Seeing the real through the eyes of the ideal: Some comments on Traeen, Lewin and Sundet's (1992) account of gender differences in Norwegian young people's sexual behaviour

Abstract

AbstractTraeen et al. (1992) present some interesting survey data on sexual behaviour amongst young Norwegians, and propose explanations of the results obtained in terms of cultural phenomena. This commentary draws on the author's own, as well as others', research to raise some questions regarding Traeen et al.'s claims. In particular, attention is drawn to some of the problems involved in the terminology used in asking questions about the contexts of sexual behaviour, and the ambiguities which have been found concerning such areas as ‘knowledge of partner’ and ‘length of knowing partners prior to intercourse’. The cultural explanations of the results reported are questioned on the grounds that they ignore the very strong data obtained in other countries concerning gendered power relations. Whilst there is no doubt that information is urgently needed on sexual activity amongst young people, it is argued that care needs to be taken in how far data derived purely from questionnaire studies can be used to enable full explanations to contextual issues. Some dangers of designing interventions on partial or misleading explanations are pointed out.