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OCR for page 548
Trends in Premarital
Sexual Behavior
Alloert D. Klassen, Colin ]. Williams, Eugene E. Levitt,
Laura Ru~kin-Miniot, Heather G. Miller, and Sushama Gunjal
Information on the patterns of premarital sexual activity over the
past century has been derived from data sources of varying pedigree
(see the review in Chapter 2~. Although it is difficult to make
definitive statements about the magnitude of change in premarital
sexual behavior in the U.S. population, it appears that both the
prevalence of premarital sex and the number of premarital sexual
partners have increased over time, while the age at which the first
premarital sexual activity occurs has decreased. Variations in these
patterns ant! trends between the sexes and across other subgroups
have also been ~lescribe(l. For example, data presented by Kinsey
and colleagues (1948, 1953), while not generaTizable to the national
population or to more recent periods, show gender-differentiated
patterns of sexual behavior.
It has been clifficult enough to map patterns of behavior over
time and across subgroups understanding the forces that shape
Albert Klassen is from the Department of Sociology, University of North Dakota at
Grand Forks; Colin Williams is from the Department of Sociology, Indiana University-
Purdue University at Indianapolis; Eugene Levitt is from the Department of Psychiatry,
School of Medicine, Indiana University (Indianapolis). The development and original
analyses of the 1970 Kinsey survey were carried out by these authors and are reported
fully in a book by Klassen, Williams, and Levitt currently in press. Laura Rudkin-
Miniot is from the Department of Sociology, Princeton University. Heather Miller and
Sushama Gunjal are from the National Research Council.
548
OCR for page 549
TRENDS IN PREMARITAL SEXUAL BEHAVIOR ~ 549
these behaviors is an even more formidable task. Many sexual be-
haviors, including heterosexual activity before marriage, reflect com-
plex interactions among religious and cultural standards, patterns of
courtship and marriage, gender roles, legal sanctions associated with
sexual behavior, and sex-related cultural values related to self-respect
and the moral reputation of society's members. Some historical-
cultural analyses of U.S. national survey data have posited a maTe-
dominant pattern of suppression of female sexuality (e.g., Klassen,
1982; Klassen and WiTsnack, 1986~. In this brief paper, we describe
some trends in premarital heterosexual behavior baser} on survey
data collected in 1970 for the Kinsey Institute (Indiana University)
by the National Opinion Research Center (University of Chicago).
These data permit us to derive an overview of changes in premarital
sexual behavior in America cluring this century by comparing the
reported behaviors of different birth cohorts. Some findings regard-
ing trends in premarital sexual activity and numbers of premarital
heterosexual partners are reported. A full report of the results of this
survey is forthcoming (Klassen, Williams, and Levitt, in press.)
METHODS
Survey data were collected in 1970 from 3,018 adults in the United
States. The sampling frame included noninstitutionaTized adults (age
21 or older) residing in the continental Uniter! States. A multistage
sampling strategy provided a probability sample to the block or
segment level. At the block (or segment) level, interview quotas
were used for men over and under age 30, and for employed and
unemployed women. For more detailed information on the sample
design and execution, see the forthcoming book by Klassen, Williams,
and Levitt (in press).
Although no data are available on the potential respondents
who refused to participate in this survey, Pay and colleagues (in
press) have assessed the adequacy of sample design and execution
by comparing the distributions for age, race, education, and marital
status for men in this sample to the distributions obtained in the
1970 census. They found considerable agreement between the survey
and the census, except for an overrepresentation of blacks, persons
with one to three years of college education, and men 65 years of age
or older.
.
OCR for page 550
550 ~ BACKGROUND PAPERS
Respondents in this survey were interviewed privately in their
homes with only the interviewer and respondent in attendance. Tni-
tial questions requested demographic information about the respon-
dents, their households, and their parents. The respondent's opinions
on a variety of topics were also obtained. Approximately 70 questions
concerning participation in different sexual behaviors were includecl
in a self-administered booklet. Interviewers introduced the booklet
at the end of the interview with the following instructions:
In order to make a true evaluation of this entire survey, it is
important to know something about people's experience. We
would greatly appreciate your filling out this booklet, which is,
of course, completely confidential. I will give you an envelope in
which you, yourself, will seal the completed booklet. The answers
from all sorts of people are really needed for statistical purposes.
Questions in the booklet addressed the respondent's experiences
with sex play as a chilcT, masturbation, premarital heterosexual ac-
tivity, heterosexual experiences with the spouse, homosexual expe-
riences, sexual orientation, and general enjoyment of sexual experi-
ences.
This paper makes use of data from the questions on premarital
heterosexual activity. Specifically, the booklet asked respondents:
· How old were you the first time you had sexual activity
with someone of the opposite sex, when either you or
your partner came to a sexual climax? If the first time
was when you got married, please give your age at that
time. This includes other sexual activity, as well as
intercourse, if one of you had a climax (orgasm).
· If you never had this experience before you were married,
check (box) and skip (next questions).
. Was there a period of time, before marriage, when you
had this experience fairly often, occasionally, or rarely-
maybe once or twice?
. With about how many persons altogether did you have
this sexual experience before you were married? If it
happened with your husband or wife before you were
first married, this counts as one person, too.
· If this happened only with a person you later married,
check (box).
Responclents were also asked about their feelings regarding their
premarital sexual experiences or lack of experiences.
OCR for page 551
TRENDS IN PREMARITAL SEXUAL BEHAVIOR ~ 551
Several possible sources of error that may affect the ciata used in
this paper merit discussion. These problems concern sampling biases
and both intentional and unintentional reporting errors.
First, it should be noted that the survey provides information
on sexual behaviors for a wide range of birth cohorts (from before
1900 to 1949), but that the information was gathered in 1970. Thus,
different proportions of each birth cohort would have survived until
1970 to be included in the survey sample. Interpretation of the
survey results requires the assumption that the sexual behaviors of
those who did and did not survive-were the-same.
Second, different proportions of the birth cohorts may be living in
noninstitutional situations. Specifically, more individuals in the older
cohorts may be institutionalized. Thus, an assumption must be macle
that the sexual behaviors of the now-institutionaTized population did
not differ significantly from the behaviors of those available for the
sample.
Third, the cross-sectional structure of the survey means that
older individuals are being asked about events that happened further
back in their past than are younger individuals. Errors in recall
(particularly by the oilier individuals) may mean the data do not
accurately reflect what happened.
Fourth, the highly personal nature of the material covered in
the survey may have caused some respondents to inaccurately report
their experiences. In attempting to conform to self-perceived norms
for their gender and cohort, some individuals may have either under-
or overreported their sexual experiences.
Fifth, the phrase "sexual activity . . . when either you or your
partner came to a sexual climax," though seemingly specific, could
be interpreted in different ways by respondents. The most problem-
atic situation would be one in which interpretations differed system-
atically by birth cohort or gender. For example, an individual may
equate sexual climax with intercourse and exclude other types of sex-
ual activity, despite specific instructions not to do so. Alternately,
an individual may not have recognized or remembered a partner's
sexual climax or, not having experienced orgasm him- or herself, may
fail to report the experience.
FINDINGS
Abstinence from Premarital Sexual Activity
Judeo-Christian religious traditions prohibit sexual activity outside
marriage. In practice, however, Western societies have traditionally
OCR for page 552
552 ~ BACKGROUND PAPERS
imposed a double standard, anticipating that men would more of-
ten seek heterosexual experience before marriage and insisting that
women avoid such experience. Data from the 1970 survey indicate
that women were indeed more likely than men to report abstain-
ing from premarital sexual activity, although the proportions of both
men and women reporting abstinence before marriage have clecreased
throughout this century (Table 1~.i Premarital sexual abstinence
was reported by 45.6 percent of ever-marriecI men and 92.4 percent
of ever-married women born before the turn of the century. These
figures are markedly lower for ever-married respondents born in the
1940s, with 10.5 percent of men and 37.1 percent of women reporting
premarital abstinence.2
The pace and timing of the change in the proportions abstain-
ing from premarital sexual activity may be considered using the
decade decrement figures found in Table 1. The decade decrements
are the percentage point declines between cohorts in the proportions
abstaining from sexual activity before marriage. For example, the
proportion of men premaritally abstinent Reclined 9.3 percentage
points between the cohort born before 1900 and the cohort born
between 1900 and 1909. The pace of the change slowed over time for
men, with the largest changes occurring between the older cohorts.
The picture is much different for women, however, with the most
dramatic change coming between the youngest cohorts. The pro-
portion premarit ally abstinent fell 24 percentage points between the
1930-1939 and 1940-1949 birth cohorts. Decrements between other
female cohorts ranged from 3.3 to 11.6 percentage points.
iTo provide a crude statistical test of gender and cohort differences in premarital sex-
ual behavior, log-linear models were fitted (using the procedures of Goodman t1978]
and Goodman and Fay t1973~) to the 3-way tabulation of Abstinence (A: 2 categories,
abstained-did not abstain) by Gender (G: 2 categories, male-female) by Cohort (C: 6
cohorts, see Table 1~. As a crude adjustment for design effects of the clustered sample,
cell counts in the analysis were reduced by one third: that is, we have assumed that
this clustered sample is equivalent to a simple random sample with two thirds as many
cases. Fitting a full set of models (with abstinence as the dependent variable), we found
significant effects of cohort on abstinence and of gender on abstinence, as indicated in
the above discussion. The observed data thus did not require a model that posited
that patterns of change in abstinence over time varied by gender (although there was
an overall gender difference in abstinence for each cohort). Thus a model constrained
to fit the three 2-way marginals {AC}{AG}{GC} fit the observed data (likelihood-ratio
chi-square: L2 = 4.69, d.f. = 5, p > .4~.
2The tabulations in Table 1 exclude the premarital experiences of those respondents who
failed to report the number of premarital partners. All of those excluded indicated that
they were sexually active before marriage. Including these respondents in a retabulation
of proportions abstaining from sexual activity before marriage yields proportions 1 to 7
percentage points below those reported in Table 1.
OCR for page 553
TRENDS IN PREMARITAL SEXUAL BEHAVIOR ~ 553
The trends described are unlikely to be explained by changes
across cohorts in age at first marriage. If the cohort members were
marrying successively later over time, the younger cohorts would have
more premarital years in which to engage in sexual activity. In short,
they would spend more time "at risk" of premarital sex. However,
the median, 1st, and 3rd quartiles for ages at first marriage for the
cohorts are generally stable or declining over time (Table 2~. This
suggests that with age at marriage held constant, the changes over
time may be even greater. (It should be notecl, however, that age at
first marriage may explain a portion of the maTe-femaTe differences
in proportions premarit ally abstinent. Men typically have married
at a later age and therefore spend more time "at risk" of premarital
sexual activity.)
A modified form of premarital abstinence (perhaps an alternative
that is more consistent with post-WorId War I] norms) is sexual
experience with only the spouse-to-be. Of women and men who were
sexually active before marriage, women were more likely to limit
their premarital experience to only their future spouse (see Table
1~. Approximately half of the premarit ally active women in each
cohort reported that their future husbands were their only premarital
partners. In contrast, roughly 10 percent of premaritally active men
in each cohort reported that their wives were their sole partners. It
is interesting to note that these ratios were stable over time.
If reports of "spouse-only" premarital sexual experience are com-
bined with reports of abstinence (representing a modified form of
premarital abstinence), then maTe-femaTe differences in premarital
sexual abstinence are even more pronounced. Almost all of the ever-
married women (97.5 percent) but only half of the ever-married men
(51.7 percent) born before the turn of the century "abstainecl" from
sexual activity before marriage.3 For the 1940-1949 cohort, the pro-
portions of respondents who could be similarly categorized were much
smaller, but women were still more likely to "abstain" from premar-
ital sex. Two thirds (67.6 percent) of ever-married women and less
than one quarter (22.5 percent) of ever-married men "abstained."
As mentioned previously, traditional Judeo-Christian norms dis-
courage premarital sexual activity. Therefore, one might assume
that people who consider themselves strongly religious would be less
3Figures reported for the cohort born before woo Aged 70 and older at the 1970 survey
dated refer only to those individuals who survived to be included in the survey sample
and who were not living in institutions Be, nursing homes, hospitals, etch. Generalizing
these figures to the entire cohort requires the assumption that the sexual behaviors of
those excluded from the sample did not differ from those in the sample.
OCR for page 554
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OCR for page 556
556 ~ BACKGROUND PAPERS
TABLE 2 Median, First, and Third Quartiles for Age at First Marriage
by Gender and Birth Cohort
Birth Cohort
Before 1900- 1910- 1920-
1900 1909 1919 1929
1930- 1940-
1939 1949
Women
First quartile 18 18 18 18 18 18
Median 20 20 - 21 21 20 19
Third quartile 25 24 24 23 22 22
Men
First quartile 22 22 21 21 20 21
Median 25 25 25 24 22 22
Third quartile 28 30 29 27 25 a
aOf men born in the 1940s more than 25 percent had not yet married as Of the survey date.
likely to be sexually active before marriage than would less religious
individuals. However, data from the 1970 survey do not show a clear
relationship between strength of seif-reporte] religiosity an] levels of
premarital sexual activity for either men or women Stable 3~. Men
an] women who describe themselves as strongly religious are not con-
sistent~y more likely to report abstaining from sexual activity before
marriage than those who describe themselves as being less religious.
Furthermore, no simple relationship between religiosity an] age at
first premarital sexual activity is evident.
Age at First Premarital Sexual Activity
Data from the 1970 survey also indicate that across the cohorts both
men an] women4 became sexually active at increasingly younger ages
(see Table 3~. However, at every age an] for every cohort a smaller
proportion of women than men reported premarital sexual activity.5
Nearly one quarter (24 percent) of the men born before 19OO
reported engaging in premarital sexual activity at or before age 16
4Table 3 has been restricted to persons who married at age 21 or later or who were never
married.
5Using the procedure described previously (see footnote 1), a series Of log-linear models
were fitted to the 3-way tabulation of Gender (G) by Cohort (C) by Abstinence to
age 21 (A). Again, we found significant effects of gender and cohort on the likelihood
that respondents would report sexual abstinence to age 21. However, we also found
that a model constrained to fit the three 2-way marginals {AC}{AG}{CG} provided an
acceptable fit to the observed data (L2 = 2.21, d.f. = 5, p > .51.
OCR for page 557
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OCR for page 560
560 ~ BACKGROUND PAPERS
and 44.S percent reported such experience at or before age 20. Men
born in the 1940s were roughly twice as likely to have hacl a premarital
sexual experience by these specific ages: half (50.2 percent) of them
reported premarital sexual activity at age 16 or earlier and 83.9
percent reporter! it- at or before age 20.
The increases across cohorts in the proportions of people en-
gaging in premarital sexual activity by specific ages are even more
dramatic for women than for men. Only 2.7 percent of women in the
oldest birth cohort reported premarital sexual activity at age 16 or
earlier anti just 5.1 percent had engaged in such activity at or before
age 20. In marked contrast, 19.1 percent of the women born in the
1940s reported premarital sexual experience at or before age 16, and
46.2 percent reported it at or before age 20. Male premarital sexual
activity by specific ages had increased by a factor of 2 across the
cohorts, while female activity had risen approximately by a factor
of 8.
Data from the 1970 survey indicate an association between age at
first premarital sexual activity and age at marriage (Table 4~: those
who become sexually active at young ages are more likely to marry
at young ages. For example, 22.8 percent of women who married at
age 16 reported sexual experience before age 16, compared to only
1.5 percent of women who married at age 24. More than half (53.9
percent) of the men who married at age 18 reported sexual experience
before age 16, while only 26.1 percent of men who married at age 24
were sexually active before age 16.
The direction of this relationship is not clear. Does sexual ac-
tivity at an early age lead to marriage at an early age, perhaps
through unplanned pregnancies or by intensifying the couple's rela-
tionship? Do plans for or the anticipation of marriage at an early age
prompt young people to become sexually active before marriage? Or
do other unspecified factors contribute to both a young age at first
sexual experience and a young age at marriage?
Number of Premarital Sexual Partners
Having multiple sexual partners before marriage is another type of
noncompliance to tra(litional sexual norms, especially for women. It
is unlikely that an expectation of marriage was associated with each
premarital sexual relationship, especially for those inclividuals who
reported five or more premarital partners. Therefore, involvement
with multiple partners before marriage is a departure from both the
strict and modified standards of premarital abstinence. This aspect
OCR for page 561
TRENDS IN PREMARITAL SEXUAL BEHAVIOR ~ 561
of sexual behavior (particularly if intercourse is unprotected by con-
doms and spermici(le) is potentially important in understanding the
spread of sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV infection.
The 1970 survey data on numbers of premarital sexual partners
reveal marked differences over time and between the sexes. As Ta-
ble 1 shows, the proportions of both male and female respondents
reporting multiple premarital sexual partners increase steadily over
time. In acldition, men report more premarital sexual partners than
women in each cohort.
In the oldest cohorts, the number of sexual partners reported
by women reflect that a small but growing proportion allowed them-
seIves one partner before marriage, generally their future husband.
The proportion of women reporting premarital partners other than
their spouse-to-be increased over the decades. The percentage of
women who reported at least one premarital partner other than their
spouse rose from 6.9 percent for women born between 1900 and
1909 to 32.6 percent for women born in the 1940s. However, the
younger women still did not report a large number of partners. The
percentage of women reporting five or more premarital sexual part-
ners increased only slightly, rising from 3.2 percent for women born
between 1910 and 1919 to 5.3 percent for women born in the 1940s.6
Male patterns of premarital partnering are markedly different.
Among men born before 1900, 25.5 percent reported having had 5 or
more premarital sexual partners and 5.3 percent reported 20 or more
partners. Those figures were roughly doubled for the cohort of men
born in the 1940s, with 50.5 percent reporting 5 or more partners
and 12.6 percent reporting 20 or more.7
6As a crude test of the time trend in the number of premarital partners reported by
ever-married women, we fitted the simple linear regression equation P = b:A + c, where
P was the number of premarital partners reported, and A is age (in years) in 1970. As
previously, we assume that the effective sample size is 0.66 of the actual sample size
to allow for effects of the complex sample design. This analysis indicated a significant
linear trend in number of partners by agewith older respondents reporting fewer part-
ners (b = -.0232 s.e. = 0.0039; c = 1.779 s.e. = 0.1796~. When dummy variables for
the birth cohorts were introduced into the equation, it was found that women born be-
tween 1940 and 1949 had more partners than predicted by a simple linear model. The
equation estimated was P = b, A + b2C~g40 + c, with C1940 being coded 1 if the respon-
dent was born between 1940 and 1949, and coded zero otherwise; be was estimated at
-.01476 (s.e. = .0054) b2 was estimated at +.4266 (me. = .1886) and c was estimated
as 1.2966 (we. = .2787).
7As for women (see footnote 6), we carried out a crude test for linear trends and devia-
tions from the linear trend for particular birth cohorts of men. We again estimated
the equation, P = bra + c, and obtained estimates of be = - .0858 (s.e. = .0190);
c = 10.3512 (me. = .9472). (The variable A is age in 1970.) No birth cohort of men
evidenced significant deviations from the linear trend.
OCR for page 562
562
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OCR for page 564
564 ~ BACKGROUND PAPERS
For every cohort, men reported having many more premarital
partners than dice women. This raises a question: With whom were
these men partnering? The possible explanations, some more plau-
sible than others, include
. men overreported ancI/or women underreported! their
number of partners;
. the women who provided the excess "partnering" in the
mate reports of sexual activity might not be represented
in the sample (i.e., they refused to be interviewed; they
did not survive to be included in the 1970 survey due
to risks associated with childbirth, abortion, hardships
associated with brothel life or "a bad reputation"; or
they were in institutions, which excluded them from the
sampling frame);
. the women who provided the excess "partnering" never
married and thus were excluded from the tabulations
presented in Table 1 (see the discussion in the following
section);
men found female partners from birth cohorts other than
their own;8 and
. men were having their premarital relationships with
married women.
There is reason to believe that a substantial portion of the pre-
marital partners reported by the older cohorts were prostituted
However, from the 1970 survey data, it is not possible to determine
the extent to which "one-night stands," cohabitation, or other forms
of coupling replaced sexual activity with prostitutes.
8While this might conceivably account for cases in any one cohort, it is an inadequate
explanation for the total pattern because the number of men reporting large numbers of
partners from all cohorts vastly exceed the number of women reporting similar numbers
of partners.
sin Kinsey and coworkers' (1948) analyses of the sexual behavior of men, accumulative
incidence rates for lifetime experience with prostitutes were calculated. While the level of
education and "generation" were taken into account, marital status, unfortunately, was
not. However, if one assumes that most men have not yet married at age 20, the Kinsey
data suggest a high incidence of premarital experience with prostitutes. Approximately
20 percent of both generations with some college education and 50 percent of men who
did not enter high school reported having sex with prostitutes by age 20 (see Kinsey
et al., 1948:402, Table 100~. Unfortunately, neither the 1953 Kinsey publication on
female sexual behavior nor the 1970 NORC survey provide data on women's experience
as prostitutes.
OCR for page 565
TRENDS IN PREMARITAL SEXUAL BEHAVIOR ~ 565
Sexual Activity of Never-Marriec! Respondents
While there are relatively few never-married respondents, twice as
many men as women (135 versus 63) in the sample had never mar-
ried. The never-married could not respond to the question about
premarital sex with the spouse-to-be and were therefore excluded
from the main tabulations presented in Table 1. The never-married
respondents obviously also were excluded from Table 4, which relates
age at first sexual experience to age at marriage. Data on the never-
marriecI, however, are presented in the last column of Table 1. Other
than in the youngest cohort, there are not enough never-married
respondents to allow analysis. Even in the youngest cohort, their
numbers are extremely small (30 women and 68 men) and these data
should be treated as suggestive, at best.
In general, never-married men born in the 1940s reported more
sexual partners than did ever-married men in the same cohort who
reported on premarital partners. Among never-married men, 82.4
percent reported having 2 or more partners and 20.6 percent reported
20 or more partners. In contrast, 72.6 percent of the ever-married
men listed 2 or more premarital partners and 12.6 reported 20 or
more such partners.
Never-married women from this cohort hacl fewer partners than
the men, but reported more partners than their ever-married female
counterparts. Among the never-married women, 56.6 percent re-
ported 2 or more partners and 26.6 percent reported 10 or more. Of
ever-married women in the 1940s cohort, 25.S percent reported 2 or
more premarital partners ant! only 1.7 percent reported 10 or more
premarital partners.
It is not surprising that the never-married respondents reported
larger numbers of sexual partners than the number of premarital
partners reported by the ever-married respondents. Those individ-
uals who were not yet married had spent more time "at risk" of
engaging in sexual activity outside marriage. However, a certain
portion of the differences between the two groups also may be clue to
different patterns of sexual behavior independent of the amount of
time spent unmarried.
CONCLUSIONS
There are two primary inferences to be drawn from the data we have
presented. The first is that as of 1970, this century had already seen
significant increases over time in the proportion of aclults report-
ing premarital heterosexual experiences (to climax). The second is
OCR for page 566
566 ~ BACKGROUND PAPERS
that, despite the trend, the proportion of ever-married women who
reported experience with several partners did not rise dramatically.
Thus the proportion of ever-marriecI women reporting 5 or more
partners increased from O percent in the cohorts born prior to 1910
to 5.3 percent among the cohorts born in 1940-1949; nonetheless,
this proportion remained considerably lower than that found among
men (50.5 percent in the 1940-1949 cohort).
There are many factors that might have contributed to the oh
server! increases in premarital sexual experience. During World War
and the decades that followed, many men and women left rural
communities and traditional life-styles for more urban environments.
National radio networks and the growing movie industry brought
with them increased exposure to new, nontraditional ideas for nearly
all Americans. During World War IT and the postwar period, the
diffusion of new ideas continued with acIditional rural-to-urban mi-
gration, the advent of television, and the greater inclusion of women
in the labor force. Young people exposed to various nontraditional
ideas may have begun to question, and possibly reject, the norms
that had previously regulated their sexual behavior.
The writings of Fiend and the research of Kinsey and coworkers
(194S, 1953), augmented by that of later sex researchers, may have
contributed to a questioning and modification of traditional values
by describing sexuality as healthy human behavior. Indeed, Ffeud
and others raised questions about whether repressed sexuality and
sexual inactivity were normal or healthy for either men or women
(Yerkes and Corner, 1953~. The sex research of Masters and Johnson
(1966) and Sherfey (1966), along with the earlier work of Kinsey and
colleagues, raised the possibility that the sexual response potential
of women might exceed that of men. While acknowledging the mate
tendency to focus on sexuality and women's interest in intimacy,
more recent work has speculated on the possible convergence of mate
and female views (Gagnon and Simon, 1973; Klassen, 1977; Reiss,
1967, 1973, 1976~.
While the precise causes of the trends identified in this paper
remain unclear, the trends themselves provide important historical
information on changing patterns of sexual behavior in the United
States. Just as social trends and historical events have seemingly
contributed to past changes in sexual behavior, so, too, AIDS may
affect future sexual behavior. Further research is needed to refine
and update our understanding of how complex social forces shape
human sexual behavior.
OCR for page 567
TRENDS IN PREMARITAL SEXUAL BEHAVIOR ~ 567
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OCR for page 568
Representative terms from entire chapter:
sexual activity
