IDEOLOGIES
The Range of Normality

HUMAN BEINGS: COGNITIVE OR EMOTIVE?
SEXUAL IDEOLOGIES AT THE END OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
A CROSS-CULTURAL TYPOLOGY OF SEXUAL IDEOLOGIES
PREMATURE EJACULATION: AN IDEOLOGICAL CONSTRUCT
WHAT IS SEXUAL NORMALITY?
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
SELECTED REFERENCES AND COMMENTS

HUMAN BEINGS: COGNITIVE OR EMOTIVE?

The ability to think abstractly is our only area of significant superiority above our fellow animals. By abstract thinking I mean the ability to contemplate what is not directly confronting the senses. This ability allows us to muse about the past and plan for the future. We can analyze and explain what the senses reveal to us to an extent far beyond the abilities of other creatures. Aristotle was correct when he said that humans can be defined as the rational animal.1 In virtually all other respects we are inferior to other animals. There are other animals who are superior in strength, size, sight, hearing, smell, speed, longevity, and virtually any other characteristic one chooses to examine. Our crown rests, however shakily, upon our ability to think abstractly.
Our sexuality is critically affected by this unique ability. For one thing, abstract thought makes it possible for us to develop a wider range and more elaborate set of sexual stimuli. This, in turn, is probably the key reason that we are the species who spends the most time in sexual interaction. We also use our abstract abilities to create a realm of values defining what we believe is the preferred way to think, feel, and behave sexually. So, our sexual imagination and our moral judgments regarding sexuality are expanded far in excess of that of other living creatures.
The importance of sexuality in our social lives makes it certain that not only will we develop value judgments about it but those judgments will be buttressed by very strong emotions. Accordingly, if we violate a sexual custom, the reaction is likely to be as strong as, if not stronger than, that for violating almost any other social custom. In sexuality our abstract thinking becomes linked with our ability to emote, and these factors reinforce each other.
As societies evolve, they tie together sets of their value judgments into strongly held value systems. These value systems are logically based upon the assumptions a society makes about the nature of human beings. Such fundamental assumptions are what we call ideologies. Ideologies are at the heart of our societal approach to living. They develop in all important areas of our life in every society. Our basic values are logically linked to our ideological positions. We will attend to these ideologies and their relation to sexuality in this chapter.
Marxists would contend that ideologies are derived from our mode of economic production and the social class structure that controls that production. In that sense ideologies simply rationalize the legitimacy of the powers that be. Feminists often have viewed males as the major source of such powers. Surely my own analysis in the last two chapters evidences the power of males and the importance of the economic way of life of a society in promoting such a distribution of power. Nevertheless, we have also discussed other causes. Knowing that we have not been able to analyze carefully much of the potential causal network, I would hesitate to pick male economic power as the only important cause of our fundamental ideological beliefs about sexuality. We must keep in mind the range of sexual lifestyles that exists in societies with the same mode of production and the same degree of male power. Think about the variety that exists in industrialized capitalistic countries, and you will become aware of the complexity of causal analysis and the reasons for avoiding any single-cause explanatory theory.
More important than arguing over specific causes is my desire to challenge the view that ideology is simply a rationalization for maintaining a particular group in power. To be sure, it is beyond dispute that the ideologies in a society will reflect the interest of the group in power. We saw precisely that in the last chapter, wherein the ideological belief in female inferiority appeared to be in good part a reflection of male power in a society. However, particularly in large complex societies, it is equally obvious that conflicting ideologies exist, and thus not all ideologies can directly support the group in power.
Furthermore, some aspects of ideologies have an existence that extends beyond one specific type of society. Some of the present freedom and equalitarian ideologies in America are present outside America and even outside Western Europe. So, some ideologies are apparently not culture bound to just one particular type of economic system.
Finally, some ideologies outlast the power groups they seem to support. One interesting illustration is how the belief in the power of the English king outlasted by over a century the actual power of the Crown. That belief continued to exist long after the prime minister had become the central power figure in England. In sum, then, I am arguing for the independent power of ideologies, not as their only characteristic, but as a key attribute that requires scrutiny. Ideologies do more than reflect the groups in power; they also can alter that power structure by the belief systems toward which they pressure. 2
Ideologies, then, can retard change or enhance it. They can exist as a latent opposition force for long periods of time and then blossom when other societal aspects change in compatible ways. Our equalitarian ideological beliefs in civil rights for minorities was one such long-standing percept that blossomed in the 1960s and significantly aided the equal rights movement in the United States. That credo had previously had a long history during which in mostly minor ways it affected our society. My point, then, is that we recognize the latent power, independent of economic systems, stored in our ideological beliefs. In this I am departing from any orthodox Marxist interpretation of ideology.
One can classify in various ways the basic types of ideologies that prevail in cultures around the world. Yet there are some common ideological premises. Almost all peoples seem to have ideological beliefs related to the fact that humans are moved both by reason and by emotions. These beliefs divide into two ideological perspectives, which I will call the cognitive and the emotive. Accordingly, I have found it particularly useful to dichotomize ideologies into these two very general categories: those that stress humans as motivated to act by reason and those that stress humans as motivated to act by emotion. Societies combine elements of both these perspectives, but most often they stress one at the expense of the other.
Ideologies assert what a people believe to be the most fundamental "nature" of human beings. Ideologies thereby reveal our communal assumptions about human beings. We are not always fully conscious of making such assumptions, for often we think of these beliefs as simply stating the way people "really" are. This semiconscious, deeply rooted nature of ideologies implies that ideologies can blind us to other possible ways of viewing humans. By definition ideologies are supported by strong emotions; thus, their ability to bias our thinking is surely present. Although the two ideologies I have selected here are present in various degrees in all societies, we can distinguish societies on the basis of the relative degree of support a society renders to each of these ideologies.
The cognitive ideology views human beings as capable of understanding the choices that confront them. It assumes that most of the time human beings are able to base their choice on a thoughtful analysis of the likely alternative outcomes of different choices. This view does not deny emotional adherence to particular values but rather asserts that individuals develop ranked hierarchies of values and thereby have conceptions concerning which values are the most important. In this view individuals then rationally analyze the situations with which they are faced and create solutions most in accord with the value weights in their hierarchy of values.3 In the cognitive ideology, the individual would take responsibility for any "mistakes" involved in such choices. It is also assumed that individuals would learn from the process and thereby improve their ability to choose what best fits with their value hierarchies. Over time individuals may alter their values but they will continue to analyze, evaluate, and choose.
The cognitive ideology is probably the most popular basic ideology in America today -particularly among college-educated people. It stresses the rational abilities of humans, that is, the abilities to think abstractly and judge the intricate outcomes of our social behavior. Thus, this ideology plays down the emotional side of our beliefs and behaviors and stresses our ability to control and manage our emotions.
Part of our philosophical tradition has professed views of human nature very much in accord with the cognitive ideology. Consider this quotation:4

Nature has produced him - body and soul, a man who seeks for reason in things in order that he may lead a rational life.... He does that picking and putting in order that he may have another universe built upon that which he analyzes. He knows for a purpose. And were his knowledge complete, that purpose would still control his living. He would still go on building out of what he knew a different world to live in. This he does even with his little knowledge and this reveals his essential nature. (Woodbridge, 1926: pp. 136, 138-9)

Because of the popularity of the cognitive ideology many of you will feel that this ideology is not assuming anything about human beings but just stating reality. However, in fairness one would have to admit that many people do not seem to benefit from being given choices. Some people become habitual criminals, and others become uncaring and hostile. By stressing reasoned choices, this ideology minimizes the place of emotions in choice - and that may overstate the rational element in some choices we make. Many choices made by people are not in accord with what a rational analysis of their value system would decree.5 Choices may be based upon well-ingrained habitual reactions or upon overpowering emotional commitments. Such actions must be viewed as being unusual or as alterable in order to believe that humans are basically rational creatures. However, the acceptance of any ideology is not based upon a scientific analysis of how frequently people behave in certain ways. Rather, ideological acceptance is simply based upon strong value commitments to the beliefs and value judgments underlying that ideology.
Note that the range of human choice in each society is limited to those choices compatible with the basic values of that particular society. We are all surely aware that our society does not offer us a full range of acceptable choices in the sexual sphere or any other. Many sexual, religious, political, and economic acts are categorically forbidden by our shared values. So even those societies that profess a view of human nature in accord with the cognitive ideology are not offering their citizens a full range of choices covering all logically possible alternatives. In our society, normative beliefs concerning acts like stealing or lying or disloyalty, for example, restrain our range of permissible action. Some such limitations are built into all social groups, and this further qualifies the arena within which choice can occur. I mention these qualifications to increase your level of awareness that the cognitive ideology, like all ideologies, selects a view of humanity from the total range of possible conceptions. Each ideology may claim to be in touch with the total reality of the universe, but as scientists we see ideologies as selective perceptions of the world that justify a particular way of structuring social life.6
The second basic ideology that is present to some degree in all societies is the one I call the emotive ideology. The assumption in this ideology is that people cannot easily make rational choices because they are emotional creatures controlled by feelings such as anger, lust, fear, and pleasure. Therefore, people often do not appraise the possible outcomes but just follow the dictates of their emotions. Because of this, society must impose its will on its citizens and not permit them too many choices. Rather, society must protect its citizens from being tempted and penalize them when they step out of bounds in order to produce a socially acceptable human being.7
Philosophers like Thomas Hobbes were concerned with the social control of a basically brutish human nature. As such they were in this respect quite in agreement with the emotive ideology:8

This alternate succession of appetites, aversions, hopes and fears, is no less in other living creatures than in man: and therefore beasts also deliberate.... It cannot be denied but that the natural state of men, before they entered into society, was a mere war, and that not simply, but a war of all men against all men. (Hobbes, 1651: pp. 200, 266)

The assumptions underlying this ideology can also be brought into the question. Recall that it was this perspective regarding human nature that we used to qualify the cognitive ideology. Accordingly, it is fair to use the perspective of the cognitive ideology to qualify the assumptions of the emotive ideology.
First, we do know that many people at times can control their emotions and do analyze problems and seek the "best" solution within a particular value system. There is a self-fulfilling prophecy in the emotive view. Goethe said that if we want people to behave in a certain way, we should start treating them as if they have already achieved that status.9 In that way we encourage people to become what we want them to become. If we treat people as if we think they cannot control their emotions and constrain and punish them, they may well become as emotional as we expect them to be. Finally, if the distinctive human characteristic is our ability to think, then this approach does little to develop that but instead treats us much the same as any other animal. Here, too, I stress that I am not trying to discredit this ideology but merely to make you aware of what is being assumed. Rarely do we examine what is implied by our ideologies for they are so strong and compelling, that they are most often accepted without question.
The reader may feel that a "reasonable" person would accept a position halfway between the cognitive and the emotive ideologies.10 Remember, though, that we are seeking to describe the basic ideological beliefs that are present in all cultures. We are not here seeking to develop a new, more "balanced" ideology of our own. In most societies historical and current societal pressures promote a leaning toward one or the other of these dominant ideologies. Therefore, I do believe that most small nonindustrialized societies can be classified as being more acceptant of one or the other of these two ideologies. This does not deny that some societies cannot be so easily classified. Particularly in complex societies like our own, we will find somewhat different ideological positions depending on the major institutional area we examine and the particular subgroup we investigate.
To illustrate this point think about America today and you will see the presence of both ideologies in varying degree in different basic institutions. The cognitive ideology appears present in our supposedly laissez-faire economic system. We are taught that if we allow "free" competition, then the proper rational choices will be made and the businesses that can build the best mousetrap will survive while the inefficient ones will decline. In reality, of course, much of our economy is controlled by a few giant corporations that do not fully economically compete with one another. But when the lack of freedom becomes too obvious, we do have court cases and we do break up some of these giants on grounds of restraint of competition, as we did with our telephone system. Or we deregulate, as we did with our airline system. Thus, our cognitive ideology does have influence, even if it is heavily muted by the power accumulations that have occurred.
Our political system is supposedly premised on the rational ability of the voter to choose. But this too needs to be qualified. It was George Bernard Shaw who put forth the cynics view of democracy and said, "Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few." Our history is filled with limitations on the right to vote. The founding fathers allowed only white males over the age of 25 who owned property to vote. Until 1913 the U.S. Senate was not elected, and until 1920 women did not have the vote. Only after the civil rights legislation of the 1960s were blacks in the South able to register and vote with relative freedom.
The direction has been toward increased trust in the ability of the voter to make a rational choice. Here, too, there are limits. Our election campaigns indicate that politicians are well aware that they can obtain a vote more by an emotional appeal to a shared value like patriotism than by a rational analysis of issues. Were our view of the voter fully in accord with the emotive ideology, we would not enfranchise as many people to vote as we do. So, here, too, although our political activities in part support the position of the emotive ideology, there also are strong elements of action based on the cognitive ideological view of people.
The place of both these ideologies in our thinking about sexuality is even more obvious. The most popular view today is to permit adults to choose many elements of their sexual lifestyles.11 The range of premarital heterosexuality permitted by our norms has expanded greatly in the last 20 years. In the early 1960s only about 20% of the adult population would accept premarital intercourse under any condition.12 By 1970 this percentage rose to 50%; by 1975 it was over 70% and it has stayed at that level. Analagous to political and economic rights, sexual rights have expanded - first for males and later for females.
Yet the value limitations in our choice notions are obvious in the sexual area. National Opinion Research Center surveys still indicate that about two thirds of adult Americans believe homosexuality is always wrong - even if it involves two adults who are in love and in a stable relationship. To many of these respondents homosexuality is too "dangerous" to allow it to be a choice.
On extramarital sexuality there are also strong value limitations on choice, with about two thirds of the adult population feeling that any extramarital relationship is wrong.13 Note that the very fact that extramarital sexuality and homosexuality can be debated is a sign that a choice in these areas is in some sense still a possibility. The attitude toward incest or bestiality is even more restrictive, and very few discuss the advisability of these customs. This sort of comparison allows us a basis for assessing the degree of moral flexibility and the degree of control we exercise over various possible sexual choices.
In general, I believe that the narrower the range of choices permitted by a group, the more likely we have a group that endorses the emotive ideology. Belief in that ideology would tend to make one want to restrict the choices that people can make in order to stop people from emotionally moving toward what the group considers "harmful choices." Another way to discern which ideology is accepted is to explore the reward and punishment customs that act as responses to individual choices in a society. In the emotive ideology people not only are limited as to the range of choices permitted but if they make a "bad" choice, they are supposed to be severely punished. This is so because the emotive perspective asserts that such punishment will establish the necessary emotional fear and stop repetition of the behavior. Adherents of the cognitive ideology permit a wider range of choices and feel that learning is possible by becoming intellectually aware of better ways to achieve the group's values rather than via harsh punishments.
Many Americans choose to emphasize one or the other of these two ideologies in different ways in the various sectors of their lives. To illustrate, many people who strongly believe in economic freedom do not believe in sexual freedom to the same degree. The same people who believe that freedom to act in the economic sphere benefits our nation may believe that freedom to act in the sexual sphere threatens our nation. The assumptions we make about how people will act will vary by the institutional setting we are considering. We thus have difficulty generalizing from one area of life to the other.
It would be a mistake to conclude that we take a predominantly cognitive ideological approach to sexuality.14 Despite the so-called sexual revolution of the late 1960s we have many people who feel that teenagers should not be allowed to choose to have abortions or to obtain contraception even though they are known to be sexually active. More to the point, we have many people who see sexuality as a very powerful emotional force and one that we must protect ourselves against. To such people, one must not be exposed to the opportunity of sexuality unless it is in marriage. Others may extend the permissable boundaries to include any love relationship. But many hesitate to accept sexuality just for mutual physical pleasure.
It is often stated that young people "cannot handle a sexual relationship at their age" or that one could become "addicted" to sexuality for pleasure, or that teenagers would "abuse" the right to have abortions or use contraception. So, the view that people need to be protected against their own emotions is alive in the land, and with it comes the support for the emotive ideology in the area of sexuality. The stronger the negative evaluation of sexuality, the narrower the range of permissible choice. We have in our historical background a good deal of negative evaluation of sexuality, and so we have the clear presence of the emotive ideology.
Thus, I believe strong elements of both the cognitive and the emotive ideologies operate today in American sexual lifestyles. As would be expected, the cognitive ideology is stronger in the less controversial areas such as premarital intercourse while the emotive ideology is stronger in the more controversial areas like homosexuality.

SEXUAL IDEOLOGIES AT THE END
OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

We have analyzed broad societal ideologies such as the cognitive and the emotive, which are applicable to all areas of life, but there are more specific ideologies applicable to the area of sexuality. Our sexual ideologies do logically relate to the more general ideologies, and this will be discussed after we depicit more about these specific sexual ideologies.
It is difficult to select which dimensions of sexual ideology to highlight, but I do feel that in the light of the evidence we have gone over and in terms of our theoretical explanations, one division of sexual ideologies stands out as most relevant. I believe we can, in virtually all societies, divide our sexual ideologies in terms of the degree of gender equality encompassed by the sexual ideology. Thus, on the simplest level, I would classify sexual ideologies as equalitarian or nonequalitarian.15
The degree of equality can be measured in terms of the power of each gender in the major social institutions and also in terms of gender equality in the specific beliefs about sexual rights and duties. In short, then, the basic assumptions about human nature relevant to sexual ideologies center upon how equal males and females are in general and what implications this judgment has for specific sexual attitudes and behaviors. Since the nonequalitarian view of the genders places more restrictions on females than does the equalitarian view, we may conclude that it is more in accord with the emotive ideology, whereas the rational ideology would be more congruent with the equalitarian sexual ideology.
I will spell out four basic perspectives that distinguish the equalitarian from the nonequalitarian sexual ideology. Although I am speaking mainly of heterosexual ideologies, I shall make some reference to the meaning of these same ideologies for homosexual behaviors. We surely do need to explore the extent to which these heterosexual ideologies are appropriate for homosexual relationships and also to search for any distinctive ideologies that exist for homosexual relationships.16 We do more of that in the next chapter.
The first tenet that is part of both sexual ideologies concerns the endorsement of gender equality in the key institutional areas of a society. The equalitarian sexual ideology accepts the premise that males and females are of relatively equal worth. This view does not depend on both genders doing the exact same set of tasks in the society.17 Rather, it depends on their respective tasks being evaluated as of the same worth. The presence of such gender equality would be judged by examining the equality of gender roles in each of the major institutional areas of a society (politics, economics, religion, and family). This point was discussed in depth in Chapter 4.
The nonequalitarian sexual ideology is premised on the position that females are "by nature" of less significance than are males. Females may be valued for what they do contribute, but their general value to the society is considered to be less than that of males. This nonequalitarian evaluation would also be reflected in each of the major institutional areas of a society. As noted, in the nonequalitarian sexual ideology females in particular would be treated in accord with the emotive ideology. The degree of equality underlying the general evaluation of males and females logically implies certain beliefs concerning several areas directly related to sexuality.18 These sexual beliefs comprise tenets 2, 3, and 4.
The second tenet of these sexual ideologies concerns body-centered sexuality. This is an area that has strong emotions connected with it, particularly in the Western world but also elsewhere. In the nonequalitarian ideology such bodycentered sexuality is forbidden predominantly to females. This tenet reflects the control of males over female sexuality. In male-dominant societies, males want females to be loyal to their men, and thus they are likely to restrict females from casual, pleasure-centered sexual relations such as are involved in body-centered sexuality. Males in such societies have greater sexual rights and can participate in body-centered sexuality if they so desire. Of course, this tenet is the heart of a double standard of sexuality and involves male condemnation of the very females who are their partners in body-centered sexual relationships. According to this perspective, such relationships are considered wrong for females but acceptable for males.
We can see censure of body-centered sexuality even today in the Western world. The most popular premarital sexual standard - bar none - for Western women today is "permissiveness with affection." This standard allows for female sexuality, but only when there is a stable affectionate relationship. Males are much more likely to accept a "permissiveness with or without affection" standard.19 There is an implication here - that at least for women sexuality for its own sake is felt to be wrong. In many cultures, sexuality is legitimated for women only when it is mixed with a stable relationship.
Obviously, then, to be acceptable for women, sexuality needs the purification of stability and/or affection.20 Underlying this view is an implicit negative evaluation of sexuality for its own sake. If sexuality were good per se, it would not need such strong additional ingredients to make it acceptable. But if we view sexuality as a contaminated drink then some sort of purifying elixir is necessary. Once again, males are afforded greater sexual access and have less need for citing any special justification for the pursuit of sexuality.
By definition, the equalitarian ideology would not restrict any form of sexuality for only one gender. The reader will recall that our examination of the Standard Sample indicated that as female status increased, so did the acceptance of female sexuality both premaritally and extramaritally (see Chapter Three). It follows that in more equalitarian societies, body-centered sexuality is more likely to be acceptable for both genders. However, even for men, body-centered sexuality, although acceptable, is most often judged to be less worthy than person-centered sexuality.
Two quick clarifications of our ideologies are in order here. There are some equalitarian cultures that would be restrictive of both body-centered and person-centered sexuality for both males and females outside of marriage, but such abstinent equalitarian cultures are rather rare. The equalitarian ideology refers not to abstinent cultures but to cultures that accept coitus to the same degree for both males and females. (I do not ignore abstinent equalitarian cultures but treat them as a separate type later in this chapter.) A second qualification: in the nonequalitarian sexual ideology there is the logical possibility of a culture being double standard but restricting males from body-centered sexuality more than females. I know of no such cultures, and so the nonequalitarianism I speak of is the maledominant variety.
The third tenet of our sexual ideologies concerns the degree of addiction and fear associated with sexuality. Our Western history has stressed the addictive power and fear of sexuality, but much more so for women than for men. It was women who were to be fearful of the power sexuality had to lead them astray. Men, too, could be led astray, but that was not such a tragedy; and even when it occurred, it often was the woman who was blamed for not controlling the situation. Women were the gatekeepers for sexuality, and fear was one way of strengthening their resolve. In true double-standard fashion men would still seek women as sexual partners but would condemn those who acceded to their wishes.
The greater control over female sexuality through fear and other beliefs is familiar in cultures around the world. Recall that in some African cultures today, like the Sudan, infibulation and clitoridectomies are performed on women to prevent their sexual urges from overcoming them. More generally, one of the major findings in Chapter 4 was the greater legitimate sexual rights that power bestows. To the degree that men have more power than women, such differential legitimation of sexuality will show itself in one way or another.
Equalitarian sexual ideologies present a view of sexuality that is less fraught with images of fear and addiction. Both genders are equally legitimated to participate in sexuality, and there is more support for the view that although sexual emotions may be strong, they are manageable much like other emotions. No distinction is made regarding any one gender having more difficulty in managing sexual emotions. The sexual attitudes developed over the last 20 years in America are in accord with the equalitarian version of this tenet. Indeed, a less fearful orientation, especially to premarital sexuality, has developed in most of the Western world.
The fourth tenet of the nonequalitarian sexual ideology asserts that the major goal of sexuality is heterosexual coitus. This tenet centers one's thinking on heterosexuality and on reproduction. There is a gender inequality here, too, for the reproductive focus of this tenet applies most heavily to women. Males are often permitted to engage in body-centered sexuality with women with no goal of reproduction.
One aspect of this effort to concentrate on heterosexual coitus affords us one of the few examples in the Western world of greater sexual restrictions being placed on males as compared to females. This occurs in the greater societal resistance to male as compared to female homosexuality. Perhaps it is because the male gender role is considered more important that we find in many societies more concern with keeping males free from homosexuality. We discussed in Chapter 4 cultures like the Navajo and other American Indian groups that permit the selection of gender roles in addition to the traditional male and female role. But in all those cultures on which I have been able to gather information, a genetic male who selects a different gender, such as the Nadle gender in the Navajo, is valued less than a genetic male who adheres to the male role. The situation with women does not seem to involve a loss of status if they move out of the traditional female role. So, there is also some broader cross-cultural evidence for a stricter imposition of traditional heterosexual gender roles on males than on females.
As shown in the next chapter, many societies that accept male homosexual behaviors do so in ways that conceptualize the homosexuality as aiding or at least being compatible with heterosexuality. Even in these societies, homosexuality that is not socially legitimized is most feared by males.21 Nevertheless, when it comes to nonreproductive heterosexual behaviors, males are less constrained to avoid manual, oral, or anal sexuality in their heterosexual lifestyles. Of course, placing the focus on coitus more for women is what one would expect in a nonequalitarian sexual ideology.
In the equalitarian sexual ideology this fourth tenet would contain less of an emphasis on coitus as the supreme heterosexual act, and, of course, whatever pressure there was would be placed more equally upon males and females. In general, I would expect that the equalitarian ideology would accept a wider range of behavior beyond heterosexual coitus in part because the stress on producing more children who can be future warriors and workers is less present in societies with weaker male dominance. Sexual pleasures consisting of heterosexual oral, anal, and manual sexual acts would therefore gain higher priorities. In addition, homosexuality would be more accepted because it would be less at odds with equalitarian kinship norms for they do not stress reproduction.
Surely, the equalitarian version of this tenet is congruent with what has been happening in the West. We have had indication of vast increases in oral and anal sexuality reported in studies of marital sexuality.22 Also, our norms have shifted toward zero population growth, and our marriage and parenthood pressures have decreased. The emphasis, then, has shifted from heterosexual coitus to the two dominant characteristics of sexual interaction: physical pleasure and psychological disclosure, which can be obtained in a variety of sexual acts.
I could extend the list of tenets, but I think these four are sufficient as an outline of the equalitarian and nonequalitarian ideologies. These two sexual ideologies are what one would expect to find today, given the way kinship and power are structured in modern societies. In Chapter 6, on homosexuality, we further analyze the relevance, particularly of tenet 4, for explaining our attitudes toward homosexuality. Awareness of these tenets will be useful in Chapter 7, on erotica, because much of the female opposition to body-centered hard-core erotica may derive from acceptance of tenets 2 and 3, which stress the power of such sexuality and its degrading quality for women.
The first tenet concerning overall gender equality seems everywhere to be a major component of sexual codes.23 I stress that tenet because so much of my cross-cultural examination of sexuality supported the importance of power differences between the genders for determining sexual customs. The other three tenets are logically related to the degree of endorsement of tenet 1. All three express a judgment relevant to how equal the genders should be treated in terms of sexuality. Table 5.1 summarizes the meaning of these four tenets.
I cannot speak of trends in sexual ideology in the non-Western world, for few of those cultures have been studied over time, but in the West it is clear that the equalitarian sexual ideology has made significant gains in the past 20 years. This is surely true among college -educate d young people in the United States.24 Admittedly, the newer equalitarian sexual ideology has not become dominant in all of its tenets in our society. In this regard, one recent study of the distribution of these tenets affords us considerable insight into the way sexual ideologies change.

TABLE 5.1 Major Sexual Ideologies and Their Tenets
_______________________________________________________
NONEQUALITARIAN SEXUAL IDEOLOGY
_______________________________________________________
1. Males are more competent than females in the exercise of power, and they should be dominant in the major social institutions.
2. Body-centered sexuality should be avoided by females.
3. Sexuality is a powerful emotion and one to be feared by females.
4. The major goal of sexual relationships for females is heterosexual coitus.
_______________________________________________________
EQUALITARIAN SEXUAL IDEOLOGY
_______________________________________________________
1. Males and females are equally competent in the exercise of power, and they should be treated as equals in the major social institutions.
2. Although person-centered sexuality is preferable, body-centered sexuality is acceptable for both males and females.
3. Sexual emotions are manageable by both males and females.
4. The major sexual goals for both males and females are physical pleasure and psychological disclosure.
_______________________________________________________

This study was done in 1982 by Ilsa Lottes, a doctoral student at the University of Pennsylvania. Her respondents were from the New York-Philadelphia area and consisted of about 400 college and noncollege individuals.25 It was found that most of these people could clearly be placed into one or another of our two basic sexual ideologies. That is, most respondents were consistent in expressing their adherence to a majority of either the equalitarian or the nonequalitarian sexual ideology tenets. Among college respondents, the support for the equalitarian sexual ideology was over 70%. Among the noncollege respondents, males were similarly supportive, but less than 40% of the noncollege females fell into the equalitarian sexual ideology. However, since this was not a representative sample, we cannot estimate what the results would be for the American population at large.
The most interesting finding of this study concerned the differences between male and female student adherents of the equalitarian ideology. These differences relate to the relative endorsement of each of the four tenets by males and females. In those males who were adherents of the equalitarian ideology, the weakest support was for tenet 1, which concerned the overall acceptance of gender equality. Only 68% of the equalitarian sexual ideology men supported this tenet. Over 80% of these same men gave support to the other three tenets. This means that such males were more likely to endorse the equalitarian version of tenets 2, 3, and 4 concerning sexuality, then would fully endorse the measure testing their overall gender equality in the major institutional areas of life. The 32% who did not endorse gender equality (tenet 1) would still be classified as adherents of equalitarian ideology because of their support for the three gender-equal tenets dealing directly with sexuality (tenets 2, 3, and 4). The implication here is that it is somewhat easier for males to accept gender equality in sexuality than to accept it in other life areas.
If we look at the female responses, something quite different emerges. For females who were classified as equalitarian adherents, the weakest support was for tenet 2, concerning the acceptance of body-centered sexuality. Only 52% of the eqalitarian females supported tenet 2, whereas over 90% of them supported the other tenets. This means that females felt the most difficulty, despite their overall gender equality, in accepting body-centered sexuality.
What do these different patterns of belief for male and female adherents of the equalitarian sexual ideology tell us? They inform us that the relationship between gender equality and sexual equality differs dramatically for males and females.26 That female equalitarian adherents have the most difficulty endorsing the tenet supporting body-centered sexuality suggests that this is the most difficult change for females to make in their sexual attitudes. Surely the centuries of training women to avoid body-centered sexuality would make acceptance of that form of sexuality, even as a possible choice, a difficult task. The equalitarian version of tenets 3 and 4 may be less difficult to accept because a woman can justify that choice by invoking love as her reason for not fearing sexuality and for accepting a wider variety of sexual behavior; but for tenet 2, no such qualification is possible, for it calls for the acceptance, as at least tolerable, of body-centered sexuality.
In contrast, the point of difficult transition to full acceptance of the equalitarian sexual ideology for males seems to be the endorsement of gender equality in all institutional areas. This is so even though for males the contrast between the lowest level of tenet endorsement and the average endorsement of the other three tenets is not as great as it was for females. Given male gender-role training, it is not surprising that the three tenets dealing with sexuality were the easiest to endorse. The acceptance of female equality in all institutional areas of society entails more attitudinal change for males than does the endorsement of the other tenets.
I believe what these findings indicate is the differential gender sequencing of social changes that have been occurring in the West during the last 20 years. Women changed first into acceptance of greater gender equality and then altered their sexual customs to agree with their increased sense of gender equality. Because of the block toward body-centered sexuality that is present for them, 48% of these women have not fully made the change over. For men the situation is reversed. Their first change was toward more equalitarian acceptance of sexuality. Their last area of cultural resistance is the endorsement of greater gender equality. Indeed, 32% of these male adherents have still not made that ideological modification.
This portrait of an incomplete transition by adherents of the new equalitarian sexual ideology fits with my judgment about American society today: It is evidence of our changing sexual ideology, but it is also testimony that the change is far from completed. I would estimate that at least half of our adult population would still support many of the tenets of the nonequalitarian sexual ideology. They too are changing, however, and the findings of the study just cited give us a basis for predicting, for each gender, which tenets are likely to change first and which are likely to be the most recalcitrant.
I find it enticing to speculate whether this precise type of male-female difference applies to non-Western cultures. Would nonindustrialized societies also find that the same tenets are the most difficult to change for each gender? My hunch at the moment is yes! I say this because the basic power differentials between women and men are so widespread outside the Western world.
At the opening of this chapter I introduced overall cognitive and emotive ideologies. As stated earlier, I believe that the cognitive ideology is more likely to be the general ideology adhered to by a believer in the equalitarian sexual ideology. This is so for two reasons: first, because sexual ideologies are concerned with choices that evoke very strong emotions from people in most cultures, and, second, because the equalitarian sexual ideology grants a greater power to choose, especially to women. Therefore, given the assumption by the emotive ideology that humans have difficulty in controlling their emotions and making careful choices. I would assume that believers in the emotive ideology would be less likely to endorse the tenets that go with an equalitarian sexual ideology. The widespread cultural beliefs that assert the greater difficulty women have in controlling their emotions is further evidence of the strength of the emotive ideology and its congruence with the nonequalitarian sexual ideology. It would take an equalitarian sexual ideology and a cognitive ideology to counteract such belief systems. Indeed, there do seem to be logical implications relating our general ideologies and our specific sexual ideologies. I encourage others to test these implications using cross-cultural data.

A CROSS-CULTURAL TYPOLOGY OF SEXUAL IDEOLOGIES

The sexual ideologies themselves are composed of two basic dimensions: gender equality and sexual equality. Special insights can be gained if we build a model representing all the logical combinations of these two dimensions and then apply it cross-culturally. That typology is presented in Diagram 5.1 .27
Let us first see if we can locate in the matrix presented in Diagram 5.1 the two major sexual ideologies we have been discussing. The nonequalitarian sexual ideology accepts dominance of males in both the gender and sexual area. So, it must be located somewhere in the row across gender equality that is labeled "Low, Male Dominant." Males also receive greater sexual rights in this ideology, and that leads us to the column heading under premarital sexual permissiveness that reads "High for Males Only." Now reading across and down to see where these two characteristics intersect, we find ourselves in type 7. This type of ideology is thus classified as male dominant in both gender scripts and sexual scripts, and that fits perfectly with our nonequalitarian sexual ideology.
The equalitarian sexual ideology is also easy to find. That ideology must be in the row that is high on gender equality and it must show sexual equality. That leaves only types 1 and 4 to possibly qualify. Type 1 is a rare type of society that accepts low premarital sexuality for both genders. The equalitarian sexual ideology, as I defined it, is basically a high sexually permissive type and will not fit with type 1. This leads us to type 4, which matches our definition of the equalitarian sexual ideology rather nicely.
We have located what I said were the two major sexual ideologies. What about the other ten types in our diagram? We can rule out six of them very quickly. Types 9, 10, 11, and 12 represent societies in which there is low gender equality because females are dominant. I know of no societies where females are dominant, and if there happens to be one or two out of the twelve hundred societies that have been

DIAGRAM 5.1 A heterosexual typology of gender and sexual equality.

studied, that still is extremely rare. These types are included in the typology simply to show how selective are our cultures on this planet. So, for all practical purposes we can eliminate those four types. Types 2 and 6 can also be eliminated, since I know of no societies where females have greater sexual rights than males.
That leaves four types to be discussed: 1, 3, 5, and 8. Our Western Hebraic background was a type 7, in agreement with the nonequalitarian sexual ideology. After the advent of Christianity came at least a formal endorsement of type 1. That is, the Christian world professed belief in gender equality and in low sexual permissiveness for males and females. But what was the reality of that world? I think the presence of male dominance in all Western societies meant that we did not ever really have a gender-equal society. For some segments of society we might have had a type 5, but for most of the Western world even a type 5 society could not be achieved because, as we saw in Chapter 4, male gender power leads to male sexual rights. Equality in sexual rights was therefore not achieved any more than was equality in gender rights .28 Thus, despite the early Christian rhetoric, the majority of groups in those societies would have fit a type 7 much closer than either a type 1 or 5.
The situation in the non-Western world is quite similar. Types 1 and 5 are rare forms of society. This is largely due to the almost universal presence of male dominance. This is not to deny that subgroups throughout the Western world do fully endorse and strive to live by a type 1 or a type 5 ideology .29 Rather, I am simply asserting that they are in the minority and the trend is not toward their position.
In my judgment, the nonequalitarian sexual ideology (type 7) was and is the most common type of ideology in the history of our planet. The explanation of male power in Chapter 4 develops some of the reasons for the predominance of this type of sexual ideology. However, I also view a type 7 society as one that can be a transition toward type 4. Part of the pressure toward type 4 is due to the inconsistency created when gender equality begins to increase. Let me explain my conjectures on this point and indicate how types 3 and 8 are involved in this transition. I believe the reader will find it useful to refer to Diagram 5.1 to aid in following this discussion.
One kind of social movement away from type 7 is to shift toward type 8. This is perhaps easiest to grasp for Westerners, for we have been going in this direction for this entire century. By that I mean we have kept much of the male gender dominance but we have moved toward gender equality in sexuality. I do believe that American women have in the last 20 years gained much more sexual equality than they have gender equality.
Certainly there is still noticeable sexual inequality - especially in areas touched upon by tenet 2 (body-centered sexuality) - but over 80% of American women are now nonvirginal at marriage compared to about 50% in 1960.30 Our present incidence of female nonvirginity is even higher in much of northern Europe.31 Certainly, significant gains in gender equality have been made in the past 20 years, but the magnitude of the increase is significantly smaller than in the area of sexuality. Even now, only a small percentage of women are in the top positions in business, the professions, and government. During that entire 20-year period women earned only about 60% of what men did. Some gains have been made in those areas and more significant changes may well be made in the next decade or two. It takes time for the large enrollments in medicine, dentistry, and law to have an impact. Whatever the reasons may be, though, it does appear that more has changed in equality in sexuality than in gender equality.
There has also been a transition from type 7 to type 3. Here, I would judge that women would take this step, more quickly than men, for it involves the acceptance of full gender equality. I would expect women to be willing to grant themselves gender equality in the major institutional settings. Nevertheless, as the anti-ERA movement shows, this is certainly not an uncontested alteration. Yet I do believe it is a common one despite the fact that some women may feel threatened and resist such a change.
A movement from type 7 to type 3 would consist of major changes in gender equality but only minor changes in sexual equality, I would expect that some of the factors that retard change in sexual equality concern the difficulty some women find in accepting sexuality outside a stable affectionate relationship. Part of the reason for this reluctance may well be that there are still many men who would condemn such female body-centered sexuality, for it would make the woman's behavior less easily controlled. Some nonequalitarian sexual ideology males may also "use" sexually liberated women for their own pleasure but resist any serious relationships with them. The reality of such male reactions would strengthen the traditional female training against body-centered sexuality and create a roadblock to increased sexual activity.
Overall, I would contend that people who have moved from the ancient nonequalitarian sexual ideology (type 7) to types 3 and 8 are actually in transition to type 4. As noted, the pathways females and males take to type 4 are in many cases different. This is so because females find gender equality easier to accept and males find sexual equality easier to accept. Thus, each gender modifies the double standard in its own way. I believe the overall increases in sexual and gender equality, partial as they may be, are a catalyst in the movement toward type 4, the equalitarian sexual ideology.
This analysis of our cross-cultural typologies leads me to the same conclusions concerning the future dominance of the equalitarian sexual ideology as my analysis of the Lottes data earlier in this chapter. One can debate just how quickly we will move toward type 4. Indeed, some can assert that we will simply accept types 3 and 8 and not proceed toward the equalitarian sexual ideology. All I can do is state my judgment on this point and ask you to check back at the turn of the next century to see if I was correct.
This extended treatment of ideologies will perhaps encourage more people to try to operationalize and test these important influences on our lives. We have too long ignored this aspect of our sexual lives. We have been convinced that ideas are epiphenomena and that only economic and political pressures really influence us. The lasting grip of ideas is demonstrable in the preceding conclusions that point out how older ideologies restrain the speed with which we respond to changes in our gender and sexual scripts. For better or worse, older ideological tenets are an impediment in our movement toward new social structures.

PREMATURE EJACULATION: AN IDEOLOGICAL CONSTRUCT

Ideologies such as we have been discussing contain fundamental judgments about human nature and therefore about what is to be expected of people. In that sense, ideologies define what a particular group will think of as normal or abnormal behavior or attitudes. We have spoken of the basic tenets of the two sexual ideologies, but we have said little about the judging of sexual normality implied by these tenets. To understand more fully this very important point, I will attempt to expose some of the largely unspoken assumptions that are part of our sexual ideologies. I will start by examining an area of only modest controversy, but I will expand this to areas of highest debate. It is precisely in such emotionally charged areas that our ideological assumptions will be buried, and so that is where we must continue our "dig" toward discovering what comprises our notions of sexual normality. Our focus here will be on America, but I will extrapolate our conclusions to other cultures.
The issue I have chosen to start with is one of the more recent changes in our culture's approach to sexuality. It concerns our attitudes and behavior in regard to premature ejaculation. This is not an area of high controversy, and therefore it will be easier for us to set aside any prejudgments we may have and analyze it. I use this subject here to illustrate how ideology defines normality.
First, just what does premature ejaculation mean? Premature for whom? In some definitions, premature is measured simply by the speed with which orgasm occurs. In the American Psychiatric Association's definition it depends upon the male feeling anxious about his rapid ejaculation. The usual therapeutic definition of a premature ejaculator is a male who has orgasm after intromission in a short time span of, say, 20 seconds or so and who feels that something needs to be done to make the act more satisfying to both partners.32 So, by some definitions premature does not necessarily mean premature for the person having the orgasm. In some definitions what is implied is that, not you, but your partner is not ready to have an orgasm. Also, the premature ejaculator is, of course, a male. The term for a female who reaches orgasm in a 20-second time period is quick or responsive. Virtually no concern is shown about such rapid female orgasmic behavior. It would seem that our culture assumes that females will not leave their partners unsatisfied but that the male may well do this to his partner.
To see how our ideological beliefs may color our view, transport yourself to a macho country like Brazil for a moment. Think about a conversation between two adult males wherein one says: "Last night I met a woman at a bar. Later we went to my apartment and made out. I was so turned on that I came just a few seconds after inserting!" What would his male friend say to him? I expect the most likely response would be, "A few seconds! That is tremendous. It must have been great - what a man you are!" I doubt very much if the friend would say, "A few seconds! You are a premature ejaculator and you better get yourself to a therapist!"
The reason that there would be little felt need for therapy is that Brazil is not as gender equal a society as the United States. Accordingly, there would be less concern for whether the female partner had a chance to reach orgasm and there would be admiration for male sexual potency as indicated by speed of orgasm. In such a society, a male who was slow in achieving orgasm would feel he had a problem, and his male friends might agree with that judgment. In fact, in our own country just a generation ago, the label premature ejaculator would be largely unknown and, relatedly, the reasoning supporting the label much less widespread.
The point I am making here is that the judgment that premature ejaculation is a problem that requires therapy is culturally based. As such, the "problem" depends on an equalitarian culture for its existence. This type of "health" problem is not like a broken leg, which would be recognized as a health problem in any society. We would all agree with the standard of physical health that requires the absence of any broken bones, but we have no such universally agreed upon standard when it comes to much of our sexual life. Therefore, premature ejaculation becomes a "health" problem only when our group accepts mutual sexual satisfaction of a certain sort as the standard of health or normality. Otherwise, the problem of premature ejaculation, from a societal point of view, does not exist.
Let us take this inquiry one step further and examine what the typical treatment for premature ejaculation has been in our society. The most common treatment is the squeeze technique. This involves the man informing the woman when he is close to orgasm and she then placing her thumb along the underside of the penis and pressing. This inhibits the orgasm. They then repeat this procedure and in this fashion the man learns that he can control his orgasm. The procedure is very effective in a rather short period of time. I am not questioning its efficacy - rather I am asking you to consider what the use of this sort of procedure symbolizes about our concept of sexual normality?
Logically one can think of several ways to handle premature ejaculation other than the sequeeze technique. For example, the female could achieve an orgasm prior to coitus by means of oral or manual sexuality. Why are these procedures not recommended more? I would suggest the reason is basically that we are a coitally centered society. The prime goal of sexuality is conceived to be coitus. Many Freudian analysts would argue that the normal psychosexual development is through a series of stages that leads to heterosexual intercourse.33 The orthodox view contends that one starts out in infancy absorbed in oral sexuality, then proceeds to anal sexuality, then phallic, then latency, and finally genital sexuality.34 Any failure to negotiate these stages leads to "abnormal" or "disturbed" sexual behavior such as in homosexuality, which, according to this view, is rooted in the inability to work out the latency phase. In terms of this psychoanalytic perspective, to focus upon homosexuality or even heterosexual oral, anal or manual sexuality would be a sign of failure to have progressed to the coital stage.
It is interesting to see how well this view of Freudians reflects the dominant culture in the Western world. Here, surely, is a theory shaped by the Western European culture in which it was formed. It was that culture that has for centuries stressed coitus as the ultimate sexual act. To the medieval Church any sexual act that could not lead to pregnancy was sinful. Masturbation, oral sexuality, anal sexuality, and homosexuality clearly fit that description and were condemned.35
Certainly one important basis of such a view was the conception of sexuality as a reproductive act more than a pleasurable act. But there is a more fundamental basis than that. Many societies wish to encourage heterosexual coitus, for they wish to encourage the production of more citizens for the state. Such additional citizens can be used for warriors, workers, and other social purposes.
In terms of kinship, many societies in the West and elsewhere encouraged coitus because it afforded them children who would eventually care for them in their old age. In this sense the Freudian emphasis upon heterosexual coitus reflects our societal background more than it does any empirically tested notion of "normality" or "abnormality." The so-called stages of Freudian psychosexual development are the stages that Western society expects its citizenry to go through. The same holds true for the emphasis on the squeeze technique - its therapeutic use reflects the acceptance of the priority of coitus in our society.
Let us go one step further, however, to examine the act of heterosexual coitus itself. It is upon inspection a sexual act structured to promote male orgasm much more than female orgasm. By definition it is not coitus if the penis is not contacted by the vagina. Yet contact with the clitoris is optional and often does not occur in the common positions of coitus. Is it any wonder that females have had much more trouble than males having orgasm during coitus? Unless there is deliberate manual contact with the clitoris during coitus, many women, perhaps a majority, have difficulty reaching climax. Consider how many males could achieve orgasm if the penis were not contacted. It would surely help to contact the area near the penis, like the testicles; even so, the achievement of orgasm would be made much more difficult for most males if there were no direct contact with the penis.36
To make matters even more difficult for female orgasm, coitus in the West and in other areas is very often an act that is orchestrated by males. At least on initial encounters, it is the male who moves the female into the coital positions that he prefers. Even on longer-term encounters it is most often the male who suggests coitus at a time when he is in the mood. Such control by the male ensures his satisfaction much more than that of the female.
Even the very counting of acts of intercourse in Western society is heavily male oriented. Think about two different sexual scenarios. Suppose we have a couple who engage in coitus for one hour. During that time the female has orgasms three times but the male has only one orgasm at the end of the hour. If that couple were asked how many times they made love that day, they would likely answer once - basing that answer on the male's final orgasm, which is the symbol of the end of the coital act.
Consider a second scenario of making love for one hour during which the male had three orgasms and the woman only one at the end of the hour. How would that couple respond? I would suggest that they might well report that they made love three times that day because once again the male climax is the measure of the coital act. It would be interesting to see if such "counting" would be the same in non-Western cultures. My bet would be that it would because so many of those cultures are also male dominant.
The obvious conclusion appears to be that coitus is a male-oriented sexual act, and thus any promotion of coitus as the ultimate act is hardly in the interest of gender equality. Yet it is precisely the belief in gender equality that defines premature ejaculation as a problem! Despite this, when we treat premature ejaculation by encouraging coitus as the context in which that problem must be resolved, we are promoting a male-oriented act to resolve a problem of gender inequity.
Clinicians and most individuals in treatment are not aware of this potential conflict because of the power of our ideological commitment to the coital sexual act as "normal" or "preferred." Even females in our Western culture will share this view and may prefer coital sexuality and blame themselves for any sexual difficulties they encounter. As we have just seen, these notions concerning preference for coitus are often rooted in our assumptions regarding the reproductive nature of sexuality and the dominance of males (see tenet 4). These notions are not part of any scientific theory of normality. Once again the importance of kinship and power structures for the understanding of sexuality is evidenced.
Finally, let me mention that our primate cousins afford us ample reason to expect rapid ejaculation in human males. The average male chimpanzee, gibbon or lemur takes less than seconds to reach orgasm.37 In fact, this coital brevity is one reason that Hrdy feels that female primates are not very selective of their male sexual partners. Female primates require a large number of male partners in order to achieve their own orgasm, which usually takes longer than a few seconds of thrusting. Hrdy believes that the view of a promiscuous male primate and a selective female primates is one that was imposed on biology by the Victorian thinking of the later nineteenth century and not by the realities of primate life .38 This sounds quite plausible to me. In any case, if such rapid ejaculation is in our closest primate relatives, it would indeed be surprising if that same tendency was not present in some human primate males. We thus have reason at least not to view premature ejaculation as any sort of biological based "abnormality."

WHAT IS SEXUAL NORMALITY?

The important conclusion to be reached from our examination of premature ejaculation is that a great many of our social beliefs about sexual normality simply reflect our societal ideologies. These beliefs about sexual abnormality do not necessarily reflect any empirically based biological or psychological outcomes that inevitably lead to a general inability to perform sexually. To be sure, in a genderequal coitally oriented society a rapidly ejaculating male would likely feel he had a "problem," but this is due to the norms that favor prolonged heterosexual coital behavior. The same feeling of discomfort would be true of a male who required ten minutes of coital thrusting to reach orgasm if he lived in a culture that stressed quick ejaculation. In East Bay in Melanesia, for example, most of the young men reach orgasm within 15-30 seconds after vaginal entry.39 In that culture, a male who could not so perform would be considered to have a "delayed ejaculation" problem.
The conclusion seems obvious that if societal norms are our guidelines for psychological abnormality then any form of sexual behavior can be "abnormal." That being the case, we might do well to simply call such behavior nonconformist. It would seem to me that such a substitution of labels would alleviate a great deal of personal anxiety. Also, it would make it clearer that one can choose to be out of line on this or any issue with the dominant ideological positions. In short, awareness of normative nonconformity encourages the feeling that one may choose not to change, whereas the label abnormality imposes a pressure in the direction of change. Few people would want to be labeled abnormal, but many more would accept the label of nonconformist.
Surely, physiologically there are sexual conditions that do not depend on cultural norms and that are analogous to a broken leg in that they prevent the performance of any kind of desired sexual activity. This would be the case with certain defects in blood flow to the penis that prevent erection. It certainly is worth differentiating that situation from the case of a premature ejaculator. A problem in the physiological system can affect our sexuality, and that, of course, may be culture-free. Yet the specific type of examples I use here preclude such a broad physiological explanation.40 Few would contend that premature ejaculation is due to some basic defect in physiology.
One illustration should suffice to show how easy it is to reify, or give greater reality than is warranted to some concepts of sexual "health or illness." Nicholas Groth in his 1979 book on rape discusses the sexual responses of the rapist. He notes that 3% of the rapists he studied were premature ejaculators.41 Now just what does premature ejaculation mean in a rape situation?
If premature ejaculation were a disability like a broken leg, then it surely is appropriate to use that concept in this fashion. However, if the very concept of premature ejaculation simply means that the male reaches orgasm in coitus more quickly than the cultural norm dictates, then we have a quite different situation. Just what is the norm about orgasm during rape? Of course, we do not have norms that assert that a rapist must not reach orgasm in so short a time - that he should wait for the victim to reach orgasm!
That idea is preposterous, and so is the use of the label premature ejaculation. Groth's usage can only be attributed to an acceptance of quick orgasm as some type of "unhealthy" sexual index in and of itself. If someone who is a professional and who is sophisticated about rape can use a concept in this confusing fashion, then how much more likely is the general public to accumulate a laundry list of "unhealthy" sexual acts as a result of our promiscuous use of terms like abnormal, unhealthy, and disturbed?
Surely we all have strong preference in sexual behavior, and we also have sexual acts that we find heinous.42 In my judgment, we can still severely condemn certain types of crimes without calling those acts proof of biological or psychological abnormality. We can express our values and insist on punishment and strive to effect change in the person in order to gain conformity to our beliefs. Some may not approve of such demands, but that is another issue.
My point here is that to use abnormality as interchangeable with acts that are violations of norms is to invite the politicalization of therapy. That outcome would make therapists the agents of the established power groups, for it would be therapists who would enforce conformity to the norms by labeling all such nonconformists as abnormal, dysfunctional, disturbed, or whatever other pejorative was in vogue at the moment.
We have seen this happen in totalitarian countries where people are sent to mental hospitals because they disagree with the dominant norms of the ruling party.43 We cannot scientifically establish which forms of sexuality are "good" or "bad." We discussed in Chapter 1 what the problems are in attempting that. Consequently, unless we separate those acts that violate norms from those acts that violate scientifically established standards of biological or psychological normality, we will inevitably politicize our scientists and make their objectivity and fairness suspect.
Allow me to further illustrate my point concerning the distinction between labels of nonconformity and labels like abnormal or dysfunctional. Masters and Johnson's emphasis on couple commitment and communication as ways of removing roadblocks from the physiological and psychological operation of sexuality in stable relationships seems accurately based for large segments of our Western culture.44 People who do not openly communicate their sexual needs and who do not establish a sense of security in their mates may well block the achievement of some levels of sexual enjoyment. However, this would not establish the absence of such commitment and communication as evidence of psychological abnormality. I do not believe Masters and Johnson would reach such a judgment. Rather, what their therapeutic approach asserts is that in cultures like the West, where stable marital relations with high commitment and open communication are valued, the lack of such interaction can block the achievement of certain aspects of sexual enjoyment.
We must remember that even in a Western culture, one could for any number of reasons decline to get involved in a stable relationship with commitment and open communication. Some might feel the personal benefits are not worth the loss of autonomy. Furthermore, one may argue as Vannoy does, that transient sexual encounters have higher "pure" sexual rewards and involve simpler negotiations with partners and for those reasons they may be preferable.45 One may argue for such an unconventional choice even if it means that there will be more communication problems and more difficulty in establishing permanent relationships. Such difficulties hardly establish abnormality. All life choices involve costs as well as rewards. To justify the scientific use of terms like abnormality, one would have to show empirically that such lack of commitment and communication violates some scientifically established standard concerning psychological normality.
I do not categorically deny the possibility of using terms like abnormal in a scientific way despite the loose way these concepts are sometimes applied. In fact, I have a suggestion for a sociological definition of psychological abnormality. The science of biology is advanced sufficiently so that there are a reasonable number of established concepts of how the human body operates. This knowledge has enabled biologists to formulate concepts of abnormal bodily functioning, for example, when a virus enters the body and upsets the internal balance. Certainly individual physiological systems differ in their resistance to such a virus and in other ways as well, but there are general principles as to what constitutes a disturbance of the physiological system, and so we have a reasonable conception of disease or abnormality in terms of our bodies.
Psychology is a much younger science and several competing notions of normality exist. Let me add one more from the perspective of a sociologist. I start by recognizing that societal pressures to conform to particular ideological expectations can produce stress. Stress occurs when the individual is unable to achieve these internalized social goals. This is one very common reason for a person to seek therapy. In the case of premature ejaculation or other adjustment problems, the cause of stress is likely to be the felt dissonance between what one seeks and what one obtains, as I have detailed earlier.
To be sure, a "real" psychological problem exists here in the sense that the individual feels stressed, but the psychological meaning of that felt stress needs to be investigated. If, indeed, it is due to a nonconformity problem, it can be dealt with by accepting one's nonconformity or by changing oneself to become more conforming. The therapist can clarify and aid the patient toward such choices. This type of personal stress situation I would call a conformity problem and I would not use labels such as abnormal, dysfunctional, or pathology for such a condition. There is a temptation to use such labels, for they bear the prestige of the older, more established biological sciences. Still, I do believe that today many professionally trained therapists would hesitate to use them in the above instance.
There is another type of patient, though. In this case, perhaps the stress is due to some long-term basic cognitive or emotional disturbance in the person that is upsetting almost all the areas of that person's life. Then the question arises, do we have here more than a conformity stress-induced situation? It is in such an instance that we will find it useful to have objective criteria for the possible use of the term abnormal.
I suggest the following societal-level criteria for the use of the term psychologically abnormal. I would call abnormal those personal cognitive or emotional traits that disable the individual from functioning in all societies. In short, this would be a systemic personality disturbance. If the condition disabled the individual only in the native society, then he or she may simply be a nonconformist. However, if the characteristic is such that the person could not function in any type of society, then we have a different situation.
This definition makes it easier to delineate conformity problems from abnormality conditions. If a condition is a conformity problem, there will always be other groups or societies in which that behavior and the underlying traits would not be a problem. I mention East Bay as a society where the norm is rapid ejaculation. Also, in relation to open communication in marriage, there surely are many nonWestern societies that play down such open communication. So, if we have societies with different ejaculatory and communication customs, then such behaviors must be within the normal range of individual cognitive and emotional abilities. That is, if we accept all societal customs as within the normal range of individuals, then only those individuals who cannot conform to any set of societal customs could be viewed as clearly unable to function in society. Short of this, people can still have problems of adjustment and feel stress in such areas, but we have no evidence that such people have a personality that could not operate in any society. All too often we test for abnormality by simply looking for a lack of fit with one society's ideology. To do so is to increase the likelihood of confusing conformity problems with general disabilities. The American Psychiatric Association's guideline suggests the use of the so called "value free" term paraphilias for those patterns of erotic arousal that differ from the "standard patterns."46 I feel certain that most people would be more comfortable being called a non-conformist than a paraphiliac.
In essence I start with the premise that those basic personality characteristics (cognitive and emotional) that are promoted in any fully operating and ongoing society are within the limits of an undisturbed personality system. Accordingly, I am assuming that the label disturbed or abnormal personality means characteristics of a personality type unable to function in all social systems. If there are societies that socialize individuals to think and feel in ways that are condemned in our society, then there are societies in which those people can function; therefore those individuals do not have characteristics that make social life impossible for them. We may not like them, but they would not fit my societal criteria for psychological abnormality.
Now, one can ask, why use a societal-level measure of psychological normality? My answer to this is that personalities, as we know them, do not exist outside a societal setting. It is only by interaction with others that we learn to communicate, to understand others, to be able to form relationships, and to develop a conception of ourselves.47 In this sense, psychological normality presupposes a social setting for its evaluation. I find it difficult to conceive of psychological normality outside of a social setting. For this reason I feel it is proper to offer a societal-level conception of psychological normality.
Applying my conception of normality, we would see the majority of sexual problems brought to therapists as the result of stress caused by conformity problems related to existing ideologies. Further, by my definition of normality, we would need to go beyond labeling a particular behavior. A judgment would have to be based on the cognitive and emotional state underlying that behavior. If that state were an emotional upheaval that was producing a total withdrawal or an indiscriminate violent assault on all other group members, then one could assume abnormality. This is so because it is inconceivable that such a cognitive and emotional state could be functional in any society. There are no societies that would accept a person who is totally withdrawn or a person who indiscriminately kills. Even warlike societies are quite select in whom they kill, and peaceful societies must be active to go about their daily tasks. The important point here is that particular sexual or other acts would not be automatically labeled abnormal. The yardstick of normality would be the potential integration of that action into a human society.
I do not pretend that my conception is simple to utilize or that it lacks any conceptual problems. We do not have full knowledge of all societies. What about theoretically possible societies, which do not now exist but could exist? A normal boundary should include them. How do we enable a patient to be a nonconformist and still avoid stress? What I have presented is but the broad outlines of a societal basis for conceptualizing psychological normality. Much more work is necessary to make this conception operational.
I do think, however, that this approach has advantages over some other views of normality. First, it does put forth an explicit model of the limits of a normal personality without depending on the ideology of any one society. Thus, it gives more opportunity for keeping the personal biases of our society out of our therapeutic judgments. Secondly, by its cross-cultural perspective this approach pressures psychologists to separate conformity problems from systemic personality problems that are more deeply rooted in cognitive and emotional disturbances. This is so because a cross-cultural approach forces awareness of alternatives and of the limits of one society's ideologies. Thirdly, this approach lessens the likelihood that specific acts will be labeled as abnormal, for it focuses upon the underlying cognitive and emotional states that may apply to many diverse acts.
In addition, this approach moves us away from building our notion of abnormality on a medical or biological model of disease or disorder and instead firmly roots our notion of normality in a broad societal framework. Much of the use of labels of abnormality stems from the fact that the study of sexuality began a hundred years ago within the medical profession.48 Doctors are trained in the biological sciences and deal directly with diseases and so abnormality labels are part of their profession. Certainly it is important to keep the input of physicians, but it is also important to place sexuality into a societal framework. Finally, my approach presents individuals with a view of normality that they can understand and that may well reduce their anxiety about their problems, since, as I have said before, conformity problems are easier to accept than is the label pathological disturbance or paraphilia or anomalous behavior. The intent may be to use some of these terms in a "value free" fashion but the meaning to most people is judgmental.
As I see it, sexual therapists are not actually curing an "abnormal" or "dysfunctional" patient but are seeking instead to produce a patient who feels more comfortable with his or her sexual lifestyle. The more therapy is based on making one "normal," the more the patient is made to feel there is no choice. I believe that most sexual therapists produced by our university graduate programs today would agree with much of what I have said in this section. But there are others who would not; equally important, I suspect that the general public still thinks in terms of simple medical concepts of normality and abnormality.
Some psychologists would no doubt argue that there are general principles of personality functioning that can be utilized to arrive at judgments regarding sexual abnormality, and therefore my standard of the ability to function in some type of society is not needed. If psychological systems of normality are proposed, then the logical and empirical basis upon which the definitions of personal abnormality are based must be clearly explicated. Also, any psychological notion of abnormality would have to consider the ability of the person to operate in society. Thus, my notions would turn out to be at least one key element in any psychological notion of normality.
I am proposing a rather generous measure of normality. If we are to narrow it and assert other limitations on normality, we must ask for scientific reasoning and evidence. Extending the borders of the abnormal needs to be monitored so that it is not a facade for a particular ideological set of values.
This book is based on the premise that human sexuality has a crucial societal component that does indeed affect our sexual lives in major ways. We cannot assume that the same sexual act will have the same functional significance in different societal settings. In this sense virtually any sexual act can produce discomfort or stress in an individual due to social pressures and ideological beliefs. The reader will recall that there are societies wherein coitus begins at ages under ten for most children. The meaning of such child sexuality when it occurs with the guidance of close relatives and with societal approval is quite different than it would be in our own society today. The same could be said about virtually any sexual act. Therefore I believe we need to attend to the social context of a sexual act if we are to understand it and to judge its meaning scientifically. My suggestions are offered in that spirit. Surely this would be a scientific improvement over the vague notions of sexual normality that abound in our society today.49

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

Let us conclude this section by asking how the cognitive and emotive ideologies would apply to our discussion of sexual normality? It would seem to me that the more a group feels the need to control sexual behavior, the more they will use the term abnormal for whatever sexual behavior they dislike. Relatedly, the more one labels people who violate sexual norms as abnormal, the more one will want therapists to alter such people into greater conformity with their sexual norms.50 In short, the use of nonconforming behavior as the basis for defining abnormality and the use of therapy to create conformity are related approaches. Both symbolize the desire to control and minimize choices and thus are characteristics of the emotive ideology.
Now, even though people endorsing the cognitive ideology do expand individual choices, they would surely have sexual behaviors that they would not include as legitimate choices and for which they, too, might utilize terms like abnormal or unhealthy. The key difference in these two general ideologies is in the scope of sexual behavior the ideology condemns and the willingness to restrict or expand that scope.
The specific sexual ideologies also relate to the question of normality. As we have seen, each sexual ideology has tenets that logically follow from the basic assumption of the ideology regarding gender equality. These beliefs spell out the specifics of what an adherent is likely to think of as normal behavior and, by inference, what is likely to be viewed as abnormal behavior. To illustrate, if one believes in tenet 2 of the nonequalitarian sexual ideology, then a woman who accepts bodycentered sexuality may well be thought of as perverted or disturbed. The principle underlying the use of negative evaluations is that when someone violates our beliefs about preferable behavior, we are likely to respond by negatively labeling that person in some way.
Negative labeling is a common human tendency, and thus we should expect it to carry over even into our scientific usage. I have tried in this chapter to warn of this danger and to arm you with greater awareness of the ideological beliefs that exist. Since such ideologies embody our strongest values, they will serve as the source of our harshest condemnations of others. The next two chapters examine two areas of sexuality where very strong ideological feelings have been expressed: homosexuality and erotica. We will also see in those two areas the operation of the kinship and power aspects of sexuality. You have been prepared by what you have read so far. I hope that enables you to set aside temporarily whatever feelings you have on those issues in order to examine them as objectively as possible.

SELECTED REFERENCES AND COMMENTS

1. For an excellent introduction to the ideas of one of our greatest philosophers, Aristotle, see
McKeon, Richard (ed.), The Basic Works of Aristotle. New York: Random House, 1941.
2. Two of the finest sources for a general philosophical background concerning the power of ideas are
Randall, John Herman, Jr., The Making of the Modern Mind. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1940.
Woodbridge, Frederick J.E., The Realm of Mind: An Essay in Metaphysics. New York: Columbia University Press, 1926.
3. Some social scientists would feel that the cognitive ideology, with its emphasis on rational choice, is congruent with the exchange-theory orientation in sociology. For a brief statement of exchange theory see
Emerson, R.M., "Social Exchange Theory," in A. Inkeles, J. Coleman, and N. Smelser (eds.), Annual Review of Sociology. Palo Alto, Calif.: Annual Reviews, 1976.
4. Woodbridge, Frederick J.E., The Realm of Mind: An Essay in Metaphysics. New York: Columbia University Press, 1926.
5. The concept of rational choice is used here to mean choosing the most efficient means for a given end. This is the usual definition of that term. One can place value limitations on what means and ends are acceptable and still ask for the selection of the most efficient means to a given end from a set of means that fit some moral standard.
6. One of our creative anthropological observers has written an exciting book presenting what he calls "the meta science ideology" which he believes will aid in resolving problems in our societies around the world. I suggest you examine
Naroll, Raoul, The Moral Order: An Introduction to the Human Situation. Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1983.
7. Those readers familiar with the social-contract theorists in philosophy will notice that such theories are relevant here. My entire discussion of ideology ties in with a great number of philosophical issues. I cannot here get involved in all of them, but once again I suggest one of my favorite reference works:
Edwards, Paul (eds.), The Encyclopedia of Philosophy (8 vols.). New York: Macmillan, Free Press, 1967.
8. Hobbes, Thomas, "Leviathan," in Frederick J.F. Woodbridge (ed.), Hobbes Selections. New York: Scribner's, 1930.
9. A synopsis of Goethe's thinking can be found in Volume 3 of the encyclopedia mentioned in note 7 above.
10. The cognitive approach in psychology accepts an interactive view of our cognitive and emotional selves. For a popular presentation of this perspective see
Ellis, Albert, and Robert A. Harper, A New Guide to Rational Living. N. Hollywood, Calif.: Wilshire, 1978.
11. For an overview of U.S. attitudes toward a variety of key areas, I suggest an examination of the results of the National Opinion Research Center's (NORC's) annual surveys. They select the key questions that have been asked over the years and check for current viewpoints. They have taken national samples since 1972, and their results are available at very low cost. For information write to
The Roper Center, Box U-164, The University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06268.
12. I did one of the first national surveys through NORC in 1963 and found at that time about 80% of the adult Americans thought premarital intercourse was always wrong. For an analysis of my 1963 study see
Reiss, Ira L., The Social Context of Premarital Sexual Permissiveness. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1967.
13. Once again, the source for this is NORC's annual surveys.
14. Many people believe that the increases in premarital sexuality was a result of the awareness by young women that they had a chance to control pregnancy once the pill was available in 1960. This seems rather unlikely, since even in the most recent years ( 1984) the majority of teenagers were not using the pill and about half used nothing at their first coitus. The impact of the pill was most dramatic on married people and also on the sexual life of women in their 20s who were far beyond their first act of intercourse. For such women the pill may add an element of security, although even for these women other methods are replacing the pill today. We need to keep in mind that the condom and the diaphragm have been available for over 100 years and that for groups that used them (like Jewish married couples), they were and are highly effective methods. The conclusion is that it is our values and attitudes that determine how well we use the contraceptive methods available. Secondly, the lack of modern contraception has not been a block for millions of people over many thousands of years from having premarital intercourse. See the following sources:
Reiss, Ira L., and Gary Lee, Family Systems in America (4th ed.). New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, (in press). (See especially Chapters 6 and 7.)
Bachrach, Christine A., "Contraceptive Practice among American Women, 1973-1982," Family Planning Perspectives, vol. 16, no. 6 (November-December 1984), pp. 253-260.
Zelnik, M., and J.F. Kantner, "Sexual Activity, Contraceptive Use and Pregnancy among Metropolitan-area Teenagers, 1971-1979," Family Planning Perspectives, vol. 12 (September-October 1980), pp. 230-237.
15. An earlier statement of my views on sexual ideologies can be found in the reference cited here. However, I was then speaking mainly of America and thus my presentation here differs somewhat. I wrote the article in 1980. It was one of my first steps toward writing this book.
Reiss, Ira L., "Some Observations on Ideology and Sexuality in America," Journal of Marriage and the Family, vol. 43, no. 2 (May 1981), pp. 271-283.
16. One important point to note about homosexual ideologies is that any tenet concerning gender power would be irrelevant. By definition homosexuals are of the same gender, and so the question of how to treat the opposite gender is not at issue. Gender is still indirectly involved in that gender-role training is reflected in the ways that male homosexuals act, which are distinct from the actions of female homosexuals. This is further discussed in the next chapter. Overall my estimate would be that young American male and female homosexuals generally would respond like young male and female heterosexuals and would be adherents of the equalitarian sexual ideology.
17. The data from Peggy Sanday allowed me to test for a relationship between the degree to which gender roles are segregated in a society and the status of women in that society. I reported in Chapter 4 that I found no significant correlation. This strengthens my reasoning that what matters is how socially important the tasks are that one's gender engages in, not whether the tasks are shared with the opposite gender.
18. In my initial statement on ideology in 1980 I utilized one additional ideological tenet that concerned using love as a purifier of sexuality. I did not feel this love tenet would hold up very widely cross-culturally and so I dropped it here. Also, tenet 2, concerning body-centered sexuality, implies the tenet I dropped; that is, if one rejects body-centered sexuality, it may well be because one feels that only love justifies sexuality, and sexuality without love is therefore unacceptable. My initial statement was contained in my presidential address at the October 1980 National Council on Family Relations meeting in Portland, Oregon.
19. The equalitarian ideology is congruent with both "permissiveness with" and "permissiveness without" affection standards. The nonequalitarian ideology fits with what I called the double standard. The original statement of these premarital sexual standards comes from my 1960 book. In my 1967 book I used a scale measuring premarital sexual permissiveness to examine how these standards distributed in regional samples and a national sample of Americans. A great many studies have used my premarital sexual permissiveness scales. One was by DeLamater and MacCorquodale, who compared college and noncollege populations. The reader may also wish to consult the 1970 and 1980 decade reviews of research and theory on premarital sexuality to gain a better overview of this area.
Reiss, Ira L., Premarital Sexual Standards in America. New York: Free Press, 1960.
Reiss, Ira L., The Social Context of Premarital Sexual Permissiveness. Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1967.
Delamater, John, and Patricia MacCorquodale, Premarital Sexuality: Attitudes, Relationships, Behavior. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1979.
Clayton, Richard R., and Janet L. Bokemeier, "Premarital Sex in the Seventies," Journal of Marriage and the Family, vol. 42, no. 4 (November 1980), pp. 759-775.
Cannon, Kenneth L., and Richard Long, "Premarital Sexual Behavior in the Sixties," Journal of Marriage and the Family, vol. 33, no. I (February 1971), pp. 36-49.
20. Carol Cassell develops this theme of how women use love to overcome sexual guilt in her book:
Cassell, Carol, Swept Away: Why Women Fear Their Own Sexuality. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984.
21. The resistance of males to male homosexuality is reported in studies of swingers by Gilmartin and for males in general in Kinsey's work and in National Opinion Research Center polls.
Gilmartin, Brian, The Gilmartin Report. Secaucus, N.J.: Citadel Press, 1978.
Kinsey, Alfred C., Wardell Pomeroy, and Clyde Martin, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male. Philadelphia: Saunders, 1948.
22. We have evidence of such general increases in sexual activity from studies of birth control in marriage by Westoff. Newcomer and Udrey report rates for adolescent populations. Also, Hunt offers us a not-so-representative national sample with evidence of increases in several areas. Finally, there are magazine surveys that, of course, do not represent the country but at least indicate that such increases are not very rare.
Westoff, Charles F., "Coital Frequency and Contraception," Family Planning Perspectives, vol. 6 (Summer 1974), pp. 136-141;
Hunt, Morton M., Sexual Behavior in the 1970's. Chicago: Playboy Press, 1974.
Wolfe, Linda, Women and Sex in the 80's: The Cosmo Report. Toronto: Bantam Books, 1981.
Tavris, Carol, and Susan Sadd, The Redbook Report on Female Sexuality. New York: Delacorte, 1977.
Newcomer, Susan F., and J. Richard Udry, "Oral Sex in an Adolescent Population," Archives of Sexual Behavior, vol. 14, no. I (February 1985), pp. 41-47.
23. Several studies in America have indicated a correlation between gender equality and premarital sexual permissiveness. I found such a relationship in four national samples of American adults taken by NORC. These were part of a study of causes of extramarital sexuality. Also, Jonathan Kelley, in a sample of Berkeley students, found the same relationship. In both instances the relationship became part of an explanation of sexual customs. See
Kelley, Jonathan, "Sexual Permissiveness: Evidence for a Theory," Journal of Marriage and the Family, vol. 40 (August 1978), pp. 455-468.
Reiss, Ira L., Ronald E. Anderson, and G.C. Sponaugle, "A Multivariate Model of the Determinants of Extramarital Sexual Permissiveness," Journal of Marriage and the Family, vol. 42 (May 1980), pp. 395-411.
24. Many studies in the professional journals support this conclusion. One sign of the increased legitimation of female sexuality is the vast increase in teenage female premarital sexuality. The journal Family Planning Perspectives has many articles on this topic. For a summary of three national surveys of teenage sexuality, see
Zelnik, M., and J.F. Kantner, "Sexual Activity, Contraceptive Use and Pregnancy among Metropolitan-area Teenagers, 1971-1979," Family Planning Perspectives, vol. 12 (September-October 1980), pp. 230-237.
25. This study did not have a representative sample. The students came from college classes whose instructors were willing to hand out the questionnaire, and the adults came from acquaintances of the researcher and her friends. Lottes used all five of the tenets that were in my 1981 article (see note 18). She also measured adherence to abstinence tenets I had devised. In this chapter I am interested predominantly in the majority of her respondents who were adherents of the equalitarian sexual ideology. My references to her study in the the text utilized the data contained in her 1983 paper interpreted to apply to my four tenets.
Lottes, Ilsa, "An Investigation of the Tenet Patterns of the Reiss Sexual Ideologies." Paper presented at the April 1983 Society for the Scientific Study of Sex Eastern Region meeting in Philadelphia.
Lottes, Ilsa, "Use of Cluster Analysis to Determine Belief Patterns of Sexual Attitudes," Journal of Sex Research, vol. 21 (November 1985).
Reiss, Ira L., "Some Observations on Ideology and Sexuality in America," Journal of Marriage and the Family, vol. 43 (May 1981), pp. 271-283.
26. Note the confusion in meaning that would occur here had we not clearly distinguished the meaning of gender and sexual in Chapter 2.
27. An early statement of my views on cross-cultural typologies was presented in February 1982 at a University of Iowa conference on the family. It was published the next year as
Reiss, Ira L., "Sexuality: A Research and Theory Perspective," pp. 141-147 in Peggy Houston (ed.), Sexuality and the Family Life Span. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1983.
28. Bullough, Vern, Sexual Variance in Society and History. New York: John Wiley, 1976. (See Parts 1 and 2.)
29. It is important to specify which type of sexuality we are focusing upon in our typologies. The social situation may differ, for example, for premarital as compared to extramarital sexuality. Related to this point is a cross-cultural analysis by David Heiss that was aimed at seeing whether norms regarding the acceptance of sexuality for different age groups were consistent. He found norms in infancy, childhood, and adolescence to be related to each other in a positive direction. Adult norms tended to be the high point of restrictiveness. He did find considerable consistency in norms across age levels, but he also noted that sexual socialization can be inconsistent at different ages due to the structure of particular societies. See
Heise, David R., "Cultural Patterning of Sexual Socialization," American Sociological Review, vol. 32 (February 1967), pp. 726-739.
30. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Center for Health Statistics, C.A. Bachrach and M.C. Horn, "Marriage and First Intercourse, Marital Dissolution, and Remarriage, U.S., 1982," Advance Data from Vital and Health Statistics, no. 107. Hyattsville, Md.: Public Health Service, April 1985.
31. Clement, Ulrich, Gunter Schmidt, and Margret Kruse, "Changes in Differences in Sexual Behavior: A Replication of a Study on West German Students (1966-1981)," Archives of Sexual Behavior, vol. 13, no. 2 (1984), pp. 99-120.
Money, John, and Herman Musaph (eds.), Handbook of Sexology. New York: Elsevier North-Holland, 1977.
32. Kaplan, Helen Singer, The New Sex Therapy: Active Treatment of Sexual Dysfunction. New York: Brunner/Mazel, 1974. (See especially pp. 298-299.)
American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-III. Washington, D.C.: APA, 1977.
Haeberle, Erwin J., The Sex Atlas. New York: Seabury Press, 1978. (pp. 260-262)
Lief, Harold I. (ed.), Sexual Problems in Medical Practice. Chicago: AMA, 1981. (See especially pp. 151-152.)
33. For a modified Freudian statement of this position see
Gadpaille, Warren J., "Research into the Physiology of Maleness and Femaleness," Archives of General Psychiatry, vol. 26 (March 1972), pp. 193-206.
Gadpaille, Warren J., "Psychosexual Development through the Life Cycle," Chapter 3 in Harold I. Lief (ed.), Sexual Problems in Medical Practice. Chicago: AMA, 1981.
34. For a brief and clear presentation of the stages of psychosexual development as Freud conceptualized them, see
Halberstadt-Freud, Hendrika C., "Freud's Libido Theory," Chapter 5 in John Money and Herman Musaph (eds.), Handbook of Sexology. New York: Elsevier North Holland, 1977.
35. Bullough, Vern L., and James Brundage, Sexual Practices and the Medieval Church. Buffalo: Prometheus Books, 1982.
36. Freud's theory of the vaginal orgasm has been rejected by most sexual therapists today. However, the recent discovery of the Grafenberg spot supports the possibility of vaginal contact producing orgasm. The Grafenberg spot is located on the anterior wall about two inches inside the vagina. Upward pressure pressures the duct connecting the urethra to the bladder and can in some women produce orgasm. In some of these cases, ejaculation of a fluid occurs. It is a matter of debate whether that fluid is mostly urine or if it is largely secretion from the duct itself.
Ladas, Alice Kahn, Beverly Whipple, and John D. Perry, The G Spot: And Other Recent Discoveries about Human Sexuality, New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1982.
37. Hong, Lawrence K., "Survival of the Fastest: On the Origin of Premature Ejaculation," The Journal of Sex Research, vol. 20, no. 2 (May 1984), pp. 109-122.
38. Hrdy, Sarah Blaffer, The Woman that Never Evolved. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1981.
39. Davenport, William, "Sexual Patterns and Their Regulation in a Society of the Southwest Pacific," pp. 164-207 in Frank A. Beach (ed.), Sex and Behavior. New York: John Wiley, 1965. (See especially p. 185.)
40. There is a new-wave opinion supporting a biological view of homosexuality. This is commented upon in the next chapter.
41. Groth, A. Nicholas, Men Who Rape: The Psychology of the Offender. New York: Plenum Press, 1979. (See page 89.)
42. The best information we have on the seriousness of crimes (both sexual and otherwise) in the mind of the American public can be found in a national survey reported in
U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics. Criminal Victimization in the U.S., 1981: A National Crime Survey Report, NCJ-90208, Washington, D.C., November 1983.
43. For reports on such violations of human rights, see the publications by Amnesty International.
44. Masters, William H., and Virginia F. Johnson, Human Sexual Inadequacy. Boston: Little, Brown, 1970.
Masters, William H., and Virginia F. Johnson, The Pleasure Bond. Boston: Little, Brown, 1975.
45. Vannoy, Russell, Sex Without Love: A Philosophical Exploration. Buffalo: Prometheus Books, 1980.
46. American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-III. Washington, D.C.: APA, 1977.
47. The classic work describing the process by which the social self develops was published over 50 years ago.
Mead, George Herbert, Mind, Self and Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1934.
48. There are some good accounts of the beginnings of the so-called scientific study of human sexuality. See
Money, John, and Herman Musaph (eds.), Handbook of Sexology. New York: Elsevier North-Holland, 1977.
Robinson, Paul, The Modernization of Sex: Havelock Ellis, Alfred Kinsey, William Masters and Virginia Johnson. New York: Harper & Row, 1976.
Haeberle, Erwin J., The Sex Atlas. New York: Seabury Press, 1978.
49. The classic critique of virtually all use of the label mental illness was put forth by Thomas Szasz. My own position in this chapter is less radical but also seeks to limit the unscientific use of negative labels.
Szasz, Thomas, The Myth of Mental Illness. New York: Harper & Row, 1964.
The work of Ullerstam also sought to remove negative labels from most all sexual acts. Ullerstam was called the "smile on the face of the sexual revolution" by Yves de Saint-Agnes.
Ullerstam, Lars, The Erotic Minorities. New York: Grove, 1966.
50. Some alterations produce conformity through physical changes. I am not speaking here of simple cosmetic surgery. I recall a doctor in Ohio who in 1975-1977 altered the angle of the vagina by cutting the pubococcygeus muscle. The goal was to enhance clitoral contact in the male-on-top position. There were hundreds of wives who came to this surgeon for this operation in order to conform to their conception of normal sexual response and be able to achieve an orgasm in their husband's favorite position. This is a clear example of ideology altering anatomy.