Sex Returns as Young, Old Put Disease Fears Aside, Study Says : Behavior: ‘Janus Report’ finds that 62% of men, 66% of women ages 18 to 26 are having more encounters now than 3 years ago.
America’s bedrooms are jumping again, according to a new study, which claims that the sexual panic that shook the country on the heels of the AIDS crisis appears to be fading.
The study, said to be the first in-depth look at U.S. sexual mores since the 1940s Kinsey Report, says that Americans are more sexually active now than they were three years ago.
“The Janus Report on Sexual Behavior,” a wide-ranging study by the husband-and-wife research team of Samuel and Cynthia Janus, which went on sale last month, details changes in sexual attitudes and practices in America in the 1980s and early 1990s.
Based on a nationwide study of almost 8,000 people over a nine-year period, with respondents ranging in ages from 18 to 80, the research shows that past rules governing sex no longer seem to apply.
Heterosexual Americans, after a bout of abstinence and caution brought on by the fear of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, have resumed active sexual lifestyles, creating what the study calls a “second sexual revolution.”
“The enormous tensions and backlash generated by these devastating sexually transmitted diseases made the practitioners of casual sex pause,” the researchers said.
“In a sense, it was a time of national reassessment. Rather than lapsing into a sexual ‘dark ages’ however, Americans as a whole decided to move forward,” they added in a statement provided by their publishers.
“This really marked the beginning of the ‘Second Sexual Revolution’ . . . an overall willingness to engage in a variety of sexual practices, some of which may have once been considered ‘deviant’ or at least ‘unacceptable’ by society,” they said.
The Janus Report shows that 62% of U.S. men and 66% of women ages 18 to 26 are having more sex now than they were three years ago.
In addition, 48% of single men and 45% of single women claim to have become more sexually active at a time when the devastating AIDS epidemic has taken hundreds of thousands of lives.
Although 80% of the men and women surveyed said they remain concerned about sexually transmitted diseases, the researchers said AIDS is considered “primarily a problem of the poor and gay communities.”
The report does not explore the sexual behavior of homosexuals, who bore the brunt of the epidemic in its early days, nor does it delve into the use of condoms as specific protection against the disease.
The survey also showed that people in their 50s, 60s and 70s are experiencing a heightened level of sexual activity, and that people 65 years and older are often having as much sex, and in some cases more, than people ages 18 to 26.
Other surprising data in the Janus report:
* “Ultraconservatives” said they are three times more accepting of sadomasochistic sex than either “ultraliberal” or “independent” Americans.
* An increasing number of children aged 10, 11 and 12 are having full sexual relations.
* Women with the highest level of education have the greatest number of sex partners--twice as many as any other group of women--and the most sexual experiences prior to marriage.
* Religion is no longer a hindrance, and most Americans choose which church teachings on sex they will follow and which they will ignore.
* 10% of American men and 4% of American women have had sexual relations with over 100 partners.
* 31% of those Americans who consider themselves “very religious” have cheated at least once on their mates;
* 57% of younger women surveyed masturbate, a figure which contrasts with Kinsey report numbers compiled in the 1940s and 1950s showing only 32% did so.
* In a regional survey of the U.S. sexual landscape, the survey found that Midwesterners are the least sexually active of all Americans.
The Janus Report, which used questionnaires as well as in-depth interviews, pre-tested 4,510 men and women during a pilot study and questioned another 2,765 for the national survey.
Kinsey’s reports, conducted in 1948 and 1953, were based on responses from white men and women, while Janus includes information from most sizable ethnic minority groups.
Samuel Janus is a sex counselor and author and a fellow at the American Institute for Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysts. His wife Cynthia has written on radiology, obstetrics and gynecology and is a former board member of the Women’s Medical Assn. of New York City.
