Chapter Eight

Permissive Standards and
Positive-Value Consequences


TO COMPLETE THIS PHASE OF OUR ANALYSIS of the three permissive standards, it is necessary to see how and to what degree each standard results in consequences which Americans generally evaluate as good.1 It is hypothesized that these positive consequences will vary in their closeness of association with each of our three permissive standards. There is no systematic treatment of such relationships in sociological literature; it is needed if we are to gain better understanding of premarital behavior.



PHYSICAL SATISFACTION


Physical satisfaction is seemingly the most obvious of the consequences of premarital intercourse. Some degree of physical satisfaction or physical pleasure is present in almost all premarital coitus. It should be quickly added, however, that the nature of that pleasure varies considerably. For one thing, the physical satisfaction would be closely related to the guilt feelings which one might experience. If one feels he is doing something wrong, then whether his judgment is correct or not, he will probably find that his ability to enjoy himself is somewhat lessened.2 Many girls achieve orgasm only after they have been able to lose their qualms about their action. The initial engagement in coitus frequently causes nervousness or fear because the activity is new, and it is unlikely that full enjoyment can always be obtained.3

Thus, it may be said that a believer in abstinence, engaging in coitus in violation of his belief, would probably not enjoy it as much as possible because of his guilt feelings. Also, because of the conflict with the formal standard of abstinence which the double standard involves, double?standard males may feel qualms and disgust which would tend to somewhat lessen the physical pleasure involved in coitus. In both of the single permissiveness standards, although the adherents deny guilt feelings, there may still be some vague, nebulous qualms. At times, the physical pleasure of the present relationship may not be altered despite guilt feelings, but such a situation, in extreme cases, could lead to the guilt feelings being carried over to marital coitus.4

Since physical satisfaction is one of the main goals of both permissiveness without affection and the double standard, perhaps these standards will afford more pleasure in the "thrill" sense of the term than permissiveness with affection. For those who fully accept permissiveness without affection or the double standard and do not miss any deeper satisfaction, body-centered behavior may well yield a great deal of physical pleasure. On the other hand, permissiveness with affection may be the best means of achieving physical satisfaction, since, in this standard, the affection may increase the desire to give the other party pleasure and a long acquaintanceship may increase the knowledge of how to satisfy the other party.

Kinsey reported that men almost always reached orgasm during coitus, although some men become impotent if they feel too guilty about their behavior. About two?thirds of the females in Kinsey's sample, engaging in premarital coitus, reached orgasm at least part of the time.5 Most of the females engaging in premarital coitus intended to continue such behavior. Kinsey presented evidence to indicate that the more the female thought the act was wrong, the less likely she was to achieve orgasm.6

Ehrmann's study contains some interesting and relevant information concerning sexual pleasure. He found that among his female college students, being in love did enhance the pleasure involved in sexual behavior. For men, Ehrmann found, being in love increased the pleasure most in light petting and only slightly in heavy petting or coitus. Of course, it is possible that these students were not separating psychic and physical pleasure and were speaking of both together; thus, these findings cannot fully settle the issue of which standard yields the most physical pleasure.6a

The question of the effects of inhibitions and the nature of sublimation, as well as the relation between premarital and marital orgasm, will be discussed later in this book. It should 

be merely noted here that it is undeniable that most people who participate in premarital coitus feel the satisfaction of releasing nervous energy and of achieving certain pleasurable activities. This release often enables a person to carry on in other areas of life in a more relaxed and regulated fashion. This seems largely true for all three of our permissive standards when guilt is not present.7





PSYCHIC SATISFACTION



Psychic satisfaction is one of the most significant consequences of premarital sexual intercourse, and yet it is largely ignored in the present?day literature on sexual behavior before marriage. The lustful, promiscuous, selfish aspects of intercourse have been accented, causing the psychic factor to be lost sight of. But it is this fact that, to many people, is most important.

I am using the term "psychic satisfaction" to refer to the non-sexual, lasting, emotional rewards a sexual relationship yields, such as the security, warmth, and emotional satisfaction which one can derive from sexual intercourse. Such psychic satisfaction seems dependent on the presence of strong affection in the relationship. This means that the double standard and permissiveness without affection are unlikely to yield such psychic consequences to any significant degree.8 Only permissiveness with affection and the few love relations in the transitional double standard could lead to full psychic satisfaction. Only with such standards could the participants experience lasting feelings of warmth, security, and satisfaction that are not purely physical. With a person one is fond of, psychic pleasure can be gained by conversation and expressing affection and by mutual contentment. In this situation, such psychic consequences indicate that the relationship is deepening-that the two people are now closer for having shared something so intimate and valuable as sexual intercourse. This is somewhat the feeling experienced by over 90 per cent of the engaged couples in the Burgess and Wallin study who engaged in sexual intercourse.9

To fully achieve psychic satisfaction, a couple must, of course, believe their relationship to be right. Guilt feelings would mar psychic satisfaction. Also, the condemnation the double?standard male often feels for his partner limits psychic satisfaction, since it limits any growth of affection. The emphasis on purely physical pleasure in the permissiveness?without?affection standard may similarly make the development of a stable, affectionate relationship less likely. Adherents of this standard may be more interested in finding new partners than in developing deep affection for old ones.

Some people seem content with the body?centered sexual relationship and its low level of psychic satisfaction. But for many others, it appears that the lack of greater psychic satisfaction is felt, for our culture stresses its value. In doublestandard males, this lack may be partly responsible for the frequent feelings of disgust following coitus. When the sexual act is over, there is nothing left, and it is precisely then that psychic satisfaction is desired and its absence most sharply felt.10

It should be clear that the presence of psychic satisfaction does not necessarily mean that the over-all relationship will be strengthened. It is possible that with increased insight and closeness to another person, one may come to see that he is not suited for that person. Sexual intimacy is not the only factor responsible for strengthening an existing relationship. Of course, if coitus occurs after a couple is in love, the chances of its strengthening the relationship are much higher, as evidenced by the engaged couples in the Burgess and Wallin study. But it should be kept in mind that psychic satisfaction from coitus is but one kind of reward, and other aspects of the "wheel relationship" may cancel out such a consequence.11





AID TO MARITAL SEXUAL ADJUSTMENT



The last major consequence of premarital coitus focuses on the connection between premarital sexual intereourse and marital sexual adjustment. In the past, the assertion was frequently made that premarital coitus hindered marital coitus.12 The available evidence indicates that such an unqualified assertion is not valid. There is not complete causal proof of this, but it is known that people who experience orgasms in premarital coitus are much more likely to experience orgasms when married. This fact was brought out in many of the major studies.13 More research is needed to see if the correlation here is due to the more sexually stimulated females having premarital coital orgasm and also marital orgasm-both as a result of their sexual desires-or if the premarital coitus actually aided their sexual development and made orgasm in marriage easier. Causal relations are very difficult to establish.

The chart on the following page shows some evidence in this area. Kinsey found that only 3 to 8 per cent of the females who experienced premarital coital orgasm failed to achieve orgasm in the first year of marriage. Forty per cent of the virgins who experienced no premarital orgasm failed to achieve marital orgasm in the first year of marriage. Ten years after marriage, 25 per cent of these virginal women had not yet reached orgasm. Those virgins who experienced premarital orgasm from other sources, such as petting or masturbation, fared much better than their more chaste, virginal sisters. About 15 per cent of this group did not experience orgasm in the first year of marriage. It should be noted that those females who engaged in premarital intercourse and failed to reach orgasm had a most difficult time reaching orgasm in marriage. Between 38 and 56 per cent of this group failed to reach orgasm in the first year of marriage. It is believed that much of this group is composed of abstinence believers who experienced inhibitions due to strong guilt feelings concerning their behavior. It may also be that some of these women only experienced coitus a few times or had partners whose ineptness or lack of concern prevented orgasm. Some may have engaged in coitus for other than sexual reasons, i.e., to obtain certain privileges. This group is over a third of the total number of women engaging in premarital coitus. Thus, the over-all figures show a high correlation between premarital orgasm, f rom any source, and marital orgasm. Nevertheless, those adherents of the three permissive standards who achieve premarital orgasm, have the best chance of marital orgasm.




This does not mean that all three permissive standards are equally likely to lead to marital orgasm, nor to total sexual adjustment in marriage. There are factors relating to the interaction of both husband and wife which must also be considered. The individual's orgasmic history may have different consequences, depending on what standard underlies his experience and depending on the standard and experience of his mate.14

In the Burgess and Wallin study, many of the couples (married on the average about four years) were sexually maladjusted. Three out of four husbands and about one of every six wives said they had seriously contemplated extramarital coitus. About a fourth of the men and a third of the women stated that their sexual desires were definitely not being satisfied. Two out of every three wives said their husband's sex drive exceeded theirs. Over a fourth of the women rarely or never reached orgasm in all their years of marriage. Seven per cent of the men likewise rarely or never experienced orgasm. Love between the husband and wife seemed to help in achieving sexual adjustment, but there were many couples who were in love but who were maladjusted sexually. These love couples did not often divorce, thus indicating that, although sex is a vital part of marriage, there are so many other important parts that it is quite possible for the sexual factor to be outweighed.15

One cannot say for sure why these married couples and many others find sexual adjustment in marriage so difficult. Surely it cannot be explained solely by the lack of orgasm on the part of wives. Reasoning from the data possessed, it would seem that the type of premarital standard held by these people may be one important factor. Burgess and Wallin mention that the double standard encourages men to develop their sexual desires and women to inhibit their desires.16 This combination may be the crucial explanation of much of the sexual maladjustment in marriage. Men are made more desirous of sexual intercourse, women are inhibited, and then they are united in marriage. Sexual difficulties are thus most likely to occur. If people were trained more equally, a great deal of this could be avoided. Let me elaborate on this hypothesis and try to demonstrate why, in agreement with Burgess and Wallin, it is felt that the double standard in premarital intercourse is responsible for much of the sexual maladjustment in marriage.

A double-standard man develops certain strong attitudes regarding sexual relations, as a result of his own experiences. Most likely his sexual behavior was aimed at self-satisfaction. Such a man builds up self-centered methods of sexual gratification and associates sexual relations with "bad" women, thereby disassociating sex and affection.

Sexual relations in marriage, in our culture, are usually expected to involve mutual satisfaction with a woman respected and loved. The marital situation, then, is nearly as diametrically opposed to double-standard sexual relations as possible. The old double-standard attitudes and habits must be forgotten and new habits built up to replace them. The husband must learn to respect his wife; he must learn to associate sexual intercourse with tenderness and affection, rather than with disgust and lack of affection, and he must learn how to satisfy both his wife and himself and not only himself. This is an extensive change, and, in many cases, it may cause difficulty. No doubt some men find the change too difficult to make and continue to practice self-centered, affectionless, sexual intercourse which leaves their wives unsatisfied and emotionally disturbed.

Orthodox double-standard women (women who accept chastity for themselves but permissiveness for men) often feel that a double-standard man, because of his experience, is an asset. They prefer to marry such men and believe that this kind of husband would be able to teach them about sexual intercourse. Kinsey found that 32 per cent of the girls preferred non-virginal men for husbands, 23 per cent preferred to marry virginal men, and 42 per cent had no special preference.17 The above statements, concerning premarital intercourse of the double-standard type and its effects on marital sexual adjustment, bring such views into serious question. Double-standard men may be quite ignorant about person-centered coitus. Furthermore, such women often bring their own handicaps to the marital bed, and, combined with a double-standard male, there would seem to be a good chance of sexual maladjustment.18

An orthodox double-standard woman must live up to a rather strict code. Not only must she avoid intercourse, she must not allow herself to be too free in the area of petting. She may be in the group of women who have never experienced premarital orgasm in any fashion. The average girl marries in her twenties, after about five to ten years of dating. It takes a considerable amount of control, and probably inhibition, to abide by such a strict standard for all those years. Such strict behavior could be accomplished with greater ease in a more ascetic culture, but in our culture with its accent on sex and young people, it is most difficult for a female to so sharply curtail her sexual behavior. After learning to restrict behavior for many years, it is often difficult to lose inhibitions. As one married woman in the Burgess and Wallin study stated in her interview:

You develop inhibitions before marriage. There's a stone wall then, and after marriage it's a little hard to get over the stone wall. I like to go as far as the stone wall. After that I don't respond.19

A woman like this can no more lose her inhibitions on the wedding night than the man can lose his self-centered sexual habits. At the very least, it will take time and understanding to chip away the veneer of culturally-imposed inhibitions. Such a woman would need a husband with a great deal of patience and love, in addition to an understanding of how to change his wife's sexual behavior. Even if the woman were an experienced female, she might still have difficulties due to the double-standard male's self-centered sexual attitudes.

Finally, it should be added that a double-standard male may carry over his behavior and accept extramarital coitus. This may further disrupt the over-all marital relationship and, in particular, the sexual relationship. Such extramarital coitus may remove much of the personal, unique, stable, and affectionate aspects of marital coitus, making it all the more difficult to reach a satisfactory sexual adjustment in marriage.

It is apparent that the double standard may set the stage for marital sexual maladjustment in a multitude of ways. Even the double-standard male who adheres to the transitional subtype will have had most of his sexual experience in a traditional double-standard body-centered way. His affectionate experience may help somewhat, but by and large, what has been said of the orthodox adherent should hold true for the transitional male also. It may well be the double-standard male who is responsible for some of the non-virginal women failing to reach orgasm. If the male is predominantly concerned about his own pleasure, he may not help his partner to achieve orgasm.

It is hypothesized that the single permissive standards are not so strongly involved in marital sexual maladjustment. Since permissiveness without affection involves mutual satisfaction, it avoids inhibitions on the part of the female or selfishness on the part of the male. There may, however, be some adjustment difficulties here due to the habitual bodycentered, thrill-centered type of premarital coitus which these people have experienced. It may well be difficult to adjust to the stability of marital coitus.

It is further hypothesized that permissiveness with affection, because of its accent on mutual satisfaction and affection, is well integrated with marital sexual relations. This standard builds up attitudes favorable to stable, affectionate relations, and prepares one for the kind of coitus involved in marriage. Person-centered coitus is the easiest for both men and women to accept without qualms, and thus it should lead to a high rate of orgasm in premarital copulation. Such premarital orgasm is correlated with marital orgasm.20

In summary, I should mention that although there is a very high correlation between premarital orgasm and marital orgasm, there may well be more to sexual adjustment than reaching a climax. Although it could be said that chances for reaching orgasm in marriage are higher if orgasm is experienced before marriage, this cannot be recommended as a cure-all. Many people are so strongly opposed to premarital coitus that the attempt to achieve orgasm in premarital intercourse may lead to strong guilt feelings and greater sexual difficulties than formerly existed. Chart I shows clearly how some experienced women had a more difficult time than the virginal women in achieving marital orgasm. Such women may be in part those who felt guilty about their premarital behavior. Furthermore, orgasm alone is no guarantee of adjustment, as can be seen in the above examination of the double standard. It is my hypothesis that it is the combination of male and female premarital sexual standards that is most important in marital sexual adjustment. Finally, it must now be clear that such sexual adjustment occurs in the context of a total marital relation and can affect and be affected by that relation.





CONCLUSIONS ON ALL EIGHT CONSEQUENCES



I have not gone into great detail to show how the subtypes of our three major permissive standards would vary. There is, of course, a great deal of similarity, but the consequences will vary in some crucial areas. This was touched upon only briefly during the analysis, because the research information is not yet precise and thorough enough to explain fully such subtype variations.

It should also be noted that within any one subtype there is a range of individual variation. Here again, there is not full research information as to what variations in the consequences may occur because of such specific positional differences.

I have tried to present what I feel is as complete an account as is objectively possible at the present time. The broad theoretical assumption that standards would be differentially integrated with consequences has been supported by the evidence of the last two chapters. In summary, it can be said that the particular association of standards and consequences which exists in a society depends on the nature of that society-that the associations I have discussed exist because of the kind of society America is. The picture of America, developed in all the earlier chapters, provides the context of the discussion on standards and consequences.

On an over-all basis, permissiveness with affection is the permissive standard most closely integrated with the positive value consequences, such as psychic satisfaction, and most weakly integrated with the negative-value consequences, such as guilt feelings. This standard, on this account, seems to be well knit into modern society-particularly in middle- and upper-class groups, where such consequences seem most highly valued.

The person-centered coital behavior which goes with permissiveness with affection, and the affection which also is involved in such behavior, seem to be of vital importance in explaining the resulting integration. The evidence indicates that, in our kind of society, it is affection which helps insure that one can avoid the negative-value consequences and achieve the positive-value consequences. Another feature of person-centered coitus is the monogamous aspect of the affair. The more affection present, the more monogamous the affair; in American society, this, too, increases the likelihood of achieving the positive-value consequences and avoiding the negative-value consequences. The women who accept the transitional double standard also have person-centered behavior. However, because these women allow men greater sexual freedom, the consequences of this behavior may not be the same as those for the permissiveness-with-affection women.

Conversely, those affairs lacking in affectionate feelings and which are not monogamous, namely, those entailing body-centered coitus, seem to be more likely to lead to some of the negative-value consequences, as well as fail to achieve many of the positive-value consequences. Such body-centered affairs are those which largely follow from the double standard and permissiveness without affection, as well as those which are in violation of a person-centered standard. Even here such negative-value consequences are simply more likely-they are by no means inevitable. The Puritan view of our standards is thus often erroneous, i.e, many people who disapprove of premarital intercourse try to paint all such behavior as disastrous in its consequences and are particularly prone to exaggerate the risks of body-centered coitus. Body-centered coitus does seem to have higher risks, but in many cases the difference is slight, and in other instances caution can control much of the risk involved.

As noted previously, these sexual standards seem differentially distributed by education and occupation classes- the lower classes having more adherents to the double standard, and the middle and upper classes leaning more toward permissiveness with affection.21 Permissiveness without affection is more difficult to locate in terms of its dominant focus in our social structure. There is evidence of adherents in both the very high and very low segments of our class system. In any case, it is interesting to note that although all classes probably have adherents of all our major standards, some of these standards are stronger in some classes than in others. This means that premarital intercourse is not the same, in its social and cultural significance, in the different sectors of the social structure. Future research is needed to discern the exact distribution of standards and, equally important, the reasons for such distribution. At present, it may be suggested that since social classes differ as to their knowledge, and evalulation of the eight consequences we discussed, one would expect the popularity of these three permissive standards to differ accordingly.

Now that we have analyzed our three permissive standards we will turn in the next chapter to our formal standard of abstinence and see what characteristics and consequences are associated with this, our final premarital standard.





















1. It is believed that the consequences examined here are the major positive consequences of premarital intercourse. Of course, others may well be brought out by future research. I am including here the ones which I now feel are most important. Such a list is always tentative.

2. Kinsey, Human Female, p. 306.

3. Terman, op. cit`, p. 344. About half of the females in this study were bothered by physical pain at initial intercourse. There also would be psychological qualms, for many others.

4. Burgess and Wallin, op. cit., chap. xx.

5. Human Female, p. 288. This is the same rate of orgasm which married women achieved.

6. Ibid., pp. 306, 343.

6a. Ehrmann, Premarital Dating Behavior, pp. 251?66; Ehrmann did not find significant differences in the pleasure reactions by sex codes.

7. The last chapter showed evidence for the small percentage of guilt feelings present in premarital coitus. Burgess and Wallin show the high value of physical release to 143 of their subjects. See Burgess and Wallin, op. cit., p. 375.

8. Psychic satisfaction, of course, could be expanded to include the status rewards a double?standard male achieves for his "conquests." But the term is not being used in this sense here. I previously spoke of such other consequences when dealing with social condemnation in chap. vii and with the double standard in chap. iv.

9. Burgess and Wallin, op. cit., pp. 371?74.

10. It is important to note that these last two consequences (physical satisfaction and psychic satisfaction) are the only intended (manifest) consequences of all the positive and negative consequences which will be examined. The other consequences are unintended (latent) but are causally related to coitus. Future research will likely reveal other unintended consequences of coitus.

11. The more intimate a relationship, the more one would expect pain at its break. However, a study of college students indicates that they recover from most broken love relationships with remarkable speed. Over two-thirds of the boys and girls "recovered" in a matter of weeks. See Clifford Kirkpatrick and Theodore Caplow, "Courtship in a Group of Minnesota Students," American Journal of Sociology, LI (1945), 114-25.

12. This is at times asserted today. See the 1958 edition of Landis and Landis, op. cit., p. 304. See also chap. xi of that book. Landis feels that having premarital coitus may fix the couple's attention too much on sex. This is a common view and it would be interesting to gather evidence on this. It is possible that the reverse is true, and that by abstaining one thinks more of sex because it is forbidden fruit.

13. See Kinsey, Human Female, p. 406; Burgess and Wallin, op. cit., p. 362; Terman, op. cit., p. 383. For more recent evidence on this point, see Kanin and Howard, op. cit.

14. Burgess and Wallin, op. cit., chap. xx. This chapter contains one of the most recent and most extensive researches into the sex factor in marriage adjustment. Terman, op. cit., chaps. x-xiii. Terman found an even greater amount of sexual maladjustment in marriage than Burgess and Wallin did. Perhaps couples in the early 1940's (Burgess and Wallin sample) were happier than the couples in the 1930's (Terman sample).

15. Burgess and Wallin, op. cit., chap. xx, p. 696. These authors found a moderate relation between marital success and sexual adjustment. It is however, difficult to say whether the marital success was the cause or the effect. Also many marriages with poor sexual adjustment were good in other ways.

16. Burgess and Wallin, op. cit., pp. 695-97.

17. Human Female, p. 323. 3 per cent of the girls were undecided.

18. For an excellent literary example of this sort of maladjustment, see Maupassant, op. cit. See also: Burgess and Wallin, op. cit., pp. 659-60, for evidence that over 25 per cent of the women said their premarital sex attitude was one of disgust, aversion, or indifference. Almost 10 per cent of the men said the same. Terman, op. cit., p. 248, found 34 per cent of the women and 13 per cent of the men with such attitudes.

19. Burgess and Wallin, op. cit., p. 677

20. Kinsey, Human Female, p. 345 shows 91 per cent of girls having coitus with fiance only, had no definite regrets. This is highest of all groups. Of course, there are other factors in a marital relationship which may affect the sexual adjustment, besides one's past standards. However, in this section, only the relation between premarital standards and marital sexual adjustment is being examined.

21. It should be noted that Kinsey found that female sexual behavior did not vary as much by education or occupation classes. There were some differences such as lower-educational girls having coitus and petting at earlier ages and marrying earlier. However, Kinsey's data do not enable one to check whether, although the rates of coitus were similar, the lower-class group included more permissiveness without affection adherents. Kinsey, Human Female. chap. viii.

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