Sexual Behavior, Church Attendance, and Permissive Beliefs among Unmarried Young Men and Women

Abstract

Using a sample of 423 single men and women, we studied the frequency of sexual intercourse. It was predicted that to understand the conflicting findings about the effects of church attendance on young people's sexual behavior, other variables need to be considered. Accordingly, a five-way analysis of variance design, with independent variables of church attendance, sexual permissiveness, age, state, and gender, was used to study the dependent variables of sexual behavior. The only variable with a significant main effect was sexual permissiveness, not church attendance. However, there was a significant two-way interaction between church attendance and permissiveness and between permissiveness and gender. The means for permissive and nonpermissive females were similar, but for males the nonpermissive subjects had dramatically lower intercourse frequency. The interaction between church attendance and permissiveness resulted because nonpermissive males and females who attended church had the lowest frequency, but permissive subjects who attended church every week had one of the highest frequencies of sexual intercourse. The results are discussed in the context of other research on the relationship between church attendance and sexual behavior. We concluded that lower rates of sexual activity for this age group occur when there is a high level of church attendance but also a low level of sexual permissiveness.