The Changing Sexual Attitudes and Behaviors of Women

Working outside the home also changed women's attitudes toward sex.

The Janus Report on Sexual Behavior by Samuel Janus, Ph.D. and Cynthia Janus, M.D., copyright 1993, had some eye-opening observations along this line. They wrote, "Our study has documented many levels of sexual and social changes for both women and men in the early 1990s, but we acknowledge that women's, not men's, sexual attitudes and behavior have drastically changed within the past two decades.

"The enormous and ongoing change in women's social and sex lives has separated women into entirely different groups."

The Janus' write, "Work-life and a workplace outside the home have given a new focus to many women's lifestyles. The innovations transcend income earned or the nature of the work performed; more significantly, they involve a personal sense of identity that sets these women apart."

They continued, "In the women-C (career women) and the women-H (homemaker women) groups, we found that we had two distinctly different populations, regarding sex life and life-style in general.

"Women who work part-time outside the home offered responses that were almost always between those of the women-C and women-H groups."

Interesting!

But more interesting still was another observation of The Janus Report, "One of the most striking indications of our data involves the unprecedented levels of agreement between men and women-C (those who work full-time outside of the home), as compared to women-H, who do not work outside of the home at all. New levels of sexual affinity and relatedness can also be observed, in sharp contrast to the stereotypical sexual roles men and women have had assigned to them in the past."

They concluded, "No longer does the man alone decide the mode of sexual gratification; most often, the couple decides together."

The sexual revolution was followed by the reality of Herpes and AIDS and the need for safe sex. Many experts predicted a slow down for sex in general and certainly a slow down for those out in the less-safe singles' world.

Dr. and Dr. Janus found the experts were wrong.

They reported, "Approximately one-quarter of the men (24%) and one-fifth of the women (20%) had much more sex activity. When we combined sex activity."

They continued, "Perhaps not too surprisingly, the homemakers increased their sexual activity more than the career women did (43% versus 37%). We felt justified in assuming that more homemakers than career women were in ongoing monogamous relationships."

Certainly a major sexual change has taken place in American society. Assertiveness regarding the "when, where, and why" of sex rather than passive acquiescence to sex is now a prerogative exercised by many American women.

If the Janus' observations are accurate, much of this sexual change was brought about by women taking jobs outside the home and acquiring a heightened sense of personal identity.

Last updated: 8/05

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