Honors Thesis: Adam, Meet EveThe advent of birth control, the sexual liberation of women, and the normalization of sex before marriage, to name a few factors, have drastically changed today’s dating scene. Social networking and mass media have also impacted the way we communicate and behave. In this more permissive age of “hooking up” and “casual sex” it is important to understand the common miscommunications between men and women. Is there a new set of rules that govern our generation since the dating pressures have changed? Growing up within these changes, three classmates and I set out to explore our romantic experiences in this new atmosphere and answer our most personal questions by making a documentary. Our intent is to investigate the difference between a man’s idea of intimacy and a woman’s idea of intimacy in heterosexual relationships. Are there fundamental differences between guys and girls that daters should know about before they fool around or settle down? Research included reading books, journal articles, and essays and even watching other documentary films on the topic. Professionals were interviewed in the areas of sociology, psychology, philosophy, anthropology, and biology in order to understand this age-old conflict. In the course of making Adam, Meet Eve, we discovered that the rules in romance might not have changed so much after all. A majority of the research led to the conclusion that young daters need to acknowledge their goals and the goals of their partner – a lesson universal to all times and relationships.
