Shifting Views of Sex, Sex Roles and Sexuality

Americans have changed their views of sex, sex roles, and marriage in the last several decades and many have also changed their sexual behavior.

New Attitudes toward Premarital Sex

Premarital sex is more widely talked about than it was several decades ago. Among young people there’s less belief in the “double standard: that says premarital sex is all right for men but not for women. More unmarried college women today say they’ve engaged in sexual intercourse, the number has moved from about 40 percent in the 1950s to at least 80 percent in the 1970s. Teenagers, too, may be more likely to approve of premarital sex, and some may be more likely to engage in it if there is an emotional commitment between the partners, though the widespread notion of the “promiscuous teenager” is a myth.

New Attitudes toward Gender Behavior

Traditional expectations for “male” and “female” behavior have also begun to change, both in marriage and outside marriage. It is now more widely recognized that environment plays an important role in shaping each individual’s identity as a male or a female, and more people now realize that if men and women are different, it isn’t “because they’re just born that way.”

There are some inborn differences in the way male and female babies behave that are noticeable shortly after birth, but these differences are not as great as people once assumed. Today’s “gender liberation,” which questions stereotyped sex-role expectations, gives both men and women greater freedom to do and be whatever feels comfortable to them