Permissiveness, More or Less: Sexual Attitudes in the General Public

Abstract

SynopsisResponses on sexual permissiveness from 657 members of the general public were analysed in terms of age, church attendance, sex and education variables. While age and church attendance were found to significantly affect attitudes toward both premarital and extramarital relations, sex and education influenced only attitudes toward premarital permissiveness. When compared with college students, the results also revealed more conservative attitudes on the part of the general public toward both premarital and extramarital relations. For all categories of analysis, prevailing attitudes toward premarital relations were liberal, while the attitudes toward extramarital relations remained uniformly restrictive. Results were compared with previous Australian and overseas studies. It was noted that permissiveness does not appear to be a generalized concept, and should be discussed in terms of the differing effects of social background characteristics.