PREMARITAL COITUS: INCIDENCE
The percentages of those who had had premarital coitus with either companions or prostitutes are high (90 per cent or more) for half of the comparative groups, and the differences are small. However, it is worth noting that the groups with the highest percentages include the heterosexual offenders and aggressors vs. adults and minors. Those with the least coital experience are the homosexual offenders vs. adults (67 per cent). The incest offenders vs. adults, ordinarily the most sexually restrained of all groups, nevertheless have 80 per cent of their members with premarital coitus (a low-intermediate position in the rank-order) because they all ultimately married and premarital coitus is generally a precursor of marriage.
The above illustration of the effect of marriage upon premarital behavior justifies our formulating a rank-order of premarital coital experience based only upon those who later married. In such a rank-order the control group occupies an intermediate position with 89 per cent of its members having had premarital coitus. Two of the three homosexual-offender groups fall below the control group, the homosexual offenders vs. adults being in next-to-last position. The lowest rank is shared by the peepers and incest offenders vs. adults. The heterosexual offenders, the prison group, and the heterosexual aggressors vs. minors and adults all occupy the upper half of the scale, with from 95 to 100 per cent of their members experienced.
A more valuable differentiation between groups is to be seen in the accumulative incidence of premarital coitus. Certain groups rank high by any age; these are the heterosexual offenders and aggressors vs. minors and adults, and the prison group. In some of these groups one fifth to one third of the members were experienced by age twelve.2 Others consistently rank low: the homosexual offenders vs. children and adults, the incest offenders vs. adults, and the control group. In brief, it is the groups whose later life was characterized by a wealth of heterosexual experience who were most involved in premarital coitus and at earlier ages than the others. The homosexual offenders vs. minors, whom one would expect to rank low in accumulative incidence, actually occupy intermediate ranks by ages fourteen and sixteen —evidently owing this to a carry-over of their relatively extensive prepubertal sex play—but thereafter they fulfill expectations by ranking low. The peepers, on the other hand, rank low by ages fourteen and sixteen (note that at this time they also rank very low in the number of female friends and companions) but subsequently rise to intermediate status.
The rate at which the accumulative incidence of premarital coitus builds up decreases rather markedly in most groups after age eighteen. Precisely the same “leveling off” was noted in our previous volume on male sexual behavior. Ultimately at older ages the group differences lessen as over four fifths of the members of every group (except the homosexual offenders and incest offenders vs. adults) become experienced in premarital coitus.
By the time they were interviewed between two fifths and nine tenths of the comparative groups had had coitus with prostitutes; the offenders and aggressors vs. children tending to have more men with such experience than their counterparts within the same tripartite group.
Age-specific incidence, the proportion of a group having premarital coitus within specified age limits, presents a slightly different picture. Considering only premarital coitus with companions (i.e., excluding prostitutes), the heterosexual offenders and aggressors vs. minors and adults and the prison group continue to rank high, but the control group rises from a relatively low position to a high-intermediate one, ultimately in their late twenties matching the figures of the prison group. The peepers graduate from the bottom of the rank-order in the period between puberty and age fifteen to second in age-period 26-30 (although the N is small). The homosexual offenders and the incest offenders vs. adults continue to rank at or near the bottom.
The differences between groups in age-specific incidence of premarital coitus with companions are more marked than those in accumulative incidence. In the first age-period, puberty-15, the range is from 16 to 60 per cent; in age-periods 16-20 and 21-25 it is from about 40 to 90 per cent; and in the next two periods, 26-30 and 31-35, the range is from the 30s up to 100 per cent. This widening of range with increasing age indicates that selective factors are affecting the various groups differently.
Excluding the first age-period which is of variable length and is a period of general adjustment, nine groups, such as the offenders vs. adults, maintain rather uniform proportions of individuals having premarital coitus with companions during the various age-periods up to thirty-five. Three groups, such as the prison, have figures which decline with age. Lastly, four—the peepers being the prime example—present larger percentages in each successive period. One is left with the feeling that these different patterns are linked with different personalities and philosophies of life. The groups that maintain their high figures— e.g., the offenders vs. adults—seemingly owe their statistical uniformity to the idea that sex is a very important aspect of life not to be deferred or hindered, and that coitus—in or out of marriage—is the only reasonable form of sexual behavior. On the other hand, groups that maintain low figures owe their uniformity to disinterest (as in the case of homosexual offenders vs. adults) which imposes a ceiling On coital activity, or to moral restraints (as in the case of incest offenders vs. adults). A floor, so to speak, is provided by the five-year length of our age-periods. It is hard to envision a group of unmarried, sexually active, partially to wholly heterosexual males living five years without at least one third of them having had coitus with a friend or acquaintance at least once in that period. The other groups, whose percentages rise and fall more markedly, appear to have no such powerful stabilizing factors. Their activities fluctuate with a great variety of circumstances. Four groups generally show an increase with age; these seem to be “late starters” who subsequently blossom out. For instance, the successive rise of the peepers may simply be a sign of their growing out of the ineptitude and insecurity of their younger years. The rise of the incest offenders vs. children, however, is more likely the product of impending marriage. Three groups, the prison and control groups plus the aggressors vs. adults, show a decrease in age-specific incidence with age. As yet we have no explanation for this.
The age-specific incidence of premarital coitus with prostitutes is in general considerably less than that with companions; in particular types of offenders it is rare at any time for it to exceed that with companions. One can see in some groups, however, that the incidence of coitus with prostitutes approaches the incidence of coitus with companions later in life. Also the differences between the incidences of commercial and noncommercial coitus are less among the homosexual-offender groups than among the heterosexual groups.
There is an increase, with age, in the range. Between puberty and age fifteen some 21 percentage points constituted the age-specific incidence range of coitus with prostitutes; by age-period 31—35 this had increased to 73 points. One has the impression that with increasing age, patterns of preference become more marked. Those who find reward in a certain activity continue it; those who find the activity less rewarding give it up and this difference in behavior expands the range.
Some clusterings may be noted in the rank-orders. The homosexual offenders and, to a lesser degree, the control group may be found in the lower third of the orders from age sixteen onward. The homosexual offenders are always neatly ranked in order of their heterosexual orientation. There is also a tendency for the aggressors to head the rank-orders. Two of the aggressor groups monopolize first place in all save one age-period.
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