In the discussion of the Islamic Middle East and China, we saw that sexual pleasure for both men and women was more highly valued in earlier times than in the contemporary era. In the Western world the opposite is generally true, due to cultural changes regarding the purpose of sexual behavior and societal expectations for male and female sexuality. The patterns, conflicts, and changes stem from two themes: the belief that procreation is the only legitimate reason for sexual expression and the value of rigid distinctions between male and female roles. We will review these themes in the following two sections.
Sex for Procreation
Historically in North America the idea that procreation was the only legitimate reason for sexual activity was prevalent. Contemporary Roman Catholic doctrine and some pro-life organizations continue to hold the belief that the only moral sexual expression occurs within marriage for purposes of procreation. For example, the American Life League maintains that people should not use contraception because "birth control leads to a state of mind that treats sexual activity as if it has nothing to do with procreation. Sexual activity becomes a recreational activity, birth control becomes a recreational drug and babies become accidents’ or burdens to be eliminated" (American Life League, 2011a, p. 1). In this view, when a couple has sexual intercourse, they have committed themselves to any resultant pregnancy. An opposing view maintains, "Attacks on reproductive rights are attacks on sexuality. Frankly, I’m tired of a small anti-sex, anti-pleasure, anti-life minority imposing their outrageous sex-negative views on the rest of us" (Goddard, 2011).
Sexual behaviors that provide pleasure without the possibility of procreation—such as masturbation, oral sex, anal intercourse, and sex between same-sex partners—have been viewed at various times as immoral, sinful, perverted, or illegal (Roffman, 2005). In fact, oral sex and anal sex remained illegal in 10 states until 2003, when the Supreme Court overturned the laws forbidding those behaviors. The Court determined that the constitutional right to privacy protects private sexual contact between consenting adults.
Although most North Americans today do not believe that sexual activity is only for procreation, a residual effect of this belief is that many in our society often think of sex and intercourse as synonymous. Therefore, anything other than a penis in a vagina is not "sex." In the scandal involving President Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, which began in 1998, Clinton’s initial declaration that he did not have "sex with that woman" was true if "sex" is restricted to mean "intercourse," excluding kissing, oral sex, and genital petting. This perspective remains commonplace: In a study published in 2010, 80% of college students did not think that they "had sex" if they experienced only oral sex (Hans et al., 2010).
Certainly penile-vaginal intercourse can be a fulfilling part of heterosexual sexual expression, but excessive emphasis on intercourse can have negative consequences, as the following situation that brought a young couple to sex therapy illustrates:
When we started going out, we decided to wait a while before having intercourse, but we had lots of hot sex together-orgasms and all. After we started having intercourse, all the other great stuff went by the wayside and sex became very routine and not much fun. (Authors’ files)
Thinking of intercourse as the only "real sex" perpetuates the notions that a man’s penis is the primary source of satisfaction for his partner and that her sexual response and orgasm are supposed to occur during penetration. Such a narrow focus places tremendous performance pressures on both women and men and can create unrealistic expectations of coitus itself. This view can also result in devaluing nonintercourse sexual intimacy, which is often relegated to the secondary status offoreplay (usually considered any activity before intercourse), implying that such activity is not important in and of itself and is to be followed by the "real sex" of intercourse. In addition, sexual activity between members of the same sex does not fit the model of sex for procreation, causing people unfamiliar with gay and lesbian sexual practices, knowing that they do not involve penile-vaginal intercourse, to wonder, "What do they actually do during sex?"