INVESTIGATION IN SEXUAL BEHAVIOUR: BRITAIN 2

Neither of the British surveys showed that sexual intercourse ‘indulged in by young, immature people leads to irresistible sexual impulses to which the person rapidly becomes addicted’, as some concerned older people believe.

Forty-one per cent of those who had sexual intercourse repeated the experience within a week, 50 per cent within 2 weeks, and 60 per cent within a month; but 20 per cent did not have sex again for at least 3 months. Fortunately, with repeated sexual intercourse the percentage enjoying the experience increased to over 90 per cent.

When pre-marital sex was related to the social class of the young people there was a slight difference. The children of middle-class parents and manual-worker parents had pre-marital sex equally frequently, but the children of non-manual workers had premarital sex less frequently than the other classes.

Schofield’s survey showed that in Britain, by 1973, sexual intercourse was fairly common before marriage, and was widely accepted by young people, but it started later than many older people claimed. Nor was there any evidence that more young people were sexual adventurers than in earlier surveys.

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