Conventional wisdom:

Sexuality is a very personal thing and not only is it none of your business to know what goes on behind people’s bedroom doors, it is also next to impossible.

What if

What if people’s sexual habits were not influenced by tastes as much as they were by social status. Furthermore, what if you could tell what your next door neighbor does in bed?

Well, you have to realize that sex is something that interests everybody (you are reading this, aren’t you?) and consequently sex has been studied almost more than anything else. It would be impossible to give you a thorough summary of people’s sexual habits because the research is overwhelmingly abundant. Nevertheless, we can offer a general understanding of sexual profiling. For the purpose of this article we will concern ourselves with the sexual habits of the so-called average North American.

Surprisingly, the first factor of influence for everybody is movies and internet, more to the point pornography.

Let us start with the criterias that influence all social classes. Surprisingly, the first factor of influence for everybody is movies and internet, more to the point pornography. That is not to say that people will replicate what they see on T.V. but it will become a reference thus influencing sexuality by progressively condoning certain sexual habits that were previously deemed devious. An example of this would be oral sex. In the fifties, and even the sixties, oral sex was considered either daring cutting edge sexual habit or sexual perversity. Primarily pushed by pornography oral sex is now considered mainstream to the point that a surprisingly high percentage of teenagers simply do not view it as “real sex” anymore. The Institute does not wish to promote any particular sexual habit but simply wants to emphasize (sadly or not) that sexual evolution is mainly motored by sexually explicit medias.

But, is every social class affected in the same way? Apparently not statistically. A statistical overview of people’s sexual habits would resemble a “reverse U”. Indeed when you match people sexual habits with socio- economical background you discover that highly educated people and the least educated people seem to have almost identical patterns in terms of what they actually do in bed (sexual positions) while the “moderately educated” people would be in a class of their own. The two extremes would be the most willing to try less accepted forms of sexuality while the so-called average would be more conservative.

[ad code=2]

Note that if the two extremes show similarities in sexual habits, they also show some glaring discrepancies. It would seem that as far as time spent by sexual act, the longer you go to school the longer you take. As for sexual fulfillment it would seem that, for unknown reasons, the longer you go to school the better sexually fulfilled you tend to describe yourself. Some researchers speculate that communication tend to increase with education levels, thereby allowing a more satisfying love life. This remains to be seen.

Let us see how that translates into the bedroom. We chose to look at three controversial sexual pratices and how they are affected by social class and events. Our three sexual acts are oral sex, oral sex swallowing and anal sex.

Oral sex. As previously said in the fifties and sixties, they were frowned upon. Not only was a way to make babies but it was also associated with a homosexual lifestyle. Needless to say homosexuality was not as accepted as today (even today, it depends on your social level). Pornography first made it more acceptable. People with no education and highly educated people did (and still do) it increasingly. Even people in the middle did it (around 50% compaired with the 80% of the extremes). Bill Clinton and Monica gave a big push (as it were) for this method at the end of the nineties. What it also did was to promote oral sex to “not real sex”. So oral sex has the distinction of having gone to perversity to “not real sex” in a few decades, and people still say politicians nver accomplished anything!

Swallowing though, has not reached the same status (maybe Monica should write a book to further the issue). Swallowing is still out of the question for most American women. There again, the most educated the women is, the more chance she has of engaging in such an activity. While serious research has women doing it around 15%, college graduates report having tried it at least once for more than 40%. That sexual practice, unlike regular oral sex seems to be a new phenomenon because the younger you are the more likely you are to have tried it. In highly educated people there are no significant diffrence between age groups concerning oral sex. Interestingly (maybe a bad choice of words) in poorly educated oral sex with swallowing seems to be a way for the man to claim sexual ownership of his partner. Obviously in this class swallowing by the thing to do. That anedotal information volunteered by sex therapists and marriage counselors makes it somewhat romantic!

Anal sex. With less educated young people it is also considered “not real sex”. So much so that a mainstream talk show like Ophra addresed the subject. Pornography there again played an important role. Howard Stern oddly seems to have had an impact on that part of sexuality. His not always subtle endorsement of anal sex seems to have “made it cool” for many Americans. Obviously the AIDS virus epidemic made people look at sodomy in a less favorable light in the 90’s but against all logic (because AIDS is still a terrible threat) it is making a comeback. The fact that homosexuality and it’s wave of gay-friendly sitcoms are gaining public acceptance may have something to do with it. On average around 35% of heterosexual have real anal sex with those figures doubling when you ask about any anal stimulation. The reversed U still works with the same pattern. SO much so that you can safely sniker when your university level neighbors who live next door come to see you for a friendly barbecue. By the way homosexuals somewhat surprisingly report a rate of anal sex no higher than 70% so for those who thought they knew the facts of life, think again (or try not to, it depends).

What to make of it

“Profilingly” speaking your very proper and highly educated neighbor has more chance of engaging in a riskier form of sexuality. By some twisted statistics facts he shares that distinction with your high-school drop-out niece you sometimes see at the Christmas family party.

Do not forget that this is a statistical trend and also that other factors come into play. One other factor that we would wish to discuss due to its major impact is body perception.

It would appear that self body image (especially among females) plays a great role into deciding just to what extent someone “has the right” to experiment sexually. In other words, a woman who feels that her body is sexually unattractive will act more conservatively in bed.

Although they are by no means the only ones, ethnical and religious background play an important role but never as much as educational levels.

Suggested readings

Harris, Louis and associates, Attitude about television, sex, and contraception. Conducted for planned parenthood. New York: Garland Pub , 1987.

Archives of sexual behaviour. Js Canner & Co; 14th edition, (June 1, 1985).

Kelley, Kathryn, ed., Females, Males and Sexuality. New York: State University of New York Press, 1987.

Masters, William H. and Virginia E. Johnson, Human sexual response. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 1966.

Lancaster, Roger N. and Micaela Di Leonardo, The Gender / Sexuality Reader : Culture, History, Political Economy. Routledge, 1997.

Hawkes, Sociology of Sex and Sexuality (Sociology and Social Change), Open university Press: 1st edition, 1996.