Attitudes toward nonmarital sex in 24 countries

Attitudes toward premarital sex, teenage sex, extramarital sex, and homosexual sex in 24 countries were compared. Challenging the simplistic notion that a permissive‐nonpermissive dichotomy is sufficient to describe variations across countries, the hypothesis that there are distinctive sexual regimes with different moral standards depending on the type of sexuality was examined. Cluster analysis reveals that there are six groupings of nations which have similar moral standards. However, a variance decomposition analysis also shows that all countries included in the sample share relatively similar attitudes toward nonmarital sex.

[1]  G. Albrecht,et al.  A cross national study of patterns of sexual behaviour , 1989 .

[2]  J. Cleland,et al.  Sexual Behaviour and AIDS in the Developing World , 1997 .

[3]  N. Goldman,et al.  Teenage pregnancy in developed countries: determinants and policy implications. , 1985, Family planning perspectives.

[4]  Clyde E. Martin,et al.  Sexual Behavior in the Human Male , 1948 .

[5]  W. Reich.  The Sexual Revolution , 1936 .

[6]  R. Tielman.  Dutch gay emancipation history (1911-1986). , 1987, Journal of homosexuality.

[7]  W. L. Cotton.  Role‐playing substitutions among homosexuals , 1972 .

[8]  Li‐chen Ma.  Premarital sexual permissiveness of American and Chinese college students: A cross‐cultural comparison , 1989 .

[9]  Sarah J Greene,et al.  Cross-Cultural Codes on Twenty Sexual Attitudes and Practices , 1976 .

[10]  M. Ross.  Actual and anticipated societal reaction to homosexuality and adjustment in two societies , 1985 .

[11]  H. Christensen,et al.  Changing sex norms in America and Scandinavia. , 1970 .

[12]  H. Christensen,et al.  Timing Patterns in the Development of Sexual Intimacy: An Attitudinal Report on Three Modern Western Societies , 1962 .

[13]  Merry I. White,et al.  The Material Child: Coming of Age in Japan and America , 1994 .

[14]  E. Hatfield,et al.  Premarital sexual standards among U.S. college students: Comparison with Russian and Japanese students , 1996, Archives of sexual behavior.

[15]  A K Romney,et al.  Cultural universals: measuring the semantic structure of emotion terms in English and Japanese. , 1997, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[16]  Alain Giami,et al.  Laumann (E.O), Gagnon (J.H), Michael (R.T), Michaels (S) — The Social Organization of Sexuality. Sexual Practices in the United States; Michael (R.), Gagnon (J.), Laumann (E.), Kolata (G.) — Sex in America. A Definitive Survey , 1997 .

[17]  J. Gagnon,et al.  The Social Organization of Sexuality: Sexual Practices in the United States , 1994 .

[18]  Peter J. Rousseeuw,et al.  Finding Groups in Data: An Introduction to Cluster Analysis , 1990 .

[19]  I. Lottes.  The Use of Cluster Analysis to Determine Belief Patterns of Sexual Attitudes , 1985 .

[20]  M. Weinberg,et al.  Sexual coercion among university students: A comparison of the United States and Sweden , 1997 .

[21]  D. Perlman,et al.  Cross-cultural analysis of students' sexual standards , 1978, Archives of sexual behavior.

[22]  Timothy J. Brazill,et al.  Culture as shared cognitive representations. , 1996, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[23]  D. Buss,et al.  Sex differences in human mate preferences: Evolutionary hypotheses tested in 37 cultures , 1989, Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

[24]  R. Inglehart.  Culture Shift in Advanced Industrial Society , 1991 .

[25]  N. Goldman,et al.  Teenage Pregnancy in Industrialized Countries. , 1988 .

[26]  M. Weinberg,et al.  Swedish or American heterosexual college youth: Who is more permissive? , 1995, Archives of sexual behavior.

[27]  Julia S. Brown.  A Comparative Study of Deviations from Sexual Mores , 1952 .

[28]  Brian Everitt,et al.  Cluster analysis , 1974 .

[29]  T. W. Smith,et al.  Discrepancies between men and women in reporting number of sexual partners: a summary from four countries. , 1992, Social biology.

[30]  Harry C. Triandis,et al.  Effects of Culture and Response Format on Extreme Response Style , 1989 .

[31]  K. Kyes,et al.  Comparison of Indonesian and American College Students' Attitudes toward Homosexuality , 1994, Psychological reports.

[32]  M. Bozon,et al.  Sexuality and the Social Sciences. A French Survey on Sexual Behaviour , 1998 .

[33]  Kaye Wellings,et al.  Sexual behaviour in Britain : national survey of sexual attitudes and lifestyles , 1994 .

[34]  Susan Sprecher,et al.  Token resistance to sexual intercourse and consent to unwanted sexual intercourse: College students’ dating experiences in three countries , 1994 .

[35]  L. Minturn,et al.  Cultural Patterning of Sexual Beliefs and Behavior , 1969 .

[36]  Frank A. Beach,et al.  Patterns of Sexual Behavior , 1951 .

[37]  L. Kirkendall,et al.  Sex and society in Sweden , 1967 .

[38]  I. M. Schwartz.  Affective reactions of American and Swedish women to their first premarital coitus: A cross‐cultural comparison , 1993 .