EFFECTS OF SEX GUILT AND PREMARITAL SEXUAL PERMISSIVENESS ON ROLE-PLAYED SEX-EDUCATION AND MORAL ATTITUDES

Eighty single college women participated in three role-playing situations: (a) warm-up, (b) sex education, and (c) sexual advice to study the influence of attitudes and personality of the sex educator on the process of sex education. The women had previously taken measures of sex guilt, premarital sexual permissiveness, and sex myths. High-sex guilt women and women with restrictive premarital sexual standards endorsed more sex myths and communicated less accurate information about reproduction and definitions of sexual terms in a role-playing situation with a 13-year-old girl experiencing her menarche. In a role-playing sexual advice situation, college women were more morally condemning of a roommate who had her first coital experience with a physically attractive acquaintance than when the first coital experience was with a loved fiancé. High-sex-guilt women and premaritally sexually restrictive women were morally condemning of premarital coitus regardless of the nature of the relationship. © 1979, Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. All rights reserved.