October 11th, 2012 Topic 9 Marital sexuality  2 things interesting about marriage. 1960: reach peak for age at first marriage. Since then, age for marriage has increased. The average age women is upper 20. Men, 30.  General consequences: fewer children. Italy has lowest birthrate out of Eurozone (1 child per family, marriage at age 30)  US has reached the point where if it wasn’t for immigration, then population wouldn’t increase. Truefor all 1st world.  You get more deductions if your married. In Europe there was no deduction. Instead, they will marrywhen they decide to have children for financial purposes.  There is very little expectation practically that people will be sexually inexperienced or virgins at marriage.  The norm is premarital sex. Average age for first time sex is 17. What makes this possible? Makes it work?  The ready availability of BIRTH CONTROL.  Still, unlike European countries, first pregnancies in marriage in America are actually unplanned for 40% of those who get married It’s as though they were so careful before, but now they failed. Myth: sex becomes less interesting after people are married. NOT TRUE. There is greater frequency of sex within married couples than unmarried couples.  The adventures of the beginning of marriage in regard to sex: Time is available, more freedom.  Place available to have sex in private.  All of the social sanctions about having sex are now positive. The parents of bride and groom urge their kids to have sex They want grandchildren Period called honey moon. Derived from honey month.  There is difference between loving people and being in love . Being in love is a semi pathological commission. - When you love somebody, you allow for discrepancies and problems. - When you’re in love, your simply blind to all of those. Being in love doesn’t last. People have developed scales to measure love.  Lakers Scale  Eros: physical love Loudous: to play Storga: friendship- maintain relationship for long time. Marry a friend. Pragma: Mania: low scores mean high on mania Ludous and mania together are very dangerous. Agape: Spiritual love Combo of Eros, Storga, with some Agape and a little pragma are the ones who are to form the most stable relationship.  Wolster came up with different classification of love Talked about companionate love(storga, pragma, agape) and passionate love( Eros, ludous, mania) Love did not last for more than 2 years.  Companionate relationships will usually last Margaret Sanger : Planned parenthood. Only have number of children you can comfortably support. Birth control permits this from taking place. Second interesting thing about marriage sexuality is things that were spontaneous now have to be scheduled. Both parents are usually working and busy. You get monetary and non monetary rewards (raise, promotion)  If couples see competition between work rewards and lovey dovey marriage, they will choose work rewards, making sex having to be scheduled.  Fatigue takes away from marital relationships. A vacation used to mean getting away and playing. Now that idea has disappeared for most middle class of US. Now they keep their laptops with them to make sure they get work done before they get displaced by another employee.  Couples need good communication skills to explain what’s going on when “they don’t feel like it”  At least 50% of all marriages will end in divorce.  Money and children can cause sex not to occur. After marriage, you don’t have to convince partner to do it, or make a romantic setting. They being to rationalize and say that sex is not a big deal He or she is getting fat Some people solve the problem with fantasy. They imagine their having sex with some movie star or model and it covers up the boredom with the mate.  Challenges even when sex is going well.1. Pregnancy: people scared to have sex during pregnancy, but it’s safe. 2. Kids: we don’t show sex around children who will be corrupted if we do. Sex could’ve been loud and moaning, but now it needs to be quiet around kids. Emotions suppressed!3. Challenge of the other zebra: Hubby goes to work, she stays at home. Wife has sex with another man. Hubby has sex with one of his female coworkers. 4. Middle Age: You discovered that there is nowhere else to go. Youthful dreams of wild success will not be fulfilled. Frequency of sex drops.  There are adventures to bring things back (Strategies)1. I brought home this book. Designed by physicians for married couples only that stresses the positive side of sex and encouraged it.2. Total woman concept: woman get very clean perfumed and clothed and greet your husband. Man has to be entertained, so women try hard.3. Creative vacations: one problem for married couples is that they have so many demands on their time that they don’t have time to be a couple by themselves anymore. Go on a couplesvacation and just talk.  When marriage got canonized in early history of civilization, average life span was around 30 years. People got married in late teens early 20s. Today average male will live to be around 80 and female too. If they both got married around 20, then you have 60 years to change in harmony. Is that realistic? However, people who manage to make it.10/16/2012 Topic 9 Extramarital behavior Married people having sex outside of marriage bond. Kinsey found that 7000 men committed adultery. Adultery is one of the earliest sex crimes Initially a female crime. It was an offense by a women to her husband. Could be punished by death because wives were property. The only other sex crime in Hammurabi’s code was rape. If the girl was young. The crime was done against her father, husband, or brothers.  4 kinds of extramarital behavior Covert adultery : spouse keeps it a secret from wife or husband. Consequence of discovery involved frequently divorce. And the aggrieved party usually benefits from the financial settlement  Women would be discouraged to have divorce because she would lose financial support for herself and children. If the wife was the adulteress, then divorce was very common. The social consequences for a male were much more severe than female because he would lose standing in his social position with his fellow men Consensual Adultery : (2 Types)a. The spouses agree