Premarital sex
Premarital sex refers to sexual activity that occurs between individuals who are not married to each other. Historically, in the United States, premarital sex was largely viewed as taboo until societal attitudes began to shift in the mid-twentieth century. The median age at which individuals first engaged in sexual intercourse decreased significantly from 20.4 years in the 1950s to 17.6 years by 2003, while the median age for marriage rose markedly during the same period. Factors contributing to this change include the greater availability of contraceptives, such as the birth control pill, and evolving cultural norms that embraced sexual freedom and casual relationships.
In contemporary society, a large majority of American adults have reported engaging in premarital sex, reflecting more permissive attitudes toward sexuality compared to earlier generations. Nevertheless, opposition to premarital sex persists, particularly from religious groups advocating for abstinence-based education. Globally, perspectives on premarital sex vary widely, with many non-Western cultures, particularly those with predominant Muslim populations, maintaining stricter views against it. This topic remains complex, influenced by a blend of cultural, religious, and social factors that shape individual beliefs and practices surrounding sexual behavior before marriage.
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Premarital sex
No longer as stigmatized in mainstream US society, sex before marriage was socially regarded as taboo until the mid-twentieth century. During the 1950s, the median age at which US Americans lost their virginity was 20.4 years old, but by 2003 this median age had fallen to 17.6 years old. Over the same time period of time, the median age of first marriage increased dramatically. In 1950, the median age of marriage was 20.5 for females and 24.0 for males; by 2010 these median ages had increased to 26.8 and 28.5, respectively. Such data indicate that premarital sex is nothing new in US society, although it has sharply increased in frequency over the past sixty years.
Overview
The growing incidence of premarital sex in the post-World War II era has been attributed to a variety of social, cultural, pharmaceutical, and technological factors. Hugh Hefner launched Playboy magazine in December 1953, which became the first mainstream periodical to feature nude female models and to offer upscale journalism, thus alleviating some of the taboos surrounding the topic of human sexuality. In 1957 the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the birth control pill for public use, although distribution was restricted to women with “severe menstrual disorders.” The FDA rescinded this restriction three years later amid record numbers of women claiming menstrual disorders. Now widely available as a form of contraception, “the pill” ushered in an unprecedented era of sexual freedom by significantly diminishing the risk of pregnancy associated with sexual activity. By 1965, 6.5 million US women were using birth-control pills. The emergence of the pill was concurrent with shifting sociocultural norms among the youthful baby boom generation that questioned the standards of morality, authority, and conformity associated with their parents’ and grandparents’ generations. One such cultural transition was an increase in casual sex, defined as recreational sex between two partners without an underlying sense of commitment.
The AIDS pandemic of the 1980s and early 1990s did not reverse rates of premarital sex, but instead led to the rise of safe sex; that is, use of latex condoms in order to prevent the transmission of the HIV virus and other sexually transmitted diseases. By the early twenty-first century, public attitudes regarding sexuality had become considerably more permissive than those a century earlier. Some scholars attribute this shift to the emergence of a “me first” ethos among generations X and Y, the rise of an alleged porn culture (the mainstreaming of pornography), and the development of the Internet and other multimedia which permitted sexting and facilitated youth’s ability to "hook up" (i.e., arrange casual sex) with one another. A 2002 survey conducted by the National Survey of Family Growth revealed that 95 percent of American adults had engaged in sex before marriage.
Despite its prevalence, premarital sex is not without its critics. Much opposition to sex before marriage comes from religious groups, most of which still view premarital sex as sinful. Catholic and evangelical Protestant activism has promoted abstinence-only sex education programs in public high schools in several states, generating controversy as to whether or not such programs are effective. Interestingly, aggregate quantitative analysis indicates that birthrates among teenagers are higher with states that have higher levels of religiosity among its population. One interpretation of these contradictory findings is that adolescents in such states are not more or less likely to engage in premarital sex, but rather to have less access to contraception and legal abortion.
Though Western attitudes toward premarital sex have become more liberal since the middle of the twentieth century, the same cannot be said for non-Western cultures and countries. In a 2013 Pew Research Center poll that asked the question, "Do you personally believe that sex between unmarried adults is morally acceptable, morally unacceptable, or is it not a moral issue?," countries in which citizens were predominantly Muslim overwhelmingly answered that premarital sex was morally unacceptable. For example, 97 percent of Indonesians polled believed premarital sex to be unacceptable, followed by citizens of Jordan (95 percent), Pakistan (94), Palestinian territory (94), Turkey (91), and Egypt (90). In contrast, only 30 percent of Americans polled believed that premarital sex was unacceptable. However, a commonality among those who find it unacceptable seems to be religion.
Bibliography
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Pew Research Center. "Global Views on Morality: Premarital Sex." Pew Research Center, 2013. Web. 25 June 2015.
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