Religiosity and sexual behavior among heterosexual college students

Abstract

Abstract The relationship between religiosity and sexual behavior is examined with a sample of 290 female and 151 male college students. Across a wide range of sexual behaviors and dimensions of sexuality, religiosity is found to be negatively related to sexual experience. This relationship does not differ by gender. Additionally, religiosity among males is related to the sequence in which sexual behaviors are experienced in adolescence. Highly religious males have a significant tendency to reverse the sequence of sexual behaviors by having oral sexual experience before coitus. This reversal is discussed in terms of the outcome of an interaction between male sexual socialization and peer pressure which place a strong emphasis on males' obtaining sexual experience, and religious beliefs which emphasize the prohibition of coitus outside of marriage. This sequence reversal is thus seen as maintaining technical virginity at an age and in an environment which emphasize sexual experience.