A Shift Toward Greater Sexual Permissiveness: Same-sex Marriage & Premarital Sex

As a part of high school literature, the Scarlett Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne was a mandatory read. I read this story twice during the duration of my high school years. The Scarlett Letter is about a woman who gives birth to a daughter after having an affair and ends up facing public scrutiny and is terribly humiliated by everyone because of her actions. This story is set in 17th-century Puritan Boston, Massachusetts, and provides just how sexually intolerant early Americans were. Early Americans, especially men, cheated on their significant others quite often. We have all seen it in movies and we have read it in books, so there is no denying it. Most Americans are still against adultery today but they are growing more comfortable with immoral acts such as adultery. American attitudes toward sex have become more tolerable to adult same-sex and pre-marital sex and not so much with extramarital sex.

The General Social Survey is a sociological survey that collects and keeps the information about the social concerns and attitudes of the people in the United States. It has been collecting and monitoring data on the attitude toward sex since 1972, and one of the things the study has found is that Americans are becoming more accepting of adults same-sex. In fact, from 1990 to 2012, the acceptance of sex with the same gender has tripled from 13 percent to 44 percent of Americans saying that it’s “not wrong at all”. The legalization of same-sex marriage has occurred around this same time with same-sex marriage becoming legal in all states. “Increasing support for gay marriage reflects the way that attitudes towards same-sex sexual activity are changing over time”. One of the key driving forces behind the change in acceptance to adult same-sex is because, with the number of people that identify as being gay or lesbian, there is a greater chance that we as Americans will know someone that is having sex with the same gender. When you know someone versus just hearing about them, it often garners a higher level of support for that person and their cause. As USA Today suggests, at the root of the change, is the personal connection to someone who is LGBT. “The number of Americans that say they have a close friend or relative who is gay or lesbian rose from 22 percent in 1993 to 63 percent today, with millennials leading the way at 71 percent who say they have a close friend or relative that is gay or lesbian”. I find this to be true because adult same-sex and being gay was morally wrong growing up, and I can say I didn’t have any close friends or family that were gay, however recently, my own brother came out as being gay. All the time it was something that I abhorred and my reaction to a gay sibling was to be very harsh, but when he said it, I accepted. While I’m not completely on board, having a sibling that is gay has definitely increased my own tolerance just in the three months since he’s told me. Much in the way I was taught to be against same-gender sex, was I also taught that premarital sex isn’t moral. This seems to coincide with the beliefs of Americans forty years ago but according to the GSS, they are more tolerable to premarital sex as well.

As mentioned above, respondents in the survey could reply that the sexual behaviors were “always wrong,' 'almost always wrong,' 'wrong only sometimes,' or 'not wrong at all.' It found that in the thirty-year time span in which it was conducted, American adults became more accepting of premarital sex. Looking at some of the statistics, “In the early 1970s sex before marriage was accepted by 29 percent, but rose to 58 percent between 2010 and 2012”. So clearly over the years, Americans are beginning to view sex before marriage as less immoral. Many factors may be responsible for the shift in attitude towards premarital sex, but one of the most important to note would be the increased availability of birth control. It helped reduce the chance that casual sex before marriage would result in children and having a child out of wedlock was considered a disgrace. “In the 1950s and earlier, men and women rarely lived together before marriage, unmarried women who bore children were shunned”. This ushered in dating practices toward friends with benefits and other arrangements, they could have sex without the commitments of marriage like children. According to Jean Twenge, 'The change in attitude towards premarital sex is primarily due to generation - suggesting people develop their sexual attitudes while young”. It is important to note that while Americans have been more receptive to adult same-sex and premarital sex, they are not as progressive on extra-marital sex.

More Americans tolerate sexual activities like gay relations and premarital sex but as one commentator put it, “We condemn adultery like it’s 1642”. The American people seem to have an attitude of if you’re not married, whatever you do sexually is your business if you are an adult, but once you’re married, stick to your spouse. Actually, according to a recent Gallop poll, they maybe become even more intolerable to extramarital sex. “91% of adults consider extramarital sex to be wrong. Which is a notable change from forty years ago when the National Opinion Research Center found that less than 70% of respondents considered adultery ‘always wrong’”. Marriage has always been sacred in our society no matter what the reason for the marriage was. Earlier in the 20th century, people got married mostly because it was a societal norm, now it’s more about individual happiness. “We respect marriage as a relationship more than any other time in history, because of that, we expect more intimacy, more fairness, and more fidelity”.

It is important and interesting to see where we’ve come from as a society on these issues. It is especially pleasant to see how we as a society are still holding to our values in marriage and the sanctity that it brings. The findings of the General Social Survey are imperative for us to see where we are going as a society and it is clear that for the most part, we are heading for a more sexually tolerant America. It also important to realize that things are changing and as long as sexual behavior and attitudes continue to change, we must not forget to question the mechanism behind that change.

References

1. Bailey, B. (2015, May 29). Premarital Sex Is 'Not Wrong at All,' Say 58 Percent of Americans. Retrieved June 19, 2016, from Reason.com: http://reason.com/archives/2015/05/29/premarital-sex-is-not-wrong-at-all-say-5
2. Grossman, C. L. (2014, February 26). Survey: Tolerance for gays, lesbians rises rapidly. Retrieved June 19, 2016, from USA Today: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/02/26/homosexuality-opinion-survey/5828455/
3. Lucke, J. (2015, June 28). Making up our minds: attitudes towards sex are changing. Retrieved June 19, 2016, from The Conversation: http://theconversation.com/making-up-our-minds-attitudes-towards-sex-are-changing-42994
4. Rickman, D. (2015). How the way we think about sex has changed in the last 40 years. Retrieved June 19, 2016, from Indy 100: http://indy100.independent.co.uk/article/how-the-way-we-think-about-sex-has-changed-in-the-last-40-years--xJVAcTD9eW
5. Twenge, J. M., Sherman, R. A., & Wells, B. E. (2015, May 5). Changes in American Adults’ Sexual Behavior and Attitudes, 1972-2012. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 13. doi:10.1007/s10508-015-0540-2
6. Wagman, A. (2013, July 25). Americans grow increasingly intolerant of extramarital affairs. Retrieved June 19, 2016, from StarTribune: startribune.com/americans-grow-increasingly-intolerant-of-extramarital-affairs/216813271/