preview

Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy Of Needs

Decent Essays

Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a theory in psychology proposed by Abraham Maslow, organizing humanities most basic needs. (Martin and Joomis, 2007). Maslow's hierarchy of needs is often represented in the shape of a pyramid with the largest, most fundamental levels of needs at the base and the need for self-actualization at the peak. The pyramid itself is irrelevant, however it has become the de facto way to represent the hierarchy. The hierarchy depicts physiological needs as the most basic need, which includes air, water, food, clothing, shelter, and sexual instinct. The question in theory is if sex should even be considered a basic need to scale up the pyramid. In the LGBQTA community, you will find a certain sexual orientation called asexual. …show more content…

They give away free condoms at Planned Parenthood and other such locations. Considering sex as a basic human need has led to a culture where if - for this specific example - a woman withholds sex, they are depriving men of a "basic need" and this is a "justification" for men to rape women. If one assumes that sex is a more basic need than one's well-being, then the result would be that rape is justified. If you accept "rape is wrong" as an axiom, then you agree that a person's well-being has a higher priority than a person's "need" for sex. (2011, February …show more content…

the world we want to live in now. These men may even invoke a Fallacious Flip, arguing that they would not mind if the gender roles were reversed and that they wouldn't mind being raped. One could argue that we live in this world now - when a woman is raped she is blamed and shamed, while if a man is raped, he is considered "lucky" and "he probably enjoyed it." What is wrong with this argument is that heterosexual men do not to take into account the power imbalance between men and women. A better analogy would be to imagine being in a male prison where about half the prison population is larger and stronger than you and where rape is a real threat. Imagine that when you resist the sexual advances of an inmate who is larger and stronger than you, the inmate asserts that sex is a basic need, accuses you of violating his human rights, and states that you are being hostile. (2011, February

Get Access