How I Met Your Mother (HIMYM) is a TV sitcom that shall be analyzed in this paper on its depiction of sexuality. It is a show about people being in love, and how those people treat each other. It was developed with the DVD experience in mind so that the viewers could watch the progression of close relationships between the characters and the sexual landscape in which they maneuver. The main characters are Lilly Aldrin, Marshall Eriksen, Ted Mosby, Barney Stinson, and Robin Scherbatsky and adhere to the variety of personality types seen typically within sitcoms. Lilly and Marshall are a couple trying to keep young love alive. Ted is a single man looking for his true love. Robin is a strong independent woman who has a soft side. Barney is a hard drinking, womanizing, and chauvinist male. During the course of the characters development across the seasons, it is the variety of human sexuality stereotypes and situations that are vastly used as the shows comedic material, from the “Olive Theory” to the “First 8.3 seconds”.
The aim of this paper is to inspect how the themes of sexuality are presented in the show as well as to discuss how knowledge and claims about sex should be derived from empirical sources and not from personal experiences and folk-psychological non-scientific sources. The following themes shall be examined: recall techniques, premature ejaculation, facework and sexual communication, components of jealousy, and a detailed look at current conceptualization of sexual identity through the character Barney Stinson.
The concept of recall techniques was examined by Brown & Sinclair (1999) in order to study how participants recalled their sexual partners. It was found that there were three different methods used in how people remember their past partners (Brown & Sinclair, 1999); enumeration, where a list is made on the spot of each person considered a sexual partner; tally, where a list is kept recorded in a diary or book; rough approximation, where guessing is involved. All three methods are used within the context of the HIMYM, and are especially pronounced in the episode “Right Place Right Time” where Barney uses his detailed dossier in order to keep track of reaching his goal of sleeping with 200 women.
The theme of premature ejaculation is presented throughout HIMYM in a negative light. Premature ejaculation occurs when with minimal sexual simulation before, on, or shortly after penetration and before the person wishes it and occurs in 28.5% of men (Hill, 2007). A case example of the negative depictions is clearly seen in the episode “Where Were We?” Throughout the episode there are comedic situations that occur where a man and women are in physical contact with each other while the man is having a separate conversation and ends up receiving negative news and responds by saying “oh oh,” This was immediately followed by the female either making a concerned and worried look of disappointment, or saying “Already?” This implication involves the idea and negative perception that premature ejaculation is a problem and frowned upon by women.
Research of sexual communication within a close relationship has mainly dealt with what is being communicated. The concepts of interest, desire (initiation), consent, likes and dislikes during sexual communication all share a subtext of the psychological model of facework (Cupach & Metts, 2003; Cupuch & Spitzber, 1994). Facework involves the idea that people aim to save face, the social impression of themselves on others, in order achieve a balance of positive face, the desire for validation and respect for and from their partner, and negative face, the desire to be free from constraint and imposition upon autonomy and personal differences (Cupach & Metts, 2003; Cupuch & Spitzber, 1994). In HIMYM sexual communication is widely presented in many forms and exemplified by the “Olive Theory” discussion in the pilot episode of series. The “Olive Theory” is based on Marshal and Lilly’s relationship. He hates them and she loves them, in a way it is a perfect balance. Near the end of the episode Barney points out to Marshall that the “Olive Theory” is false because he has witnessed Marshall eating olives while Lilly was not present. Marshall explains how on their first date at a Greek restaurant Lilly asked for his olives and he lied about he hated them because “I had been waiting 18 years for some pretty girl to like my olives.” Lilly overhears this and grabs onto Marshall, who has a look of fear on his face as he admits, “Lilly, I like olives.” Her response clearly shows a subtext of positive face when she replies, “We’ll make it work.”
Harris’ (2003) article proposed that the emotional, cognitive, and behavioral components of jealousy should be modeled on the attachment/pair bonding and social-cognitive perspectives. The attachment perspective normative form of attachment anxiety predicts that individuals with low self-esteem, neuroticism, dependency problems, distrust of partner, and feeling of inadequacy about a relationship will display jealous behavior (Harris, 2003; Hill, 2007). The social-cognitive perspective holds that the role of culture influences jealousy, and that with cognitive changes over time, an individual’s jealous thoughts and behaviors decrease.
In beginning of season three of HIMYM Robin and Ted have broken off their relationship with each other. She travels to Argentina for a vacation in order to recuperate, she returns with an Argentinean lover. Ted instantly shaves off his breakup beard and joins Barney in a search for a new girl. The jealousy between the two becomes apparent when Robin and her lover discuss sex in front of Ted and the group. The conversation that ensues shows how the concepts of preventive, corrective, and aggressive facework within social sexual conversations become increasingly more influential (Cupach & Metts, 2003; Cupuch & Spitzber, 1994). Also the gender differences in jealousy due to differences in cognitive appraisal (Harris, 2003), are present in the end of the episode when Robin hampers Ted’s feelings of rejection and jealousy by telling him “You’re bigger.” This reference to the size of his genitalia eased his focus on sexual competition through his macho male ideals.
The current conceptualization of sexual identity involves the components of sexual and romantic arousal and attraction, behavior, and the self understanding of identity (Hill, 2007). The process identity development is integrated with the behaviors of arousal and attraction and as Eagly and Wood (1999) have shown sex-typical male roles are associated with power and status by engaging in dominant behavior (e.g., controlling and assertive acts), while women participate in more subordinate behavior. Barney fulfills this sex-typical role quite well. He constantly references women as objects of desire and manipulation in order for him to achieve his own ends. He uses a rating system for female attractiveness. “"Okay, Robin's a 10. Fine, we'll get you a 12. Or, you know, two sixes. Failing that, four threes. And, break glass in case of emergency, we'll go to Staten Island, we'll get you 12 ones." He also approaches picking up women as a science of sexual coercion and compliance.
Barney’s playbook of coercive techniques seem to reflect the findings of Shotland and Goodstein (1992) which provides support for the concept of an implicit social contract during sexual encounters. Incorporated into his playbook is the concept of sexual compliance, which is a common behavior among young people and involves the willingness to engage in sexual activity that one does not necessarily desire (Vannier & O’Sullivan, 2010). This is presented in the show by statements that involve ‘plays’ of Barney’s that take into account the location and the essential 8.3 seconds of first impressions, which is a fact statistic used by Barney in order to validate his own claims. Such statements include; “Finish line of a women's 10K. Salty girls on an endorphin high who just want to lay down.”, “Female acrobats from Montreal. Super flexible. We are going to get Cirque du So-laid.”
Lastly, when Barney breaks his own “Platinum Rule” with Wendy the waitress, his assumption is that she accepts and understands his 'swinging' and 'open' lifestyle. This though is not the case and the relationship dissolves and causes strong negative associations between his self satisfaction and the quality of the relationship (Hill, 2007). His personal process of identity development is accurately portrayed when he recites, “Remember the old Barney. He was a lion, king of the jungle. Stalking whatever prey he chose. Going in for the kill. Now look at me. Declawed, neutered. What was once my jungle is now my zoo. And I am forced to mate with the same old lioness again, and again, and again, while families pay to watch.”
In conclusion, the focus of this paper was to inspect how human sexuality themes of recall techniques, premature ejaculation, facework and sexual communication, components of jealousy, and the current conceptualization of sexual identity through the character Barney Stinson sexuality were depicted throughout HIMYM. Hopefully it was shown how knowledge and claims about sex derived from empirical sources can be depicted positively and at the same time be neglected and fueled by negative stereotypes.
Brown, N. R., & Sinclair, R. C. (1999). Estimating number of lifetime sexual partners: Men and women do it differently. The Journal of Sex Research, 36(3). 292-297.
Cupach, W. R., & Metts, S. (2003). Face management in interpersonal communication. In K. M. Galvin & P. J. Cooper (Eds.), Making connections: Readings in relational communication (3rd ed.) (pp. 191-198). Los Angeles, CA: Roxbury Publishing.
Cupuch, W.R., & Spitzber, B.H. (Eds). (1994). The dark side of interpersonal communication. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Eagly, A. H., & Wood, W. (1999). The origins of sex differences in human behavior: Evolved dispositions versus social roles. American Psychologist, 54, 408–423.
Harris, C. R. (2003). A review of sex differences in sexual jealousy, including self-report data, psychophyisiological responses, interpersonal violence, and morbid jealousy. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 7(2), 102-128.
Hill, C. A. (2007). Human sexuality: A personality and social psychological perspective. Thousand Oaks , CA
Shotland, R. L., & Goodstein, L. (1992). Sexual precedence reduces the perceived legitimacy of sexual refusal: An examination of attributions concerning date rape and consensual sex. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 18, 756–764.
Vannier, S. A., & O’Sullivan, L. F. (2010). Sex without desire: Characteristics of occasions of sexual compliance in young adults’ committed relationships. Journal of Sex Research, 47(5), 429-439.
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