GENDER DIFFERENCES
HOW DO MEN AND WOMEN DIFFER? TWO INTREPID RESEARCHERS HAVE ACTUALLY COUNTED THE WAYS.
Surveying more than 100 studies on gender differences, Mary Beth Oliver, Ph.D., and Janet Shelby Hyde, Ph.D., came up with a grand total of 21 ways in which men and women differ in sexual behavior and attitudes. The good news, they report in Psychological Bulletin (Vol. 114, No. 1), is that gender differences are growing smaller. Here are the highlights:
o Men are more sexually experienced than women.
o Men lose their virginity earlier than women.
o Men have sex more frequently and report more sexual partners over their lifetime.
o Men have more permissive attitudes about sex; they are more accepting of premarital sex and less likely to feel guilty about it than women.
o Men are more likely to engage in homosexual acts, although men and women differ little in their attitudes towards homosexuality.
o Masturbation is the great divide. Although attitudes toward masturbation barely differ between men and women, men are nearly twice as likely to do it during the course of their lifetimes than women--92% of men compared with 58% of women. Masturbation, a manifestation of generalized sex drive, may be the force behind men's more permissive attitudes towards sex.
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