Not only has the frequency of marital intercourse increased in this generation, but its other parameters also appear to have been affected by attitudinal and behavioral changes in the direction of greater freedom and permissiveness. Both foreplay and coitus are reported to last longer and to include acceptance and use of a greater variety of techniques by more people. These increases have occurred in all age groups and across educational levels but are greatest among the young and the non-college population.
Kinsey found that precoital activities such as mouth-breast contact, manual stimulation of the genitals, and cunnilingus and fellatio were more characteristic of the college-educated persons in his samples, and that at any educational level, they were more often reported by younger individuals. For example, the percentages of males using cunnilingus in marital foreplay were 4%, 15%, and 45% for grade school, high school, and college levels respectively. Manual stimulation of the female genitalia was utilized by 95% of the under-twenty-five age group, compared to 83% of the over-forty-six group.
Hunt found striking increases in the use of certain techniques in marital foreplay. In general, the increases were greatest for those activities which had been most strongly tabooed. The increase in breast play, for example, was small, since this activity was common in Kinsey’s time. The biggest changes were in oral-genital acts, which have long been not only morally tabooed but legally forbidden as well in most states. In contrast to the 15% of high school males whom Kinsey found had used cunnilingus, Hunt’s study revealed that 56% of his sample at that educational level had done so. Corresponding data for college males in the two studies were 45% and 66%. Among the Redbook wives, (Tavris and Sadd) 87% reported experience with cunnilingus. The fact that this group was younger and better educated fits with the observations of both Kinsey and Hunt on the greater incidence of such behavior in these populations.
Duration of foreplay has also increased, especially among the less educated. Kinsey’s histories for his lower-level sample suggested that precoital play in marriage was often quite perfunctory, consisting of a kiss or two, while his college men might extend such play to five minutes or more. Hunt found no difference by educational level. Foreplay averaged about fifteen minutes for both college and non-college married men.
Married people today report using a greater variety of positions in actual intercourse than did their counterparts a generation ago. Kinsey reported that nearly all coitus in our culture occurs with the partners face-to-face and the man on top. As many as 70%, he said, had never used any other position. By contrast, Hunt found that the female-above position is used by three-fourths of all married couples at least some of the time. Likewise, rear-entry vaginal intercourse was used by only a tenth of Kinsey’s sample, compared to four-tenths of Hunt’s (Hunt).
Finally, the duration of coitus has increased dramatically among married people. Kinsey reported that three-fourths of all males probably reached orgasm within two minutes after intromission. In an interesting discussion of the pros and cons of the speedy orgasm for males, Kinsey revealed his belief that the male who responded so quickly, far from being “impotent” as some had labeled him, was in fact normal or even superior, “however inconvenient and unfortunate his qualities may be from the standpoint of the wife”. Today prolongation of the sexual act is the goal for many. Hunt found that the median duration of marital intercourse, as reported by both males and females, was ten minutes—not long, but an improvement (from the female view) over the hasty performance reported by a generation past. Moreover, differences owing to such factors as education, occupation, religious and political attitudes were either nonexistent or quite small. Younger people, however, spend more time on their marital love-making than older ones do. Given the greater urgency associated with youthful libido, this must reflect subjective differences in values as a function of age.
It is not difficult to identify at least some of the factors responsible for these changes: lifting of old sanctions against sex for non-procreative purposes; increase in premarital sex; availability of birth control, with increasing acceptance of sterilization and abortion; disinhibiting effects of media presentations: explicit movies, books, and magazines; greater availability of information about sex, with emphasis on sex as valuable and pleasurable in and of itself; and the contemporary women’s movement, which has informed women and men that the sexual needs of women are just as important as are those of men and has taught women to ask and to expect that their needs will be met in the sexual relationship. In any case, the shifts in marital sexual behavior are remarkable: “We stand convinced that a dramatic and historic change has taken place in the practice of marital coitus in America” (Hunt).
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