10.3 Sexual Attitudes and Practices
Jennifer Puentes and Aimee Samara Krouskop
Attitudes and practices related to sexuality have changed significantly in the past 50 years. In a nationally representative study, Twenge and colleagues (2015) found that people reported more sexual partners, were more likely to have casual sex, and were more accepting of non-marital sex (Twenge et al. 2015). Rather than procreation, individuals think about sex in terms of pleasure (Treas et al. 2014).
Researchers study sexuality to learn more about how humans participate in the world and identify patterns in both attitudes and practices related to sexuality. As you learned in the last section, the social construction of sexuality enables us to understand how practices that are perceived as normative change over time. Interactions with others, access to education, and policies that shape our social institutions shape our ideas about what behaviors and ideas related to sexuality are acceptable.
Sexuality in the United States
The 2006–2008 National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG), which was administered to 13,459 Americans ages 15–44 nationwide, provides data about Americans’ sexual behaviors. Research using this survey suggests that although many people think that men are much more sexually active than women, gender differences in heterosexual contact are practically nonexistent (Candra et al. 2011).
Studies show that religiosity is strongly associated with greater disapproval of premarital sex. Sociologists have different measures of religiosity, such as the strength of religious beliefs and how often people participate in religious practices. Research focusing on adolescents finds that those who are more religious are less likely to participate in risky sexual behavior (Landor et al. 2010). Authoritative parenting, affiliation with less sexually permissive peers, and a gendered double standard for daughters also influenced adolescent behaviors.
Survey data on adults produce a similar finding: Among all never-married adults in the General Social Survey, those who reported being more religious were also more likely to have had fewer sexual partners (McFarland et al. 2011). Among never-married adults between the ages of 18 and 39, never-married adults who identified as very religious were more likely to have had no sexual partners in the past five years and, if they had sexual partners it was fewer than their counterparts. Although it is hypothetically possible that not having sexual partners leads someone to become more religious, it is much more likely that being very religious reduces the number of sexual partners that never-married adults have (Smith et al. 2011).
When studying sexuality, sociologists consider more than just sexual behavior. They also examine how people construct their identities. In the United States, the majority identifies as heterosexual (Jones 2021). This majority establishes societal expectations and expressions of sexuality. However, changes