Attitudes Toward Nomarital Sex in 24 Countries

Journal of Sex Research, Nov, 1998 by Eric D. Widmer, Judith Treas, Robert Newcomb

Comparing sexual attitudes and behaviors across cultures is a concern of anthropological and sociological research. Scholars have pointed out that many societies around the world share common normative attitudes toward sex, including the incest taboo, condemnation of adultery, and a general concern for regulating sexuality, particularly outside wedlock (Levi-Strauss, 1969; Murdock, 1960). At the same time, research has shown that attitudes toward premarital sex, homosexuality, masturbation, petting, and other sexual behavior are not constants, but present different patterns from culture to culture (Ford & Beach, 1951). Even in the Western world, countries differ in their emphasis on the value of virginity before marriage, the acceptability of homosexuality, and the appropriate age to become sexually active (Buss, 1989; Christensen & Carpenter, 1962; Christensen & Gregg, 1970; Jones et al., 1985; Jones et al., 1986; Ross, 1985).

Although scholars, policy makers, and the general public have a genuine interest in cross-national variations in attitudes regarding sexual morality, most research in the social and behavioral sciences has been largely a local or national enterprise. Indeed, most studies have been based on samples not representative of a national population, and nationally representative studies have seldom been designed with an eye to facilitating international comparisons. Cross-national research on sexuality remains relatively underdeveloped.

Considering nonmarital sex, attitudes toward premarital sex, teenage sex, extramarital sex, and homosexual sex are sometimes assumed to be indicators of a single underlying dimension measuring the overall sexual permissiveness of individuals or nations. While these four variables are correlated, it need not follow that societies show consistently permissive or conservative attitudes on all four variables, nor that a simple permissive-nonpermissive dichotomy is enough to account for variation across countries. If moral evaluations of different sorts of nonmarital sexual relationships hang together in complex ways, this implies a more pluralistic landscape of sexual values than a permissive nonpermissive dichotomy would suggest. For example, nations which are tolerant of sexual experimentation before marriage might be more approving of both premarital sex and teen sex, but not necessarily of extramarital sex. Nations where many people are critical of marriage as a social institution might support the right of premarital cohabitors and homosexuals to have sex, but not necessarily young teens. We therefore hypothesize that these four variables combine in different ways across countries, and that countries form clusters distinguished by characteristic profiles of attitudes toward nonmarital sex.

How many different sexual regimes exist and which countries belong to what regime are empirical questions. These questions are addressed using newly available national survey data from 24 countries on attitudes toward homosexual sex, extramarital sex, premarital sex, and teenage sex. Moving beyond previous research, we are interested in measuring how much of attitudes toward nonmarital sex is shared by countries or regimes. Researchers, particularly anthropologists, have been interested in the extent to which cultures share sexual norms, values, and ethics, as part of a broader interest in universal features of social life that transcend particular cultures and idioms. Even though we are mostly concerned with modern industrial societies, we also wish to address the issue of universality versus specificity, and we introduce a straightforward way of measuring the degree of sharing.

Research on Cross-National Differences

Research on sexual attitudes in industrialized nations points out the fact that normative standards differ across countries. For example, comparative research has repeatedly shown that Scandinavian students are more tolerant of premarital sex than are their American counterparts (Christensen & Gregg, 1970; Schwartz, 1993; Weinberg, Lottes, & Shaner, 1995). A 37-country study reported that non-Western societies (China, India, Indonesia, Iran, Taiwan, and Palestinian Arabs) value chastity highly in a potential mate, that Western European countries (Sweden, Norway, Finland, the Netherlands, West Germany, and France) attach little importance to prior sexual experience, and that Ireland, Japan, and Poland fall somewhere in between (Buss, 1989). Data on attitudes toward homosexuality have been reported for 16 industrialized countries. They suggest that tolerance for homosexuality is linked with postmaterialist values (Inglehart, 1990). Tolerance for sexual expression in the public sphere has also been shown to differ markedly between Western, industrialized nations: Sweden and Ireland anchor the extremes in terms of openness in the sale of sexually explicit material, public nudity, and condom advertising (Jones et al., 1985).

Despite the cumulation of comparative findings, cross-national research has been limited in several ways. First, although anthropologists have undertaken cross-cultural analyses of a broad range of sexual attitudes and behaviors (Broude & Greene, 1976; Ford & Beach, 1951; Minturn, Grosse, & Haider, 1969; Murdock, 1960), cross-national research on complex, industrial societies has focused on only a few aspects of sexuality. Premarital sexuality, including teenage sex, has been emphasized, largely to the exclusion of other kinds of nonmarital sexual relationships. Little is known about how attitudes toward extramarital sex and homosexual sex vary across countries.