Development of Sexual Behavior

Introduction

A Script?

In the early 1970s, two American sociologists working at the Kinsey Institute proposed a new model of human sexual development. John Gagnon and William Simon described sexual behavior as “scripted behavior”, i.e. as behavior that follows a script - or rather a combination of scripts - provided by the social environment and internalized by the individual.
A social script can be compared to a movie script that tells actors what to say and what to do in the various scenes they have to play. It defines their roles, tells them how they should dress and move, and how they should interact with the other characters. Taken as a whole, the script also reveals to them and to the audience what the whole drama means.
Social scripts exist in all spheres of life, although most of them are never spelled out. Both written and unwritten rules suggest to us how we should behave in all sorts of situations – in school, on the job, at a party, meeting strangers, playing hosts, talking on the phone, driving a car, checking in at the airport, etc., In short, every social interaction follows some kind of script, and therefore all human behavior can be understood as scripted behavior. Sexual behavior is no exception. Indeed, once we start looking at it as scripted, we gain an entirely new perspective.

John Gagnon (b. 1933) and William Simon (1930-2000)
This course can provide only a brief introduction to their theory. For details, see the original study:
J. Gagnon, W. Simon,"Sexual Conduct: The Social Sources of Human Sexuality", Chicago.1973
© Kinsey Institute