William Simon

Sexual scripts: Permanence and change

A general introduction to scripting theory is offered, attempting to provide links between macrolevel considerations of sociocultural development and general theories of individual development. The scripting of behavior is examined on three distinct levels: cultural scenarios (instruction in collective meanings), interpersonal scripts (the application of specific cultural scenarios by a specific individual in a specific social context), and intrapsychic scripts (the management of desires as experienced by the individual). These concepts of the scripting of behavior are then applied to sexual behavior. Interpersonal scripts are seen as the ordering of representations of self and other that facilitate the occurrence of a sexual act; intrapsychic scripts represent the ordering of images and desires that elicit and sustain sexual arousal. Issues of stability and change in sexual scripts are then examined in terms of the changing circumstances and requirements associated with movement through the life cycle.

Adolescent Sexual Behavior: Context and Change

The study evaluates the proposition that there have been substantial changes in the incidence of adolescent sexual experimentation and in the normative context which facilitates this activity. The stratified, random sample is comprised of 2,064 white adolescents aged 14-17 living in Illinois households. Comparing their self-reported incidences of coitus with those obtained for Kinseys samples, the data support in-tergender convergence, with the unanticipated finding that a substantial reduction in the incidence of male adolescent pre-marital coitus has occurred. A negative relationship obtains between the incidence of coitus and educational aspirations and religiosity. The incidence of coitus is positively related to alienation from parents and, for males, with involvement with peers. For females, the incidence of coitus is associated systematically with extent of dyadic involvement. For both males and females, there is a positive relationship between the incidence of coitus and participation in delinquent activities.

Black Families and the Moynihan Report: A Research Evaluation

The major hypothesis of the Moynihan Report posits that the black family socializes children very differently from the way that the white family socializes children. It thus produces more antisocial behavior, ineffective education, and lower levels of occupational attainment. The current study employs data collected from a random sample of the 14-18 year old population of Illinois and examines the joint effects of race, gender, social class, and family organization on a number of indicators of family interaction, antisocial behavior patterns, educational aspirations, and gender role conceptions. Few differences were found in the ways that families treat their children, and these differences were not concentrated in the lower class. Even in the lower-class broken family, there was no indication that black families are dramatically different from white families. Thus, in terms of delinquency, educational expectations, perceptions of the education desired by the parents, self conceptions, and notions of appropriate gender role behavior of adults, the empirical evidence does not provide adequate support for the conclusions of the Moynihan Report.

Homosexuality: the formulation of a sociological perspective.

Homosexuality, as well as other forms of social or sexual deviance, has tended to require special conceptual approaches, approaches that all too often treat non-deviant forms of behavior (e.g., heterosexuality, noncriminal behavior, nonsuicidal behavior, etc.), as unexplained residual categories. The failure to link deviant and non-deviant behaviors or roles has produced a literature that grossly exaggerates the deviant component in behavior and role management. Often the deviant is located in a social landscape that has been stripped of everything but his deviant commitment. The present paper considers the homosexual within the conceptual framework of general developmental processes; it approaches homosexuality as a heterogeneous category, indicating the diversity of homosexual and non-sexual roles the homosexual may play, the significance of transitions associated with life-cycle changes, and, reversing the typical approach, takes into consideration the way in which non-sexual roles and commitments influence sexual roles and commitments.

Beyond anxiety and fantasy: the coital experiences of college youth.

Counting virgins is described as social bookkeeping, a necessary but not sufficient task for social scientists. More important is the development of an understanding of the social processes which encourage or inhibit coital behavior. The analysis in this paper uses the socialbookkeeping approach to document the relatively stable rates of early and premarital coitus since the Kinsey report. The data are drawn from a 1972 study of 14–18-year-olds and a 1967 study of college students. When appropriate controls for educational attainment and age are introduced, it is shown that, in comparison to the change in rates at the beginning of the century, the rates since the 1940s have increased only a fourth as much. More importantly, coital behavior is shown to be still strongly linked to traditional patterns of restraint and facilitation. Traditional factors, such as relationships with parents and religious attendance, are shown to restrain early coital experience (defined as coitus before age 18), while factors linked to the courtship process such as dating frequency, facilitated this early behavior. During college both restraining and facilitating factors were operative, but levels of coital behavior in most cases stayed surprisingly low. Rates of frequent coitus rarely reached 40% among female college seniors and the proportion of college female seniors with three or more partners never reached 20%. The factors which encourage sexual activity during college are the courtship factorsdating behavior and being in love. In terms of initial coitus, women overwhelmingly report that they were in love with their partner. Given the relative stability of rates of early and premarital coitus and continuity of the role of courtship factors in facilitating this behavior, popular discussions of the contemporary sexual revolution are seen as being out of touch with reality and possibly inducing anxiety among young people when they do not experience the sexual revolution.

The Anomie of Affluence: A Post-Mertonian Conception

Mertons conceptualization of anomie theory is examined in terms of the influence of the economic and social conditions surrounding its initial formulation: circumstance of chronic depression. The anomie potentially generated by unanticipated affluence, a more central concern for Durkheim, is discussed by way of contrast. A tentative typology of deviant adaptation is constructed utilizing questions of (a) commitment to approved cultural goals and (b) the degree to wich achievement of substantial progress toward such goals is realized. It is suggested that this typology might be particularly effective in the understanding of deviance at higher socioeconomic levels. The essay also consider implication of Durkheims underlying model of the human.

Femininity in the Lesbian Community

A major deficiency in the limited available literature on the female homosexual has been its use of a deviant sexual commitment as a primary explanatory variable. The present paper re-examines selected aspects of both the sexual and non-sexual adaptations of lesbians in terms of general female patterns. Within the limits set by a deviant gender preference, much of the behavior of the lesbian can be explained in terms of non-deviant sex role expectations. The analysis points to the need to consider the lesbian, as well as other deviant actors, in terms not only of the degree of failure of conventional socialization, but also the degree of success of conventional socialization.

Deviance as history: the future of perversion

An approach to the social construction of concepts of sexual deviance and sexual perversions is considered. Deviance is conceptualized as a problem of control, perversion a problem of desire. These are seen as related to the larger sexual and nonsexual discursive practices of society and given to change as these contextualizing practices change. Changing conceptions regarding masturbation, homosexuality, pedophilia, and sadomasochism are examined.

Youth and pornography in social context

Data drawn from two studies of adolescents are used to analyze the relationship between indicators of participation in conventional social networks and exposure to sexually explicit media. In both studies, the data indicate that higher degrees of participation in friendship networks, dating patterns, etc., are related to higher levels of exposure to a variety of sexually explicit media. Sexually explicit media are related to sexual behavior, but sexual behavior is also strongly related to participation in adolescent social behavior patterns. Sexually explicit media (pornography) are very often viewed as a powerful behavior-shaping mechanism, but this view is not supported by the data presented in this paper. Rather, pornography is seen as an element in a total picture of media consumption, and like other media it is consumed in proportion to the social position of the consumer. Adolescence is seen as a time of coming to grips with heterosociality and heterosexuality in a world which provides little training for either. Pornography is seen as one of the few media which at least provide an imagery and language for this process of sociosexual development. Levels of exposure to pornography are seen to be low (not exceeding the number of pictures in a years issue of Playboyor a single deck of sexually explicit playing cards) and unable to increase sexual experimentation, although the reverse may be true.

Sexual Deviance in Contemporary America

Sexual deviance was traditionally seen within the framework of a societys definition of morality and sin; today it is being viewed from the vantage point of the soci etys definition of mental health and emotional disturbance. A typology of categories of sex deviance is suggested, using three variables: incidence or frequency, the level of invoked sanctions, and the existence of a specialized social structure that may arise out of the deviant behavior or may be neces sary to support it. It is suggested that the deviant sub cultures do not attain their new adherents by recruitment, but rather by enlistment. Several shifts in the patterns of deviant behavior are noted.