Sexual Behavior and Attitudes among White, Black, Latinx, and Asian College Students
In her 2017 book American Hookup, Lisa Wade says, based on what some students of color told her, that “in some ways, hookup culture is a white thing.” In this blog post, we use data from an online survey from over 20,000 American students at 21 colleges and universities to explore what, if any, differences in sexual behavior or attitudes about sex exist between White, Black, Latinx, South Asian, and East Asian students.
What We Did
We used data from the Online College Social Life Survey (OCSLS), collected by Paula England between 2005 and 2010, to compare White, Black, Latinx, East Asian, and South Asian students. (We call these racial groups for brevity, realizing that Latinx is sometimes considered an ethnicity rather than a race.) We examined racial differences separately for men and women and compared groups on attitudes and behaviors. The percents, means, or medians in the graphs below are regression-adjusted to remove any part of racial differences that stems from group differences in age, immigrant status, mother’s education, whether their parents are still together, school, height, and body mass index (BMI). For more details on our models, see the Technical Appendix at the end of this post.
Some Attitudes Show Almost No Racial Differences
On some values and aspirations, racial groups seem remarkably alike. As the two graphs below show, between 90% and 93% of those in every race/gender group of both men and women say they want to marry, and between 89% and 96% of every group want children.
Racial groups also differ little in their ideas of the best age to do these things, with the average age seen as ideal for marriage between 25 and 28 for all groups and the average ideal age for having a first child between 27 and 29. Also, racial groups have in common that, in each group, compared to women, men see a slightly higher age as appropriate for themselves to take on these roles.
One attitude about hooking up also shows virtually no racial differences: in all groups, approximately 70%-75% of men and women say they would be less interested in a relationship with a person who hooks up a lot, as this graph shows.
Racial Group Differences in Attitudes About Sex
Some attitudes show significant differences by race. One question asked students how much they agree with this statement: “I would not have sex with someone unless I was in love with them.” In every racial group, more women than men agree. Focusing on racial differences, Whites and Blacks are similar in their response, and these two groups are most positive about sex without love, as the graph below shows. Latinx students are more conservative. Asian students are the most conservative in their belief that sex requires love. As the graph shows, among women, white and black women are equally liberal, with only 49% agreeing that sex requires love. A larger 59% of Latinas, 64% of East Asian women, and 76% of South Asian women agree.
Those who believe sex requires love presumably disapprove of casual sex but might think that sex among students in relationships is okay. A more conservative standard is disapproving of any sex before marriage, even in a serious relationship. The graph below shows that South Asians are the most conservative in believing that premarital sex is wrong, while Whites are the most liberal, with Latinx students very close to Whites. Unlike beliefs about whether love is necessary for sex, where Whites and Blacks were very close to each other, these beliefs about whether premarital sex is wrong show Black students to be substantially more conservative than Whites and Latinx students. On the issue of premarital sex, Blacks are closer to the conservative views of Asians, who are the most conservative.
Racial Group Differences in Sexual Behavior
Now we move to behavior, starting with the simplest measure—the percent of students who are still virgins. In our sample, in which the average student was in their second year of college, South Asians have the highest proportion of virgins: 66% of women and 50% of men had never had intercourse. The group with the next highest rate is East Asians. Whites, Blacks, and Latinx students all have lower rates of between 21% and 34% virgins.
Next, we look at the number of hookups since the start of college each group reported. We use the median (the number that the man or woman at the 50thpercentile had) rather than the mean (the average) because the median is less influenced by the few students who reported extremely high numbers of hookups. Among men, Asians have the lowest number of hookups, with a median of one hook up, Latinx men are next with a little above two, and Whites and Blacks are the highest with almost identical medians at approximately three hookups. Among women, we Black and East or South Asian women have hooked up little, Latinx women are in the middle, White women have hooked up the most. While this shows that hooking up is most prevalent among whites, it also shows that it is certainly not only a “white thing.” Indeed, among men, as we saw it is done about the same amount by Black and White men.
Of course, knowing the rate at which students are hooking up does not tell us how much they have casual intercourse, because not all hookups involve intercourse. As students define the term “hookup,” a hookup may involve little or even nothing more than making out, and these data show that about 40% of hookups involve intercourse. To get at whether students had had casual intercourse, the survey asked if they had ever had sex outside of an exclusive relationship. The question didn’t clarify what was meant by “sex.” However, there is lots of qualitative evidence that heterosexual students usually take the term to mean intercourse, whereas a majority of what they call hookups do not involve intercourse.
As the next graph shows, Asians are the least likely to have had sex outside an exclusive relationship. This is partly a reflection of the fact that many haven’t had intercourse at all, as we saw above. Black, White, and Latinx students have had more casual intercourse, and within-sex, race differences are fairly small in these three groups. In every group other than East Asians, men are more likely to report sex outside a relationship than women.
Another behavioral indicator is the number of partners with whom one has ever had intercourse. In this analysis, virgins count as having zero partners, and we limited the count to the number of partners of the other sex, ignoring any same-sex partners. We examine medians rather than averages because there are some extreme outliers with many partners, which affect means more than medians. The graph below shows that among both women and men, Asians have had the least number of partners. Among women, there is little difference between Whites, Blacks, and Latinas, all of whom have had between 1.5 and 2 partners. Among men, however, Blacks have substantially more than other men, with a median slightly more than 4, compared to between 2 and 2.5 for Whites and Latinx men, and less for Asian men.
Explaining Racial Differences and Race-Gender Intersections
We have shown that racial groups are virtually identical on whether and when they want to marry and have children.However, there are some group differences in attitudes about students having sex, and in their sexual behavior.
Where we see differences, Asians, especially South Asians, appear the most conservative in attitudes and behavior, Latinx students are in the middle, and either Whites or Blacks are generally the most permissive, depending on the issue. In this blog post, we can’t fully answer the complicated questions of what causes these differences, but we offer some ideas, with some data to back them up.
Over 95% of both the East Asian and South Asian students in our study are either first- or second-generation immigrants – that is, either they were themselves born outside the U.S., or one or both of their parents were. We speculate that the relatively conservative attitudes and less active sexual behavior of Asians result from the influence of their immigrant parents from Asia. Fewer, but a still high 82%, of the Latinx students in our study are first- or second-generation immigrants, so this explanation may apply somewhat to them as well. By contrast, only 16% of Whites and 35% of Black students in the study are immigrants or had an immigrant parent. (See the technical appendix for more details on this.)
As for differences between Blacks and other racial groups, the patterns differ strongly by gender. As many race and gender scholars have argued, an intersectional approach is often needed when the way race affects men and women is very different. Let us start with men. Black men have had more sexual partners than White or other men. What explains this? Prior research has shown that youth of any race who grow up in poverty or with less educated parents are more likely to have first intercourse earlier and Blacks are especially likely to grow up disadvantaged. Consistent with this, past research on the age of sexual debut among US adolescents, has shown that Black youth have an earlier age at first intercourse than Whites, which is likely to lead to more sexual experience by the age of most of the college respondents. (The survey question asks about number of partners ever, not only during college, so having started during or before high school could lead to a higher lifetime number.)
The difference between White and Black men’s median partners is 1.9—with Black men having a median of 4.2 and White men 2.3 partners. To test how much of this is explained by Black men having had an earlier age at first intercourse, we re-estimated the regression analysis controlling for this factor and created adjusted medians assigning the age at first intercourse for the sample as a whole to all races of men. The new adjusted median number of partners is only .7 apart rather than 1.9 apart, implying that about two-thirds of the gap is explained by differences in age at first intercourse. Thus, the White-Black differences among men may reflect less about different behavior at college and more about the early effects of disadvantage leading to early first sex.
However, if the explanation we offered for Black men were just about socioeconomic disadvantage, we would expect to find it applicable to Black women too. Instead, we found that Black women students are significantly more likely to be virgins than White women, they have had about the same number of intercourse partners as White women, and they have had substantially fewer hookups than either White women or Latinas. Moreover, they are more likely to think premarital sex is wrong than any race-gender group other than South Asian women. Why are Black women more conservative than other racial groups on many indicators, while Black men are more liberal? We suggest two possible explanations. It may be in part because Black women are aware of stereotypes of Blacks as hypersexual, and, given the gendered double standard that shames women more than men for casual sex, black women may feel the responsibility to behave in a way that doesn’t reinforce racial stereotypes usually seen as pejorative. A second possible explanation for the fact that Black women are more likely to be virgins and have fewer hookups is that Black women may be less sought after as partners than women of other races, a race-gender-specific bias in the erotic hierarchy.
Technical Appendix: Data, Measures, and Statistical Procedures
Data
We used data from the Online College Social Life Survey (OCSLS). The OCSLS surveyed over 20,000 students from 21 four-year colleges and universities between 2005 and 2011. The colleges and universities where the survey was administered were both private and public.
A limitation of the OCSLS survey is that participants surveyed did not come from a probability sample. However, because the instructors in the courses hosting the survey gave students extra credit, participation in these classes was nearly 100%. Thus, any non-representativeness of the sample is likely caused by the schools chosen and the kinds of students in the hosting courses, not who decided to participate within classes. Also helpful to the representativeness of the sample is the fact that, although the hosting classes were mostly sociology, only approximately 10% of respondents were sociology majors.
Students were asked their race or ethnicity, which we used to divide them into White, Black, Latinx, East Asian, or South Asian. (Students in other groups, such as Native American, were not used because other groups were too small for reliable analyses.)
The outcome measures used are questions about sexual behavior and attitudes.
Attitudes
We used the following questions (see bullets below) to tap attitudes and values regarding sex.
- If a man and a woman have sexual relations before marriage, do you think it is wrong?
For this question, we divided students into two groups—those who chose “not wrong at all,” the most permissive answer, and those who took the more restrictive view that premarital sex is ‘always,’ ‘almost always,’ or ‘sometimes’ wrong.
- If someone has hooked up a lot, I’m less interested in this person as a potential girl/boyfriend.
- I would not have sex with someone unless I was in love with them.
For the two questions above, response categories were; strongly agree, agree, disagree, or strongly disagree. We divided the responses into a more permissive group who disagreed or strongly disagreed and a more restrictive group who agreed or strongly agreed.
- Do you want to get married in the future?
Respondents answered yes, no, don’t know, or already married. We deleted those already married then dichotomized into those who said yes, versus those who said no or don’t know.
- Do you want to have children (or more children) in the future?
Respondents answered yes or no.
- How old would you ideally like to be when you get married?
- How old would you ideally like to be when you have children (or more children)?
Respondents who wanted to get married or have children gave an exact age for the two questions above.
Behavior
Regarding sexual behavior and hooking up, students were asked:
- How many people have you had intercourse with?
- Have you ever had intercourse outside of an exclusive relationship?
Responses were yes and no.
- Since you started college, how many people have you hooked up with in the case where you were not already in a romantic relationship with the person but you did know him or her?
- Since you started college, how many people have you hooked up with whom you didn’t know before that night?
The numbers students gave for the two kinds of hookups above were added together to get their total number of hookups.
Models
The graphs above show regression-adjusted averages, medians, or percents. That is, these percents or numbers are predicted values from a regression predicting the attitude or behavior from: age (entered linearly), immigration status (categorized into whether the student was a first-generation immigrant, had at least one parent who was an immigrant, or was not an immigrant and did not have a parent who was), respondent’s mother’s education (high school only, less than high school, some college, bachelor’s degree, graduate degree), whether respondent’s parents are still together, indicators for school attended, height, and body mass index (BMI).
Using the regression equations, for each outcome we predicted a mean, median, or percent for each racial group, using an average marginal effects approach, such that each racial group was assigned the whole sample distribution of all control variables, thus giving each group the same distribution on these controls, and thus “controlling for” these factors. In the case of predicted averages and percents, the regression was an OLS regression. Where the variable was a dichotomy, this OLS is a linear probability model. In the case of medians, we used a conditional quantile regression. Separate regressions were done for men and women. Interestingly, racial group differences were very similar to those found in simple descriptive statistics on each group calculated with no regression adjustment.
In the post, we suggest that having immigrant parents from nations with somewhat more conservative sexual norms may explain the more conservative beliefs and behavior of South and East Asian students, and, to a lesser extent of Latinx students. The attentive reader may wonder why we say this when our model includes immigration status as a control variable, implying that the differences we find “hold immigration status constant.” Our model accomplishes this only if we assume that the effect of immigration status is constant across groups (technically, that there is no interaction between race and immigration status). However, our earlier posts Do Immigrants Have More Conservative Sexual Attitudes Than Other College Students? and What Does Studying College Sex Tell Us About Immigrant Assimilation? showed that this is not true.
Among whites, immigrant status has little effect on sexual attitudes or behavior, perhaps because white immigrants are mostly Canadians, Europeans, and Australians, and the sexual norms in these countries are not so different than those in the United States. Since Whites are the most numerous in the sample, the effects of immigration status that are used in the regression adjustment in this post, which are for the sample as a whole, are dominated by the small effects for whites. Thus, the model does not adequately adjust for the effect of having immigrant parents on Asian and Latinx students, leaving open the possibility that this may be the explanation for their more conservative sexual behavior.
In one supplementary model discussed above, to explore how much of the Black/White difference among men in number of intercourse partners is explained by an earlier age at first intercourse, we run an additional quantile regression for men predicting number of partners from all the variables in all the regressions discussed above, plus age at first vaginal intercourse (represented with indicator variables for “14 or younger,” “15 to 19,” and “20 or older,” which included virgins). We then used the regression results to predict number of partners separately for Black and White men assuming they each had the sample-wide distribution on age at first intercourse. (We also assumed they had the sample-wide mean on other variables, but that adjustment was already reflected in the graphs shown.)
Data Access
Researchers who wish to use the OCSLS data can contact Emma Mishel at ekm331@nyu.edu for information on how to download the data.
*Note: Numbers shown are means except when indicated that they are medians. In the case of dichotomized variables, the means (X100) are the percent in the category indicated by the variable name.
*Note: Numbers shown are means except when indicated that they are medians. In the case of dichotomized variables, the means (X100) are the percent in the category indicated by the variable name.
Emma Patton is an undergraduate Sociology major, Paula England is Silver Professor of Sociology, and Andrew Levine is a doctoral student in Sociology. All are at New York University.
Comments 32
Adam Molnar
November 14, 2019I greatly appreciate your analysis, but I wouldn't be so sure about 100% participation. When I give bonus assignments, I never get over 90% and I've seen less. Also, it would be nice to see race-sex sample sizes, and I'm confused about the medians. How are the medians non-integers? Students report 0, 1, 2, 3, ... hookups. The median should be a data value. Are you sure those aren't means?
Hugh Wall
November 26, 2019It is really interesting article to read, thanks for sharing these results. It must be so cool to study sociology and understand people`s intentions. I am just waiting when my e=assignment from https://phdessay.com/category/expository/ will be ready and I will be able to add some interesting info. I will take some thoughts from here for my expository essay, so thank you one more time.
Leon Howells
November 26, 2019(https://contexts.org/blog/sexual-attitudes-among-college-students-similarities-between-white-black-latinx-and-asian-students/comment-page-1/)[Great post]
ProfessorH
December 16, 2019I would be interested to know the races of the authors. The final sentence, bizarre conclusion to draw. It makes me question all of the theories - indeed just theory and not backed by evidence or stats.
Ale Wallace
March 9, 2021The explanations the study suggests for why Black women are more likely to be virgins and less likely to participate in hookup culture definitely illustrates how “white bias” shows up even in “scientific” research.
Grace Ojo
April 20, 2021"A second possible explanation for the fact that Black women are more likely to be virgins and have fewer hookups is that Black women may be less sought after as partners than women of other races"
That invalidated your entire write up. I can assure you if a black women (like me, for example) wanted to have sex outside marriage/hook up, it is easy enough to do so, there is no shortage of men(black, white, asian etc) that would jump at the opportunity, they just DECIDE to close their legs. The black community tends to be very religious, this was visible from your data, and should have been enough to explain this trend (of being virgins or even having fewer hook ups). But instead you resorted to a ridiculous conjecture.
Lets explore how ridiculous your conjecture is. You talk about hook up culture and in the same vein claim that black women are less sought after partners, and thus are more likely to be virgins. How does that even make sense to you. Surely people that are hooking up are less interested in the suitability of their partners for longterm relationships. Being a less sought after partner according to the OK cupid dating data (which is incredibly bad science btw, but thats for another day) doesn't mean there are a shortage of men willing to service your needs/hook up. It is all about sexual attraction and If you think white men are not sexually attracted to black women, you need to vist africa, there are litrally cities of mixed race people..you also need to do a DNA test on every African American ...what you will find is that upwards of 80% have some sort of white mixtrue...how did it get there. The fact that black women are not having sex or are more conservative comes from religion, and societal pressure. Not some bogus claim that they are less sought after.....that was a stupid hypothesis, very bad science. You will find that African countries tend to be even more conservative than tose in the west..and black peoople arround the world even in Brazil, jamaica etc and the UK are very much more conservative than thier hosts.
Olivia
May 10, 2021It's really interesting to see differences between cultures in this sphere. Thanks!
Ashley
July 3, 2021Please stop calling us Latinx. We find it really annoying and disrespectful. Thank you.
BoomHowerHankHill
July 14, 2021If this is all true, I’m ashamed by my own race. Smh Caucasian people. I’m pretty conservative if you couldn’t tell. One thing that can be taken away from this is, oh my gosh East Asian men my gosh y’all have misfortunate lives when it comes to the ladies!!!
Mike
July 18, 2021In response to grace ojo-
I know you are upset but it is statistically true that black women are the least sought after. Sorry but it sadly just is what it is.
Paul
October 26, 2021Hi :-)
This Blog is Fascinating. As a Canadian who has had relationships with F from Japan,
Quebec (French Canada) and European girlfriends too reading the data and graphs OPENED MY EYES to what is really going on. Thanks.
Grace Ojo
February 26, 2022In response to Mike. Black women are not the least sought after. You cannot generalize data from ok Cupid to the whole world..you will find that ideal types will vary depending on the continent. For example, the most sought after women in Africa are black women obviously…also highly sought after in Europe. For example in countries like Italy, you can’t walk down the street as a black woman in peace. There is also of course hyper sexualization of black women in these countries, which is never a good thing. They literally are hot beds for human sexual trafficking of black women from Africa. To show you how you cannot generalize ok Cupid data..In Europe the preference shifts from Asian. Only American men show heavy preference for Asian women, even above white women according to that data. I also find it hard to believe that they the least sought after in America are black women …seeing that the pornhub data for the last 10 years have put ebony porn (black women) as the most searched category’s. It literally has been the case for that long. This can be also taken as evidence that these people fetishize black women, but are not dating them because they see them as sexual objects not humans. I mean black women are I’ve represented as sex symbols in The music and entertainment industry in America. It’s also important to note that American black women do NOT like dating out of thier race…they are much less open than black women in Europe. From experience, as an average looking black woman in countries in Africa, you get your pick as men outnumber women, you also get your pick in Europe because there is never going to be a shortage of men white, black etc that would try to get your attention, in Asia men will also come…fetish or not. It does seem like much of the undesirability rumor doesn’t translate to most black women’s real life experience despite the momentum that little date from a single dating website in America taken over 10 years ago has garnered
L
March 21, 2022Grace, I will be forthcoming from the start. I am a single Caucasian male in my mid 30s. I am slightly above average in appearance on my best day. My personal preference for relationship partners is non-american. I like accents. I do typically date oriental Asians admittedly. If I had to choose a group that I considered most physically appealing it would be Indian or latina. Actual race preference is none. Kind, gentle hearted people win me over with relative ease.
Now for my opinions, how I see things..
1: Black women ARE the least sought after, at least in the US. I do not know why, but I can give some common generalized reasons that I'm certain contribute. My own personal opinions, when added, will be in brackets, and not necessarily only meant for you. a) Men like submissive women. Black women are stereotyped to be even angrier and stubborn than the feminist woman. [I believe both the man and the woman should submit to one another. Love is not proud] b) Men are insecure. Men assume a black woman has been with a black man, that all black men are hung, that the black woman wants a hung man, and that she will never be truly satisfied with him sexually. [Even taking the average of the largest sized group -black- and the smallest -asian- its only an inch difference. For white and black its 1/4 of a cm. Men are stupid. And most women have no preference, and most women with a preference prefer average. ....Lucky me lol.] c) When you marry someone, you often marry the friends and family and most non-black Americans fear black neighborhoods and black people. d) Most white people think most blacks hate white people. (This ties into the last one) e) Back to the ghetto. I pride myself in loving, and this one is specifically my opinion but even I won't date a woman from the ghetto unless she manages to make me fall in love on first contact. It's any race though. I don't personally care about the poverty aspect, as I am old school in believing a man should support his family and the woman should take care of the children (which I also believe is the greatest honor, job, responsibility that any person could ever wish for and if she don't want to then I will, the child deserves full time care. I hope she does though. 9 months isn't the end of creating, 18 more years of shaping this wonderful person is the epitome of creation).
2) I'd like to say something..
Racism, is just hatred given a name, sometimes even at ones self. We need to stop teaching history. Most people aren't capable of handling it.
Floyd for example. There is no evidence of racism outside of it being a black and white person. The only thing that can be truly said is that a cop overstepped and it resulted in something horrific. If I'm not mistaken, it was shown that they knew one another. THAT is potential motive. But if we assume racism because of two differing races being at odds, we are the true racists. However, Amy Cooper.. now that was a disgusting display of hatred and racism and that was a shameful thing she pulled.
Very few people in this world can think properly during anger. If you find something making you angry, it is more likely that you are wrong than that which has angered you. Act in peace, and in love, and you will find clarity.
2) regarding porn (if u didn't like me before, I'm in trouble now lol).. Porn hub, lists men searching ebony 2nd (Japanese higher). 2nd is still high. However, the states with the most viewership account for majority of the blacks in america, and (from a .gov website) blacks view more porn than anyone, with a greater increase in frequency meaning their lead is increasing. So blacks watch the most, and watch black porn the most. Makes sense. Race preference, I prefer the man in the video to be white, and not distinguishable, as I'm pretending I'm him lol.. Women, pretty faces with no tats.. Race irrelevant, positions relevant (probably the only guy who don't like doggy)
3) I agree that women, in particular black women, are over sexualized in media. Kinda gotta drop some blame on those women too though, although I still love doja cat lol, she's so cuteeeee lol. I think Megan thee stallion brings shame to y'all (FINE.. my baby doja does too.. Grr.) I like Alicia keys. However, if I was to choose celebrities for dating.. Nathalie Emmanuel, Zoe kravitz, Lupita Nyong’o (perfect), there's a few more but none top her.
4) I'm sorry that you seem genuinely upset. You appear to be an intelligent woman and I am heartbroken that this influences you. I really am. But its the anger and hatred. Mutts live longer and happier than pure breeds anyway. No one should actively strive to date inside their race. That said, how about dinner? Lol. But for real, please, for me (cuz I'm important duh), find a way not to be offended by racism and other forms of hatred. If u love them, some will come around, and more importantly, u will not become them.
Pssst.. Sorry for the novel, especially because I'm really tired and probably said EVERYTHING wrong. If I'm to say one thing right, its this.. Someone will be first and someone will be last, but u only need one to love u. If u care about everyone elses opinion, I'm truly sorry
Michelle
April 8, 2022I totally agree with the comments of professorh, ale wallace, and grace ojo. How you going to do a study and then use racist stereotypes for explanation of those results? Black women are breaking stereotypes and are more conservative than others think.
Cam Thorwald
April 11, 2022So, 3 times as many Black men as Black women were hooking up? Uh-huh... Looks like some self-reporting problems in the decade-old data.
crystal
April 16, 2022You are using the word "median" incorrectly. A discrete number of sexual partners can never have a median containing a decimal value.
0 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 3
If the above is your data, the median is 1, the mean is 13/11. I believe you are calculating means up there. The real median values would actually be more useful here, since someone with an extremely high number of partners skews the data by a large amount.
JoeBoy
April 17, 2022Whaat? Data was compiled between 2005 and 2011? And you expect that to reflect current trends? I can bet my last cent, such a data could never have anticipated a black man's presidency of the USA!!
JarcosArgonauta
April 19, 2022Thanks for the analysis, but please stop saying Latinx, that's annoying
Meghan
June 17, 2022The idea that an accepted explanation for black female students being virgins is not being sought after, (basically saying they cant find men to f*ck them) is laughable. It is very easy as a young student to find someone to have s*x with. It's clear that they just cannot accept that Black women have higher morals than white/hispanic women. With Black men eager for hookups, you dont think these men are begging black students for s*x. Black men back in the day would always say they went after white women because they were "easier". As a black female, i'm very aware that people know so little about my tribe and just base their opinions on stereotypes. I don't even care at this point
granider
July 4, 2022Stop saying latinX Latin people don't like it when you call them that.
Eo Harris
August 1, 2022Very interesting research. It’s always better to let the data speak for themselves than to draw inferences and needless and pointless conclusions.
Sexual desire/preference is in the eye of the beholder and not subject to measurement or quantification based on research or empirical data.
Very good research work, but your inference about “Black women and hookups” almost render your research questionable.
Nko
August 9, 2022The novel got a tad too agreeable, right? If you'll escaped the condescension! And than goes to Meghs for that classic finish!
Eric
August 24, 2022They hate that the average everyday black women college student has more morals than white women when it comes to hookup culture. Black women are not less sought after especially in regards to sex. Sex is way to easily obtainable for women of all race simply for just being women because their is always a man (white, black, Asian, latino) just waiting at the opportunity to have sex. Ebony porn is the most watched porn category in America so miss me with that non sense. It’s white bias in scientific data. With all of these stupid podcasts compare what white male and black male podcasters talk about. White male podcaster always talk about high body count, and that is one thing you don’t hear from stupid black male podcasters. Take one step on any university campus and you will see what race of women is spreading it wide to everybody and it’s not black women.
Pyrrho
September 14, 2022Breh the critical thinking skills of even the "scholars" are going down the drain. Wow.
Debbie
October 2, 2022I am a white female, and I was recently in a 3 year relationship with a black man. He watched porn constantly. I noticed that 90% of his DVDs were asian girls. And I tried to ask him what was the reason or what about asian girls turned him on, but he, as guys do... denied he had any specific preference. He also cheated on me numerous times, eventually claiming that it's a man's right to have "side pieces". And his "main" one was Portarican and 1/2 his age. He told me that he was not missing anything or unhappy with our sex life at all. So, obviously I was not only hurts but confused why he strayed so often. He said it was in his jeans, as men need not only more than 1 partner, they have their "main" one that they get sex, someone who does all the things they need like cook for them, clean, who is always there so that they are never without. But they expect their main to be 100% faithful to them. I never will understand a man's way or beliefs about what a "true" relationship or commitment is to be. I have heard that ALL black men cheat, I do agree to an extent, and have noticed their obsession with porn also. They as I've noticed feel it's normal and have told me we females need to just accept it. Men have double standards not only in life but also relationships. They to me want a woman to be completely committed to them, while they do as they please. It's such BS. They like variety and feel it's a man's right. I've never cheated even when I became aware my partner was, even tho I was not satisfied with our sex life. Bottom line for me is...
Men need to spend more time satisfying their "main" partner because IF your girl uses the typical, having no sex thing in the relationship,....she isn't denying herself of anything because she's not being satisfied by him. He's the only one deprived. HELLO! Men don't get that at all seriously. We females are expected to do all the work. We are to perform their fantasies for them, do what they want or need to get them "aroused" fulfill what he believes is your duty to him as his partner. Yet, he doesn't do anything for you, he doesn't do any for play, doesn't do anything to arouse you, he slaps spit on you, or oil. And just busts a nut. He's satisfied, but you ain't. Men don't seem to understand this. In thier mind, they are like, I'm getting my needs met, what is her problem. It's very frustrating to me honestly. Now they have designed a "realistic doll" that is SO damn realistic it's scary. To me, they have replaced "real" woman it's sick. Guys spend most of their time looking for ways, or things OUTSIDE OF the relationship to satisfy themselves rather than put that effort and time into being the other half of their relationship. We have needs also. Men always complain about us, and believe we are drama, we bitch about everything constantly, we get in their business by asking them questions, etc. IF they were committed to the relationship as we are, and live as a loyal man to their "main" they'd have no reason or desire to stray or need for another woman. This world has become all about,
HUSTLING, GETTING WHATEVER YOU FEEL IS YOURS, HAVING SEX WITH WHOEVER. It's become so selfish as if today us females only exist to please men. We are not to have our own thoughts, feelings, needs, opinions, etc. If a guy needs to be satisfied and you are the one who just happens to be around, well in his mind, GET IT DONE. It's not only so rude, but disrespectful to us as females and human beings. I love sex, and I'm an older woman, and having sex many times a day is my preference. But I'm turned off when guys talk about it the whole time we are together. Or OMG ..they grab their phone while we are having sex and watch a porn video. It's so fucking rude. If they feel that it's normal to do that, they have issues in my opinion. To me it's expecting ME to perform and do the sex acts while they are looking at another female and fanticising the girl in the video is who's sucking them or sexually pleasing them. But your doing all the work. It's so insulting to me. And they don't seem to understand why. But when I turn the table and present the situation to them and ask how they would feel or if it's OK for me to do the same thing ITS NEVER OK they respond saying that it's disrespectful to them. But don't feel that it's wrong for them. Double standard and to me NARCISSISTIC 100%.
Men these days need a realty check for real.
Starlight Queen
November 25, 2022The research was conducted and reviewed by white people. This article has subtle racist undertones because it suggests that black women are more conservative than white women because they are undesirable however women of south Asian descent were the most conservative and the explanation for that was because they had immigrant parents but for black women, it’s because we are undesired. They didn’t even consider that 35% of the black students had immigrant parents and that female black Americans are more likely to be raised in religious households compared to female white Americans.
I find it interesting that these researchers felt the need to compare black women’s sexuality to the sexuality of black men however they didn’t do the same for white people. I thought it was common knowledge that men are more likely to lose their virginity than women and are more likely than women to risk their lives to have sex with strangers. Men are less likely to get raped or murdered during sex with women or other men. I thought it was generally accepted that society encourages men to fuck around more and women are shamed for doing the same. Also, it has been suggested that women are more likely to get emotionally attached to men they hookup with compared to the opposite gender. The experiment also concluded that on average, black women had the same number of intercourse partners as white women but because it was less than the number of intercourse partners black men had, then it was because we are undesirable. Gender differences were not accounted for in that conclusion.
Personally, I think the reason why black women are more likely to be virgins and less likely to have random hookups compared to white women and Latina women is because of cultural differences, religious differences, and personal attitudes and not because we are the least desired. Black women are more likely to grow up religious than whites therefore we are less likely to give up sex that easily. Maybe we value our bodies more. It’s not even a bad thing that black women have had fewer hookups because of fewer STDS, unwanted pregnancies, and psychological trauma.
Juan Francisco
March 15, 2023I higly suggest you don't say Latinx. I say this as a latin myself. Spanish defaults to the male form of words to speak in plural. This is as long as there's atleast one person of the opposing gender of the rest. It's hard to pronounce, and it's stupid trying to be more inclusive towards latin people, you don't need to say Latino or Latina(although Latinos is the correct plural form for us collectively), just say latin people. Better than whatver Latinx is supposed to be.
Keisha Jones
June 11, 2023So, from the biased conclusion alone, I can already tell the researcher is a white female who probably went into this study thinking the results were going to show that Black women were these hypersexual jezebels while white women were these innocent, virtuous beings who remain virgins until marriage. She contradicts herself by saying that poverty is the reason why Black men have lots of sex, while then going on to say that “desirability” is the reason why Black women’s promiscuity is not as high as Black men’s. So then it cannot be poverty that explain why Black men are so promiscuous. I also love how the graph shows that it is white women and Black men who are the outliers, the most promiscuous, the most likely to engage in hookup culture by gender, yet somehow the focus is on Black women’s “desirability”. Black women have higher morals than white women. Is this really that hard for Americans to believe? That is why our promiscuity levels are the same as East Asian women’s (funny how you didn’t mention them at all considering their “desirability” is higher than that of white women”, yet they do not engage in the same hypersexual behavior that white women do) and not up there with Black men or white women’s. You are biased in that you believe in the hypersexual Black women trope and are too ignorant to admit that it’s just that, a racist myth. You are biased in that you never once explain why white women’s promiscuity levels are so high, even higher than all males, but instead want to focus on “desirability” so you don’t have to hold them accountable for their poor sexual behavior.
Cameron
June 11, 2023You’re conclusion that you drew as to why Black Women are not having as much sex does not make sense. You dragged in the desirability argument but failed to take into account that that argument works in favor of East/South East Asian Women. East/South East women are seen as one of if not the most desirable demographic. So how are these women having less sex than Black Women? Black Women are not the hypersexual jezebels whores that lack morals that you want them to be.
C.Evans
August 10, 2023I don't know why black women find this article racist or bias against them, as a white man it actually makes me look at black women as better partners and white women as promiscuous or easy, I think I speak for most men when I said that we don't like women who have been with multiple partners, this is a L for white women and a win for black women.
sami
November 19, 2023This shows the stark difference in views of sexuality between western (liberal) and non-western (conservative) cultures. Western people have less cultural and religious inhibitions to having sex, especially outside of marriage. In South Asian culture for example, it's almost taboo to talk about sex even if the two are married. Showing any form of affection in public, even to your own parents, is highly frowned upon. Westerners do not have such prohibitions and live in a sex-positive society, so there is less judgement on how often people have sex and who they have it with.
African Americans are a somewhat of an outlier, because they are from a non-western culture originally, but have been ingrained into western culture for the last 3-400 years. But still, an African American is far far more sex-positive than an African.
Robert Holmes
February 6, 2024What the heck is Latinx? I'm Mexican and HATE that term. Another term made up by apologetic white people.