Sexuality around the World

Historically, premarital sex was considered a moral issue which was taboo in many cultures and sinful according to a number of religions, but since about the 1960s, it has become more widely accepted, especially in Western countries. A 2014 Pew study on global morality found that premarital sex was considered particularly unacceptable in “predominantly Muslim nations,” such as Malaysia, Indonesia, Jordan, Pakistan and Egypt, each having over 90% disapproval, while people in Western European countries were the most accepting, with Spain, Germany and France expressing less than 10% disapproval.

As you can see from the figure below, 97% of those in Indonesia found premarital sex unacceptable. Approximately 87% of the population is Muslim.^[1] Similarly 95-98% of Pakistanis and 90% of Egyptians are Muslim. Islam has strict prohibitions against sex outside of marriage. Christianity and Roman Catholicism also have strict rules about sex outside of marriage. Approximately 50% of Nigerians are Muslim, 40% are Christian, and 10% adhere to local religions. In the Philippines, 92% of the population identifies as Christian.

The amount of religiosity in a country is not a magical key to understanding sexual norms around the globe, though. Clearly a country’s distinctive history and the people who make up the population today are essential to understanding its norms and values. In other words, we need to utilize our sociological imaginations to understand attitudes about sexuality and sexual behavior.

Figure 2. “At What Age Do People Get Married Around the World?” by Alex Mayyasi, Priceonomics. https://priceonomics.com/at-what-age-do-people-get-married-around-the-world/

A gender gap also exists with women, on average, marrying younger than their male counterparts. According to the United Nations, 39 countries have data showing that 20% of women are married by the age of 18 and in 20 of these countries 10% of women are married by age 15, whereas only 2 countries have 10% of men married before the age of 18.^[2]

Of industrialized nations, Sweden is thought to be the most liberal when it comes to attitudes about sex, including sexual practices and sexual openness. The country has very few regulations on sexual images in the media, and sex education, which starts around age six, is a compulsory part of Swedish school curricula. Sweden’s permissive approach to sex has helped the country avoid some of the major social problems associated with sex. For example, rates of teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease are among the world’s lowest (Grose 2007). It would appear that Sweden is a model for the benefits of sexual freedom and frankness. However, implementing Swedish ideals and policies regarding sexuality in other, more politically conservative nations, would likely be met with resistance.

Let’s look at Israel as an example. The State of Israel was established in 1948, and is approximately 75% Jewish, 21% Arab, and 5% other. In Judaism, masturbation (or sexually pleasuring oneself) is strictly forbidden in the Talmud, which is a compilation of centuries of rabbis’ interpretations of the Torah (or the five books of Moses). Jewish women, on the other hand, are not forbidden from masturbation. The reasons are complex, but one interpretation is that ejaculation, or dispelling semen, is a loss of “life energy” or impurities^[3]. Many modern Jews do not follow the strict laws of Orthodox Judaism, however, and with many Jews (outside of Orthodox communities) postponing marriage, it is unclear to what extent masturbation is prohibited in contemporary Israel. Sacred Sperm is a 2015 documentary created by religiously observant father Ori Gruder, who examines the various ways in which religiously observant boys and men avoid masturbation.

Sexuality in the United States

Figure 3. Sexual practices can differ greatly among groups. Recent trends include the finding that married couples have sex more frequently than do singles and that 27 percent of married couples in their 30s have sex at least twice a week (NSSHB 2010). (Photo courtesy of epSos.de/flickr)

Prior to the 20th century, most American physicians regarded masturbation as “dangerous” and believed that it could cause illness including insanity, epilepsy, acne, weight loss, decreased mental capacity, weakness, lethargy, and early death. This “myth” was not permanently disproved until the book Sex and Human Loving (Masters and Johnson 1988), even though Alfred Kinsey’s research in the 1940s had established that masturbation was common, with up to 92% of men reporting.^[4]

The United States prides itself on being the “land of the free,” but it is rather restrictive when it comes to its citizens’ general attitudes about sex compared to other industrialized nations. In an international survey, 29 percent of U.S. respondents stated that premarital sex is always wrong, while the average among the 24 countries surveyed was 17 percent. Similar discrepancies were found in questions about the condemnation of sex before the age of 16, extramarital sex, and homosexuality, with total disapproval of these acts being 12, 13, and 11 percent higher, respectively, in the United States, than the study’s average (Widmer, Treas, and Newcomb 1998).

In the 1970s, only 29% of people felt that premarital sex was “not wrong at all,” but that number gradually increased so that by the 1980s and 1990s, 42% of the population said that premarital sex is “not wrong at all.” In 2012, that number increased to 58%. Interestingly, results from the General Social Survey also revealed that although millennials (born 1981-1996) were more accepting of premarital sex, they had fewer sexual partners (average 8) than both Baby Boomers (born 1946-1964) and GenXers (born 1965-1980) who averaged 11 partners.^[5]

Belief that men have—or have the right to—more sexual urges than women creates a double standard. Ira Reiss, a pioneer researcher in the field of sexual studies, defined the double standard as prohibiting premarital sexual intercourse for women but allowing it for men (Reiss 1960). This standard has evolved into allowing women to engage in premarital sex only within committed love relationships, but allowing men to engage in unconditional sexual relationships with as many partners as they wish (Milhausen and Herold 1999). Due to this double standard, a woman is likely to have fewer sexual partners in her lifetime than a man. According to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) survey, the average thirty-five-year-old woman has had three opposite-sex sexual partners while the average thirty-five-year-old man has had twice as many (Centers for Disease Control 2011).

The future of a society’s sexual attitudes may be somewhat predicted by the values and beliefs that a country’s youth expresses about sex and sexuality. Data from the most recent National Survey of Family Growth reveals that 70 percent of boys and 78 percent of girls ages fifteen to nineteen said they “agree” or “strongly agree” that “it’s okay for an unmarried female to have a child” (National Survey of Family Growth 2013). In a separate survey, 65 percent of teens stated that they “strongly agreed” or “somewhat agreed” that although waiting until marriage for sex is a nice idea, it’s not realistic (NBC News 2005). This does not mean that today’s youth have given up traditional sexual values such as monogamy. Nearly all college men (98.9 percent) and women (99.2 percent) who participated in a 2002 study on sexual attitudes stated they wished to settle down with one mutually exclusive sexual partner at some point in their lives, ideally within the next five years (Pedersen et al. 2002).

Sex Education

One of the biggest controversies regarding sexual attitudes is sexual education in U.S. classrooms. Unlike in Sweden, sex education is not required in all public school curricula in the United States. The heart of the controversy is not about whether sex education should be taught in school (studies have shown that only seven percent of U.S. adults oppose sex education in schools); it is about the type of sex education that should be taught.

Much of the debate is over the issue of abstinence. In a 2005 survey, 15 percent of U.S. respondents believed that schools should teach abstinence exclusively and should not provide contraceptives or information on how to obtain them. Forty-six percent believed schools should institute an abstinence-plus approach, which teaches children that abstinence is best but still gives information about protected sex. Thirty-six percent believed teaching about abstinence is not important and that sex education should focus on sexual safety and responsibility (NPR 2010).

Research suggests that while government officials may still be debating about the content of sexual education in public schools, the majority of U.S. adults are not. Those who advocated abstinence-only programs may be the proverbial squeaky wheel when it comes to this controversy, since they represent only 15 percent of parents. Fifty-five percent of respondents feel giving teens information about sex and how to obtain and use protection will not encourage them to have sexual relations earlier than they would under an abstinence program. About 77 percent think such a curriculum would make teens more likely to practice safe sex now and in the future (NPR 2004).

Sweden, whose comprehensive sex education program in its public schools educates participants about safe sex, can serve as a model for this approach. The teenage birthrate in Sweden is 7 per 1,000 births, compared with 49 per 1,000 births in the United States. Among fifteen to nineteen year olds, reported cases of gonorrhea in Sweden are nearly 600 times lower than in the United States (Grose 2007).