Marital And Sexual Lifestyles In The United States

Learn the changing role of sexuality in American life! This helpful book offers a solid background in the sociology of family life and personal sexuality. Marital and Sexual Lifestyles in the United States: Attitudes, Behaviors, and Relationships in Social Context is designed to give readers a broad view of the diversity of contemporary U. S. attitudes, behaviors, and relationships. It also covers basic sociological concepts and research methods. Most human sexuality texts focus on the individual, whereas texts designed for sociology courses on the family downplay individual sexual expression. Marital and Sexual Lifestyles in the United Statesintegrates the two approaches. The choices of the individual take on additional meaning when seen within a unified historical, statistical, and conceptual framework. Marital and Sexual Lifestyles in the United States gives readers the tools to consider such pressing issues as: Does the divorce rate mean that the institution of marriage is in trouble? Are children's futures impaired if they come from single-parent households? Should same-sex couples be allowed to marry? How does marriage differ from cohabitation? What are the real sexual differences between the genders? What is sexual morality? How much confidence can we place in studies of human sexuality by such social scientists as Alfred Kinsey and Masters and Johnson? These questions and others like them are placed in the context of U. S. social trends, beginning with the 1950s and moving toward today. Plentifully illustrated with tables, charts, and figures that show where we are going as well as where we have been, Marital and Sexual Lifestyles in the United States gives a clear perspective on relationships in social context.

Learn the changing role of sexuality in American life! This helpful book offers a solid background in the sociology of family life and personal sexuality. Marital and Sexual Lifestyles in the United States: Attitudes, Behaviors, and Relationships in Social Context is designed to give readers a broad view of the diversity of contemporary U. S. attitudes, behaviors, and relationships. It also covers basic sociological concepts and research methods. Most human sexuality texts focus on the individual, whereas texts designed for sociology courses on the family downplay individual sexual expression. Marital and Sexual Lifestyles in the United Statesintegrates the two approaches. The choices of the individual take on additional meaning when seen within a unified historical, statistical, and conceptual framework. Marital and Sexual Lifestyles in the United States gives readers the tools to consider such pressing issues as: Does the divorce rate mean that the institution of marriage is in trouble? Are children's futures impaired if they come from single-parent households? Should same-sex couples be allowed to marry? How does marriage differ from cohabitation? What are the real sexual differences between the genders? What is sexual morality? How much confidence can we place in studies of human sexuality by such social scientists as Alfred Kinsey and Masters and Johnson? These questions and others like them are placed in the context of U. S. social trends, beginning with the 1950s and moving toward today. Plentifully illustrated with tables, charts, and figures that show where we are going as well as where we have been, Marital and Sexual Lifestyles in the United States gives a clear perspective on relationships in social context.

Now available in a new paperback edition, this survey is different in both breadth and scope from all other reports on sexuality in the United States. It covers every topic imaginable, from a multicultural point of view, in order to reflect fully the complex society in which we live: the biological, psychological, social, and spiritual aspects of our sexual lives.

The period of young adulthood, from ages 18 to 23, is popularly considered the most sexualized in life. But is it true? What do we really know about the sexual lives of young people today?Premarital Sex in America combines illuminating personal stories and comprehensive research surveys to provide the fullest portrait of heterosexuality among young adults ever produced. Mark Regnerus and Jeremy Uecker draw upon a wealth of survey data as well as scores of in-depth interviews with young adults from around the country, both in and out of college. Digging underneath stereotypes and unexamined assumptions, the authors offer compelling--and often surprising--answers to such questions as: How do the emotional aspects of sexual relations differ between young men and women? What role do political orientations play in their sexual relations? How have online dating and social networking sites affected the relationships of emerging adults? Why are young people today waiting so much longer to marry? How prevalent are nontraditional forms of sex, and what do people think of them? To better understand what drives the sexual behaviors of emerging adults, Regnerus and Uecker pay special attention to two important concepts: sexual scripts, the unwritten and often unconscious rules that guide sexual behavior and attitudes; and sexual economics, a theory which suggests that the relative scarcity of men on college campuses contributes to the "hookup" culture by allowing men to diminish their level of commitment and thereby lower the "price" they have to "pay" for sex.For anyone wishing to understand how sexual relations between young adults have changed and are changing, Premarital Sex in America will serve as a touchstone for years to come.

Excerpt from Marriage, Morals, and Sex in America: A History of Ideas In every instance, actors on the reform stage made certain to connect their emphasis with some set of intellectual, social, or politi cal principles. Many placed their ideological wares on sale in the public market, while they themselves lived privately in accordance with socially accepted patterns of sexual behavior. They wrote es says and lectured to audiences, but did nothing about their griev auces and suggestions. The account of such persons will consist of placing their ideas in the context of the period in which they lived. Biographical details will cast light upon the circumstances attending the birth of their ideas. Alongside the theoreticians, there were the bold practitioners like the Oneida Perfectionists and free love anarchists who acted out the ideas they advanced. The pages de voted to these will naturally savor more of life and less of print er's ink. One remarkable similarity about practically all of these reform movements was that a large portion of their efforts was directed toward creating an equitable balance of power between the sexes, plus a more satisfying expression of sexuality for both sexes. When apparently identical ideas appeared in the context of separate re form movements, they were in actuality distinct as to logic and flavor but related in that they pursued a common objective. In brief, whatever their political, humanitarian, medical, faddist or religious complexions, these many reformers have been contributors to the feminist cause. Marriage, Morals, and Sex in America is, therefore, a complete story of the woman's rights movement - of the struggle to achieve human rights for a sexual minority. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

When one partner in a relationship is unfaithful to the other, it takes a lot of work by both parties involved to salvage the relationship. In today’s therapy-friendly climate, marriage/couples counseling is often a part of that rebuilding process. Many couples seek out professional therapy after an affair is out in the open, but often the act of infidelity is revealed while uncovering and discussing unrelated issues for which the couple is in counseling. And yet, amazingly, as common as this complex and difficult topic arises in therapy, there is relatively little professional literature devoted to understanding and "treating" infidelity. In this volume, Paul Peluso has assembled a truly impressive list of contributors from a range of disciplines and backgrounds, including marital therapy, family therapy, evolutionary psychology, marriage research, and cyberstudies, with the aim of filling this void.

Taking an historical, cross-cultural, and global approach, this book focuses on the link between social structure and theeveryday livesof people's diverse experiences of marriages, families, and intimate relationships. It shows how contemporary families go well beyond the traditional, heterosexual, two-parent, white, middle class family and heterosexual legally-sanctioned marriage; challenges the assumption that one culture's way of doing things is the “natural” or “right” way; shows how marriage and family life have changed historically over time and from place to place; and how political and economic globalization impacts families worldwide. Features extensive boxed material accompanied by questions for personal reflection.Marriages and Families Over Time. Ways of Studying and Explaining Marriages and Families. Understanding Gender: Its Influence In Intimate Relationships. The Many Faces of Love. Dating, Coupling, and Mate Selection. Sexuality and Intimate Relationships. Nonmarital Lifestyles. The Marriage Experience. Reproduction and Parenting. Evolving Work and Family Structures. Violence and Abuse. The Process of Uncoupling: Divorce in the United States. Remarriage and Remarried Families. Families in Later Life. Marriages and Families in the Twenty-first Century: U.S. and World Trends.For anyone interested in marriage and family dynamics, including individuals, counselors, nurses, social workers, home economists, etc.

1. BACKGROUND In the last ten years there has been much popular discus sion and also a great scholarly interest in the so-called "alternative lifestyles" (1). ESgecially, since the late 1J60's, a diversity of lifestyles other than the nuclear family began to emerge, according to demographic changes in household compositions during the past decade (US Bureau of Census, 1979; Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek, 1930). One lifestyle, non-marital cohabitation, has increased most dra matically during the ~ast ten years and is the subject of this study. The term cohabitation will be used exclusively throughout the remainder of this study to refer to hetero sexual couples who are living together without being married legally. Despite its recent rapid increase, one should not overlook the fact that cohabitation, in comparison with legal marriage, remains an alternative practiced by a minority of the couples at any ?oint in time. For the Netherlands, it is estimated that 7 percent of all couples are living together unmarried, and 93 percent are married (Straver, 1981). This cohabitation rate is about twice as low when compared to rates in countries like Sweden and Denmark where they are 16 percent (the highest rate in Europe) and 13 percent (Trost, 1979), but still about twice as high when compared to the 3 percent estimate for the United States (Macklin, 1980).