Actual versus desired initiation patterns among a sample of college men: tapping disjunctures within traditional male sexual scripts
Dworkin, S.L.; O'Sullivan, L.
Journal of sex research 42(2): 150-158
2005
ISSN/ISBN: 0022-4499 PMID: 16123845 DOI: 10.1080/00224490509552268Document Number: 258723
Research on men's sexual scripts has tended to overlook that some men do not endorse traditional scripts or that one or both members of a couple might desire a departure from culturally dominant sexual scripts. This study used in-depth interviews with 32 college-aged men from a community college in New York City to examine disjunctures between current and desired sexual initiation patterns. Results show that although men currently practice male-dominated patterns of sexual initiation, many men desire egalitarian patterns of initiation. Men offered clear preference to be an object of desire to their female partners, deployed narratives of wanting to share the "labor" of sexual initiation, and expressed ideologies of sexual egalitarianism. We consider how shifting terrains of gender relations in contemporary U.S. culture may shape masculinities and sexual scripts. We also consider how an examination of disjunctures between current and desired practices might be useful to HIV researchers interested in interviewing across multiple levels of the sexual script.