When asked about her views on cheating, Student 9 said that observing so many of her friends

talk about their sexual and emotional affairs openly made her realize things like this “just happen.” Intercultural relationships was one of the topics about which seven of the participants said that their attitudes had become more accepting and positive as a result of exposure to these relationships in the host country. For instance, 23 year old Ph.D. Student 10, who is currently dating an American man, mentioned that as a result of living in the US, she sees intercultural dating as more normal and acceptable. She specifically added: Inter-cultural couples that I see look very happy, so, I think that if people are not extremely religious, you can be really happy and even possibly PND-1186 research buy happier than you would be with a Turkish man. Because the person you are with would attribute a lot of your differences to cultural reasons rather than taking them personally. This is especially true for sex and virginity. If I were to ask my male friends, they would say that they would be more accepting of a non-virgin foreigner than a Turkish girl. Echoing similar views, Student 3 said: I thought

that being from different cultural backgrounds would cause a great deal of problems, because you come from different worlds, however living in the United States made me think differently. United States is like the ‘living room’ of the world where so many people of different buy MK-8931 ethnic, religious, and cultural backgrounds come together and mingle.

Living here made me see how a Chinese and an CYTH4 Indian can be in the same room and get along. I couldn’t’ imagine that while I was in Turkey. When talking about divorce, three participants reported that their views on divorce changed significantly. For instance, 27 year old, Ph.D. Student 12, who has a Scottish boyfriend, mentioned that if a woman gets divorced in Turkey, people judge and think less of her, whereas in the United States, it’s “perfectly ok, or at least acceptable and even probable to get a divorce, especially if two people cannot get along.” Although most of the participants’ views on same sex relationships had not changed, those who changed their views attributed this to exposure to these relationships in the host country. For instance, Student 9 said: I was really turned off by the idea of same-sex relationships while I was living in Turkey, I can’t even remember meeting any gay people in Turkey. However, now after meeting many people who are openly gay, I started to think that it is more normal and that it could be anybody.