The Psychology of Gender 4th Edition

316 Chapter 9

to Whites. These differences remain even when

socioeconomic status is taken into consider-

ation. Figure 9.7 shows the percentage of youth

in middle school and high school who have

had sex. Across the different grades, more boys

than girls have had sex. I would have to say that

the “abstinence only” campaign is not working.

(See Sidebar 9.2 for an expanded discussion of

that issue.)

Not only are youth having their first sex-

ual experiences at younger ages but people are

marrying at older ages, which means that the

first sexual intercourse is much less likely to be

with the person who becomes one’s spouse. This

is not surprising as the median age at first inter-

course is almost 10 years earlier than the age

at which people marry! Among today’s 18- to

19-year-olds, the first sexual partner is likely to

become the spouse in 6% of the cases, whereas

among today’s 50- to 59-year-olds, the first sex-

ual partner was the spouse nearly half the time

(45%; Laumann, Mahay, & Youm, 2007).

What predicts the onset of sex? A re-

view of 35 longitudinal studies showed that

Because of the way we view the connec-

tion between sex and love in women and men,

we view extramarital affairs differently when

committed by women and men. In one study,

college students viewed a hypothetical rela-

tionship between a single friend and a mar-

ried person (Sprecher, Regan, & McKinney,

1998). Students’ perception of the married

person having the affair depended on whether

the person was male or female. Students per-

ceived the female married person as more

committed to the affair, as more in love, as

more likely to marry the single friend, and as

less likely to have other affairs than the male

married person. Women and men had simi-

lar views on this issue. Thus, people seem to

believe that women have affairs only when

they are in love with another person but that

men have affairs without being in love. It is

also possible that people perceive male extra-

marital affairs as more common than female

extramarital affairs and, thus, less meaningful.

First Sexual Experiences. Given the more

permissive attitudes toward sex, it is not a sur-

prise that the age of first intercourse has de-

clined over the years (Wells & Twenge, 2005).

The decline is larger among women compared

to men. In the late 1960s, the average age of first

intercourse was 19 for women and 18 for men.

By the 2000s, the median age of first intercourse

was 17 (Ott & Santelli, 2007). By 2009, 29% of

females and 34% of males in ninth grade had

had sex, and 65% of females and 60% of males

in twelfth grade had had sex (Centers for Dis-

ease Control and Prevention, 2010a). Thus,

the majority of youth have had sex by the time

that they are 18 years old. The onset of sexual

intercourse is earlier in Black boys than White

boys but the same among Black and White girls

(Zimmer-Gembeck & Helfand, 2008). The

onset is similar among Hispanics and Whites

and is later among Asian Americans compared

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

Grade

Ever had Sexual Intercourse (%)6th 7th 8th 9th 10th 11th 12th

FIGURE 9.7 Percentage of students who have

ever had sexual intercourse. Note that the figures

for middle school reflect median rather than mean.

Source: Middle school figures taken from U.S.

Department of Health and Human Services

(2005); High school figures taken from Centers

for Disease Control and Prevention (2006b).

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