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Chelsea Molato
John Kubler
English 115
16 October 2014
Couples Therapy
Observation:
For my ethnography, I decided to observe my best friend Celeen and her boyfriend. These
two have been going out for almost a year, so I had an idea of who was more dominant than the
other. The guy was definitely the more dominant of the two. Before they were even together, my
best friend and I were driving and she called him asking if he wanted any food to eat. He said yes
and she made me drive us to In N Out to get him a burger. Finally, we meet at his house. He opens
the door, says hi to us and lets us in. Not even a minute passes and Celeen goes for a kiss, which
he returns, but since they know I am around, it doesnt last more than a couple seconds. Ive
known these two for a while and it is usually the girl that goes for the kiss, not the guy. Then we
are deciding what we should do at his house. I didnt want to put in my input, so I had them
decide. Celeen then asked him what he wanted to do and he returned the question back to her. She
said that she couldnt choose and that he would have to choose. He decided to watch a movie just
so that he could eat while doing it. Celeen is submissive in the relationship and does whatever he
wants to do because she is just happy being around him. So, we head towards the living room. We
all sat down and he decided to play Inception. He did not even ask her what she wanted to
watch, showing that he was the more dominant of the two. I let them have the couch and I sat in a
chair close to them. They were sitting there and her boyfriend was eating his burger. Celeen was
watching him intently and play with his face as he was eating. Spontaneous giggles were shared
throughout this whole eating process. Once he was done, Celeen took his trash and threw it away

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in the kitchen, another sign of submission. When she returned, he put his arm around her and they
were cuddling. What I thought that was interesting was that he was watching the movie and she
paid no attention to it. It looked like she was listening to his heartbeat and taking in the moment.
After the movie, I decided to conduct the actual interview. It was incredibly casual and
they didnt mind the odd questions. For some of the questions, only the boyfriend answered,
especially the questions relating to dominance. He admittedly says that he is the one that decides
where to go for the dates. When I asked who made the first move, Celeen raised her hand. Celeen
said that she had met her boyfriend through mutual friends and she thought he was really attractive
and decided to talk to him more and more. Once they figured out that they had a lot in common,
they decided to try out a relationship and they are still together. When I asked who was more
dominant, the guy said that he was more dominant. Celeen playfully hit him and said that there is
a shared dominance. The guy then looked at me and we both knew that he was the dominant one.
The female gender equality questions were unanimous; both were for women being treated equal
as men. These two are kind of conservative, but they do believe that women should be able to
dress the way they want. Both were in favor of topless beaches. When I asked about Miley Cyrus
and Nicki Minaj, both of them could not stop laughing. Celeens boyfriend is very much into
music; he produces and writes music, so he has an understanding of the music business. He said
that the important part of my question was that I described them as performers and not
musicians. These two performers are meant to perform and entertain and they do what they have
to do in order to get talked about by the media. He does not believe their performances were going
too far because it reflects our society. He said that our society appreciates entertainment more than
talent. Celeen believes that these performers go too far in their performance to the point where she
thought they were disgusting. She said that she had to turn off the television during Nicki Minajs
performance because she was watching the show with her parents. In regards to what a female

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wears, both agreed that women should be able to wear what they want regardless of the location.
When I asked them what makes true love possible in your relationship today, Celeens boyfriend
told Celeen to answer. She said, You have to find a person that loves all your strengths and
weaknesses. You should fall for your best friend. Trust and communication is all it takes. Lastly,
I showed them the advertisement. Their perception of the advertisement directly corresponded to
their views on who is more dominant in the relationship. Both of them said that the men were
more dominant. Celeen pointed out how the guys were very stiff and rigid with their facial
expressions and stance. She also notes that the guys are not looking at the viewer as if they are
better than the viewer and/or disregards the viewer. Her boyfriend points out how the girl is
leaning on the guy trying to seduce him. They both thought it was odd that she was wearing a
bikini while guys are fully clothed wearing matador outfits, but they both said that sex sells. This
concluded our interview and my observations stood true to their interview answers.
Collective Data Analysis:
After conducting 5 interviews, we saw a couple of patterns. 1 out of 5 of the couples that
we interviewed saw the male as dominant. I think the reason for this is because of our society.
Society tells us that men are supposed to be dominant, but the women also have a sense of
empowerment in the relationship. There are constant power shifts between the male and the
female because times are changing, especially with the rise of feminism. Generally, the one who
was deemed as dominant chose their gender as the dominant figure in our advertisement. I say
generally because some of the people that we interviewed saw both of them as dominant in their
own ways, which reflected their relationships as well. Only one of the couples saw that the female
was the dominant one in the relationship. The female in this relationship also saw that the girl in
the bikini was the dominant person in our advertisement. She even said, Although the two guys
look powerful and manly, they know that the girl is in power.

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Next we looked at sexual behaviors and expressions. Generally, everyone was pretty open
to having nude beaches in Los Angeles, but they all did not think prostitution should be legalized.
When we began to talk about what women should wear, the messages were mixed. Some people
said that women should be able to wear whatever they want, but then others said that it depends on
the location. They believed it would be acceptable to wear tight short clothing going out, but at
schools it is inappropriate to wear incredibly short shorts. Then when we talked about the
performances, there were mixed views between objectification versus empowerment. Our results
were inconclusive because everyones answers either aligned with their views or didnt. From this
we can see that these people answered these questions as individual questions and they did not
think to align their answers.
All of the couples believed in gender equality, but one the guys we interviewed surprised
me. The guy was a bit hesitant about answering this because he lost an uncle in the army and he
said that he did believe that it would be okay for women to fight in the combat forces, but he
wouldnt want any of them women in his life to do it because of the risk of losing them. The girl
just agreed with him. Everywhere on social media, women are fighting for equality with men.
Media influences us all and that has shaped our view on how women should be treated. I think
these views of gender equality definitely reflect the couples we interviewed because there was a
sense of companionship and respect for one another.
For the last question, all of the couples had similar ideas of what make love true and
long-lasting. They all talked about communication, trust, and just being there for one another. The
one answer that I took to heart was when a guy said, The most important thing when in a
relationship is to remember that nobody is perfect. There will be fighting and if you are willing to
let go of all the good things over a stupid fight, then you are not ready to be in a committed
relationship. We all have this idea that if you find the one then the relationship will be perfect and

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there will be no obstacles. This is why people break up. Once things start getting tough, they think
that that person is not the one. The couples that we met were genuine in their answers and you
could tell that they really do care for one another. Even if the dynamics of each relationship is
different, all of them share one thing in common, which is love.