Beyond anxiety and fantasy: The coital experiences of college youth

Counting virgins is described as social bookkeeping, a necessary but not sufficient task for social scientists. More important is the development of an understanding of the social processes which encourage or inhibit coital behavior. The analysis in this paper uses the socialbookkeeping approach to document the relatively stable rates of early and premarital coitus since the Kinsey report. The data are drawn from a 1972 study of 14–18-year-olds and a 1967 study of college students. When appropriate controls for educational attainment and age are introduced, it is shown that, in comparison to the change in rates at the beginning of the century, the rates since the 1940's have increased only a fourth as much. More importantly, coital behavior is shown to be still strongly linked to traditional patterns of restraint and facilitation. Traditional factors, such as relationships with parents and religious attendance, are shown to restrain early coital experience (defined as coitus before age 18), while factors linked to the courtship process such as dating frequency, facilitated this early behavior. During college both restraining and facilitating factors were operative, but levels of coital behavior in most cases stayed surprisingly low. Rates of frequent coitus rarely reached 40% among female college seniors and the proportion of college female seniors with three or more partners never reached 20%. The factors which encourage sexual activity during college are the courtship factorsdating behavior and being in love. In terms of initial coitus, women overwhelmingly report that they were in love with their partner. Given the relative stability of rates of early and premarital coitus and continuity of the role of courtship factors in facilitating this behavior, popular discussions of the contemporary sexual revolution are seen as being out of touch with reality and possibly inducing anxiety among young people when they do not experience the sexual revolution.Data analysis for this paper was carried out under NICHD grant HD 04156 and Illinois Law Enforcement Commission grant 2-09-25-0410-02, and also General Support Grant 5-SO1-RRO-5666-05.Received Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Chicago. Research interests include post childhood socialization, social change and deviance, and urban social studies.Received Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Chicago. Main research interests include adolescence, urban social studies, and adult socialization.Received Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Chicago. Main research interest is social change and deviance.