore. She asked a male salesperson to attend to our male experimenter instead. Then, she explained that she went inside the stockroom to hide because she really felt awkward about it.
• The female respondents were taken aback. They stopped mid-conversation and would need the prompting of the experimenter to get back into the conversation. It is as if they were questioning whether they heard what they did.

Female to Male (Respondent)

• During the act itself, they’d be caught off guard. Their reactions would be widening of eyes, tilting back of head, and stopped whatever they were doing to listen. Then, when they were asked what they felt, the said that it was just normal and seemed to justify the act even if it wasn’t in accordance to how they responded to it.

Female to Female (Respondent)

• She was relaxed and comfortable at first but after dropping the word, she suddenly covered her mouth and laughed a little. She composed herself then went on with the conversation. When asked, she said that it was normal for some customers to really speak in that manner and it didn’t feel offensive at all.
• During the act itself, they didn’t react or moved differently even after the words were said. They explained later on that it was something normal because there will really come a time that people have to be honest and straightforward. When it happens, they should only focus on helping.

Male to Male (Respondents)

• He was weirded out by the interaction. He thought that our experimenter was crazy. After the experimenter left, he looked out of the store and continued to follow our experimenter with his eyes. He wanted to find out if our experimenter was in his right state of mind.
• He didn’t have a problem with it. He was cool with it, he didn’t show any signs of discomfort or surprise. He specifically stated that it was normal for a guy-to-guy conversation.

Aside from the norms, what sociological themes are at play for people to react in a certain way? Is it a function of gender (gender norms, roles), social class (norms of the rich & the poor), values/beliefs of institutions (religion, family, peer group, etc.).

Society puts an emphasis on people-to-people interactions. Among these is when strangers interact in a public space. The front stage used among strangers, especially in Filipino society, is to be polite but warm and to be concise in the transaction before going on their own ways. In this experiment, the responses differed in the experimented settings (male-to male, female-to-female, male-to-female, female-to-male) and highlighted the sociological functions of gender and the openess of sexuality of routine speech in a public space.

Though both males and females are not expected to be as forward and vulgar here, there was a marked difference in reactions at the speech of the male experimenters compared to when the female experimenters’ vulgar expressions. For male experimenters there would seem an increase in agressiveness and a wrong state of mind when it is the male expressing. Female respondents would become uncomfortable or hesitant because of the opposite gender becoming vulgar, and male respondents would become more suspicious in their interactions or, conversely, they would become more comfortable as the back stage (being vulgar and open in sexual expressions) is brought in this setting (male-to-male) and would remind them of their friends and settings in a more informal space, such as a drinking bar.

When female experimenters expressed the vulgarity, there is a coddling among respondents to the experimenter. Though the respondents would also be hesitant and uncomfortable, it is only for the moment as the respondents acclimate to the experimenter’s forwardness. The respondents would then justify the experimenter’s actions as normal. The experimenter’s actions are not seen so much as a threat but as a quirk or something that makes the person stand out but not in a malicious way.

How did you feel when you did this experiment? How does it feel to deviate from the norms? Were you hesitant to do the activity?

At first, we felt uncomfortable initiating the experiment because we were also affected by the same norms that we were testing. We had an expected response in mind and we weren’t sure how to deal with the situation in the event that we would make the respondent visibly uncomfortable. After a while, after getting a feel of the general responses of the people we approached, some of us got used to testing the norm and the process became easier. What also helped us gain more confidence was the assurance that we would be able to explain the experiment to the respondents.

Other observations and analysis that you may have on the activity and on deviance in general.

When a female experimenter tried to breach this norm among nuns they were unfazed in her forwardness. A female experimenter theorized that nuns, being in a single gender community as they are would be more open in their actions and words among themselves. Hence, when someone who does not belong to their group, acts as forward and vulgar as she is, then they would accept her actions as though not normal for outsiders, as something tolerable and familiar for them.

As a group, we’ve come to realize that there are copious social factors that may affect the outcome of the experiment. It was interesting to know that looking into just one factor can lead to a wide array of insights and learnings about different people. This means that putting a limitation didn’t necessarily restrict the possible approaches towards the experiment.