More Than 9 Out Of 10 Americans Had Premarital Sex - Even Grandparents!

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,237611,00.html ^ | 12/19/06 | Unknown

[Froufrou]

More than nine out of 10 Americans, men and women alike, have had premarital sex, according to a new study. The high rates extend even to women born in the 1940s, challenging perceptions that people were more chaste in the past.

"This is reality-check research," said the study's author, Lawrence Finer. "Premarital sex is normal behavior for the vast majority of Americans, and has been for decades."

Finer is a research director at the Guttmacher Institute, a private New York-based think tank that studies sexual and reproductive issues and which disagrees with government-funded programs that rely primarily on abstinence-only teachings. The study, released Tuesday, appears in the new issue of Public Health Reports.

The study, examining how sexual behavior before marriage has changed over time, was based on interviews conducted with more than 38,000 people — about 33,000 of them women — in 1982, 1988, 1995 and 2002 for the federal National Survey of Family Growth. According to Finer's analysis, 99 percent of the respondents had had sex by age 44, and 95 percent had done so before marriage.

Even among a subgroup of those who abstained from sex until at least age 20, four-fifths had had premarital sex by age 44, the study found.

[durasell]

Thomas Paine had a three way living arrangement...





I have to go back and re-read The Age of Reason...

[Froufrou]

When veiwed in that context, are we [I'm a boomer] supposed to be PROUD of it? That's what he's hinting.

I still think a woman gets more respect when she's not so easy. That afterglow doesn't linger the same for men.

[redgolum]

LOL! It does make it a bit more ironic!

[MOgirl]

Hello,

OMG, that is exactly what happened to me. I innocently asked where babies come from. At age 5, I would have been happy with the stork story! But, no, I got details, lots of details: names of body parts, what happens between the body parts, the whole bit, related to me by my Dad.

I didn't speak to him for about a month, according to my Mom....

MOgirl

[Campion]

The "Enlightenment" wasn't exactly a golden age of chastity, especially among the upper and educated classes. (Both in America and in Europe.) Most of the members of those groups were rather alienated from orthodox Christianity; it was a popular time to be a deist, a Mason, etc.

In fact, it was also about that time that a certain English doctor invented something that bears his name to this day. Dr. Condom, I presume?

[Mrs. Don-o]

Since when is "judgmental" bad? I expect an adult to be a person of sound judgment.

Besides, you're caught in an internal contradiction. You think the OlLine Rebel's comments are objectionable? bad? un-called-for? Oh dear, you're being so--- um--- "judgmental."

[Mrs. Don-o]

I'm pretty tender on Annie Lamott. I've read all her books, some of them twice, and really felt for her when she went ballistic about the baby she aborted because she clearly feels wretched about it.

She has suffered as much as anyone; more than most. I sure hope Jesus, to whom she has turned, will lead her to peace on this. Her conflicted heart--- at this point--- is giving her no peace.

[Rca2000]

Out of modesty and the unwillingness to initiate another full-scale nuclear war here between myself and others--I will take the 5th amendment. I have been excoriated by so-called conservatives and Christians here for my beliefs one too many times.

[Mrs. Don-o]

i like sex...That's all anyone needs to know. :) (Besides my hubby, of course! hehe)

Know what'cha mean!

[delacoert]

Among women born between 1950 and 1978, at least 91 percent had had premarital sex by age 30, he said, while among those born in the 1940s, 88 percent had done so by age 44.

What great comparison. /sarc

[Mrs. Don-o]

Oh yeah, you can find plenty of licentiousness in the OT, and in NT times, the common euphemism for a whore was Corinthian girl. Keep that in mind next time you read Paul's Epistle to the Corinthians.

In many ways, the father (except I hate to demean the noble word "father") of the modern Sexual Revolution was Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade,(June 2, 1740 – December 2, 1814).

But the real paraphernalia for the present and most radical decomposition of sex was the oral contraceptive, as Playboy's History of the Sexual Revolution makes perfectly clear.

[Mrs. Don-o]

I'm glad you met the right guy! The one I met (and married) is worth his weight in gold!

Love that man!

[Mrs. Don-o]

Such tidbits about the "Fathers of our Country" always call to mind that old saying, "Hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue."

We could use more of that "tribute" these days.

One big difference is that sexually irresponsible and exploitative behavior was ashamed to show its face in public in the days of Jefferson -- even, shall we say, in the days of Jack Kennedy, no matter how callously he used women on the side. It was not the way parents taught their children to behave, nor teachers their students.

Now we have adults, teachers, authorities, actively and openly encouraging children to disport among themselves like young swine. It is still fashionable to smirk about the Borgias of the Renaissance; but now the adults --- I'll supply you with the websites, beginning with Planned Parenthood---are Borgias.

[Clemenza]

Raise your hand if you're one of the "one in ten."

(Crickets Chirping).

[Clemenza]

However he was a Marine, so he knows what he's doing. Yeah, baby!

Puts me in mind of a joke that a gay Korean War vet once told me:

What's the difference between a butch Marine and a regular Marine?

A butch Marine holds his legs up FOR you.

[durasell]

The only thing that's changed is that discretion has fallen out of style.

[Let's Roll]

First of all, if there is one thing men lie about it's how much they are getting.

And, yeah, there were always a few loose women in any community.

[ripley]

so, what's the point? what are they trying to prove?

(i smell a rat)

[Let's Roll]

If all of these people that this "study" says were having sex decades ago in a time when contraceptives etc. were less effective than they are today there would have been even more "consequences" than there are today.

Since there were not, then yes you have "to assume". What people "say" or what a study with an agenda - they are opposed to government abstinence programs - says they said - is less credible than the lack of "consequences" as far as "proving" what today's grandparents were up to back then.

And even if they ALL did - you only have to have premarital sex once (hardly swingers by today's standards) to accurately be defined by this statement: "According to Finer's analysis, 99 percent of the respondents had had sex by age 44, and 95 percent had done so before marriage."

This "study" is a non story.

[freedomlover]

It evens out after marriage.