Changes in Sexuality Standards over Time

First we will examine the sexuality standards of our OK and TX samples in the context of previous studies of sexuality standards (Reiss, 1967; DeLamater & MacCorquodale, 1979; Simon & Gagnon, 1968). In order to obtain sexuality standards groupings comparable with previous research, the RRRS responses were collapsed into three groups:

• The Abstinence group was formed from people who require marriage prior to the onset of sex.
• The Permissiveness With Affection group was formed from people who require engagement, love or liking prior to sexual relations.
• The Permissiveness Without Affection group was composed of people who require only casual acquaintance prior to the onset of sexual activity.

Table 1. Changes in Sexuality Standards 1959 to 1991. Percent Endorsement of Each Sexuality Standard.
Sexuality Standard	Reiss 1959a		Simon & Gagnon 1968b		Delamater & MacCorquodale 1973c		Harris 1989 (Oklahoma sample)		Harris 1991 (Texas sample)
	Female	Male	Female	Male	Female	Male	Female	Male	Female	Male
Abstinence	55%	28%	55%	28%	14%	5%	10%	24%	28%	19%
Permissiveness with Affection	.	.	40%	45%	59%	53%	86%	66%	71%	71%
Permissiveness without Affection	.	.	5%	25%	27%	42%	4%	10%	2%	10%
n	435	386	584	593	722	652	48	29	188	170

Notes:

a from Reiss (1967, p. 26, table 2.6). Data on the permissiveness with affection and permissiveness without affection groups were omitted since some people from these two groups were classified into the double standard

b from DeLamater & MacCorquodale (1979, p. 228, Table 10.1).

c from DeLamater & MacCorquodale (1979, p. 90, table 5.1). Student and nonstudents were collapsed into one group.

Data on sexuality standards is also available from the Love Test

	Love Test Data, Harris, 1996
Sexuality Standard	Entire Sample	Female	Male
Abstinence	14.2%	14.3%	14.0%
Permissiveness with Affection	74.5%	76.8%	71.9%
Permissiveness without Affection	11.3%	8.9%	14.1%
n	8191	4,365	3,826

In order to interpret the changes in sexuality standards across the various samples, it is necessary to make the assumption that these samples would generalize to some underlying population (which may not be a valid assumption). Given this assumption, it appears that the percentage of people choosing the abstinence standard or the permissiveness without affection standard appears to have decreased over time, whereas endorsement of the permissiveness with affection standard has increased over time. Overall, it appears that Permissiveness with affection is the predominant standard for sexual behavior in our society. It's also interesting to note that across all of these samples, a higher percentage of males chose permissiveness without affection than did females. Generally the reverse was true regarding the Abstinence standard-females showed a slightly high endorsement rate than did males.

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