Marriage is the only human relationship within which sexual intercourse is universally sanctioned. We have seen, however, how variable are individuals within groups. Among some people, marital intercourse is proscribed at certain times, as during menstruation and pregnancy. Among others, provision is made routinely for extramarital liaisons, as among the Turu, and in Western countries which have institutionalized the mistress-lover relationship. Within groups data also testify to individual variation in needs, tastes, and behavior. Even within an individual’s historical repertoire, changes over time may be observed as a life style evolves and new behaviors emerge.

Generalizations about sex in marriage seem possible only for carefully defined samples, the results qualified by attention to the sources of variation and their effects. Currently in our society, we can describe the scene of marital sexuality only as pluralistic, providing many models, each with adaptations and variants. From one couple’s brief, once-a-week encounter, never deviating from the male superior position, to another’s daily, highly sensual, experimenting adventure, to yet another’s exploration of swinging and group sex, and many others closer to and farther from the norm, we gain a sense of the plasticity of human sexual experience as it occurs in the old institution of marriage.

*95/187/5*

Related Posts:

• MALE FERTILITY TESTS: FRUCTOSE, ANTI-SPERM ANTIBODY AND POST-COITAL TESTS
• THE MASTERS AND JOHNSON TREATMENT OF SEXUAL DISFUNCTION: THERAPEUTIC APPROACH
• BISEXUALISM: DIAGNOSIS, THERAPY AND PROGNOSIS
• GAINING ACCESS TO NONTRADITIONAL OCCUPATIONS
• MEN’S SEXUALITY AND WOMEN’S SEXUALITY
• ERECTION PROBLEMS: SEMIRIGID PROSTHESES
• ERECTION PROBLEMS: ALL ABOUT BLOOD TESTS
• SEXUAL PROBLEMS: FIXING A COMMUNICATION BREAKDOWN
• SEX IN YOUR RELATIONSHIPS
• ADOLESCENCE AND EARLY 20′S: ERECTION EASE