Development of Sexual Behavior

Introduction: A Script?

Changing Cultural Scripts 2

Standards of sexual normality may also vary within the same culture over time. Thus, a certain society may today recognize a rather wide segment of the behavioral spectrum as normal. However, a historical investigation may show that, 100 years ago, this segment of “normality” was much more narrowly defined. Looking back even further in history, one may then discover that, 2000 years ago, the segment was much wider than it is even today: The following graph roughly fits the case of Western Europe.

The spectrum of human sexual behavior and its changing segments of normality II
Even the same society (C) may, in the course of time, accept narrower or wider segments of the spectrum as normal behavior.