there are only a finite number of things you and a partner can do with your sex organs.
But again, behavior differs widely from culture to culture. Some practices,
like oral–genital and genital–genital contact, occur everywhere, but others are
extremely rare.
Even within the same society, different groups have vastly different incidences of
specific sexual activities. In the United States, S&M, or sadomasochism (deriving sex-
ual pleasure from inflicting or receiving pain), is much more popular among White
and Asian Americans than among African Americans.
Like sexual desire, sexual behavior is monitored and policed by social institutions,
which are constantly giving us explicit messages about what is desirable and what is
bad, wrong, and “deviant.” If you dislike someone or something, you are likely to
use an all-purpose insult accusing him, her, or it of engaging in a certain “deviant”
sexual behavior, and the hand gesture that you might use while driving to indicate
your displeasure at a bad driver was originally an invitation to engage in another sort
of “deviant” sexual behavior. Autoeroticism (sex without a partner) is so taboo that
most people believe it to be extremely rare, even though it is actually very common
(90 percent of men and 40 percent of adult women admit to doing it [Laumann and
Michaels, 2000]). In 2005, a 17-year-old male honor student in Georgia was sentenced
to ten years in prison for having consensual oral sex with a 15-year-old, even though
a significant majority of males his age and 54 percent of females her age have also
engaged in the same practice. (Centers for Disease Control, 2005; Curtis and Gilreath,
2007). Figure 10.1 illustrates some attitudes toward various sexual activities.
In the contemporary United States, genital–genital contact is often presented as the
most natural, normal, and fulfilling sexual behavior; other behaviors are often consid-
ered “not really sex” at all. When former President Bill Clinton claimed that he “did not
have sexual relations” with Monica Lewinsky, he wasn’t lying, exactly: he just wasn’t
classifying what they did as “sexual relations”—nor would most Americans (Sanders
and Reinisch, 1999). Definitions vary considerably and are based on a number of soci-
ological factors. Forty-two percent of women consider it unfaithful if a partner looks at
a sexually explicit website, while only one-quarter of men do (ABC News, 2004).
Sexual behavior refers not only to what you do sexually, but with whom you
do it, how, how often, when, where, and so on. Sexual customs display a dizzying
array that, taken together, imply that sexual
behavior is anything but organized around
reproduction alone. Where, when, how, and
with whom we have sex varies enormously
within cultures as well as from one culture to
another.
For example, Ernestine Friedel, an anthro-
pologist, observed dramatic differences in sex-
ual customs between two neighboring tribes in
New Guinea (1975). One, a highland tribe,
believes that heterosexual intercourse makes
men weaker and that women threaten men with
their powerful sexuality. Many men who would
otherwise be interested in women prefer to
remain celibate rather than risk the contact. As
a result, population remains relatively low,
which this culture needs because they have no
new land or resources to bring under cultivation.
Not far away, however, is a very different
culture. Here, people enjoy sex and sex play.318 CHAPTER 10SEXUALITYLooking at a sexually
explicit website on the
InternetHaving sex talk in an
Internet chat room34% 25%54%43%42%72%49%IF A PERSON IS MARRIED OR IN A COMMITTED
RELATIONSHIP, WOULD YOU CONSIDER...?
THIS BEHAVIOR IS BEING UNFAITHFUL:Having an emotionally
close but not physical
relationship with a
co-worker, friend, or
neighbor of the
opposite sex64%46%Men's
responseAll Women's
responseFIGURE 10.1Attitudes about Extramarital Sexual Activity
Source:General Social Survey, 2004.