If she resists pressure and withholds, her value increases
and she may marry relatively well within the class. (Kerckhoff,
1974) Better to be safe than sorry. Unfortunately, the
pattern of withholding and the expectation of abuse is not
easy to unlearn.
Nor is it simple for the macho male, who for
years has "got down on a pig" in the alley, to recapture compassion.
How has this social system affected the sexual response?
Kinsey was the first to investigate this in the late 1940s. The
lower the socioeconomic class, the more sexually active were
the men.
In the sixteen-to-twenty-year-old age group with an
eighth-grade education or less, the average frequency of coitus
was 1.6 times per week for boys, but only 0.3 times per
week for girls.
In contrast, college men had intercourse on
the average of 0.2 times per week, and college women only
0.1 times per week.
Thus the difference between classes was
much more pronounced for men, reflecting the fact that most
lower-class males are serviced by a few promiscuous females.
The greater apparent potency and earlier start of the lower-
class male was certainly related to the premium placed on
aggressive virility and the greater availability of partners.
Lower-class girls were less fortunate.
The double standard,
dangers associated with capitulation, and lesser overall
erotic experience limited their sexual satisfaction far
more than the boys'. (Fiasche, 1973) Kinsey found that masturbation
to the point of orgasm occurred in sixty-three percent
of girls who had gone beyond college but only thirty-four
percent of girls who had not gone through high school.
Orgasm in marriage followed a similar pattern. The number
of women who reached orgasm within any five-year age
bracket was distinctly smaller among those with limited
education.
More of these women never reached orgasm. The
lesser the educational level, the less sexually responsive was
the woman.
A later study by Rainwater of married, working-
class couples indicated little expectation for the woman's
enjoyment in coitus by either husband or wife.
The focus was
on male gratification through rapid ejaculation, with scant
foreplay or afterplay.
Lower-class women were not as happy either. In 1973,
George Gallup reported that only thirty-three percent of
individuals with an annual income of three to five thousand
dollars saw themselves as "very happy." Happiness escalated
with income, as fifty-six percent of those with an income of
$15,000 or over were "very happy."
Early erotic stimulation cannot alone protect the sexual
response from distortions and constrictions. The sex drive is
colored by the total environment in which it develops.
Sex
experienced first as an unprotected victim, abandoned in a
cold corridor, inevitably becomes associated with fear and
rage. To be receptive is to be vulnerable.
The child must
prove the brutal master or face humiliation. Sex becomes but
one weapon in the battle for survival.