SEXUAL ACTS OF HETEROSEXUALS

From Philosopedia

SEXUAL ACTS OF HETEROSEXUALS

A report on the sexual practices of British men (The Economist, 9 May 1998) revealed that 7.8% have twenty-one or more heterosexual partners over a lifetime. The same study showed men in the United States had 12.7%. Women in Britain with that many partners claimed 1.2% whereas American women claimed 2.4%.

Slightly less than 5% of men in the two places claimed to have had extra-marital sex within the past year, as compared with slightly less than 3% of the women.

Only 8% to 11% of Britishers found pre-marital sex “almost always wrong” whereas 24% to 32.7% of Americans found it sinful. Similarly fewer Britishers (76% to 83%) found extra-marital sex “always or almost always wrong” whereas 93.5% of American women and 88.9% of American men thought so.

“Unsurprisingly,” wrote The Economist editors, “Americans are less likely to use a condom despite engaging in riskier sex. They pay a price: the incidence of AIDS is ten times as high as it is in Britain. The authors [of the study published in the American Journal of Public Health] conclude that ‘Our public health may be the high price we pay for our public opinion.’ ”