Contents*

• Demographics and a Brief Historical Perspective 381

1. Basic Sexological Premises 382
2. Religious, Ethnic, and Gender Factors Affecting Sexuality 383
3. Knowledge and Education about Sexuality 385
4. Autoerotic Behaviors and Patterns 387
5. Interpersonal Heterosexual Behaviors 388
6. Homoerotic, Homosexual, and Bisexual Behaviors 398
7. Gender Diversity and Transgender Issues 399
8. Significant Unconventional Sexual Behaviors 400
9. Contraception, Abortion, and Population Planning 401
10. Sexually Transmitted Diseases and HIV/AIDS 404
11. Sexual Dysfunctions, Counseling, and Therapies 406
12. Sex Research and Advanced Professional Education 410
13. References and Suggested Readings 410

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Demographics and a Brief Historical Perspective

ROBERT T. FRANCOEUR

A. Demographics

Finland lies in northern Europe where Russia, Sweden, and Norway are its neighboring countries. It is also bordered by the Baltic Sea, the Gulf of Bothnia, and the Gulf of Finland. With a total area of 125,182 square miles (324,220 km²), Finland is slightly smaller than the state of Montana. The terrain is mostly low and flat to rolling plains interspersed with lakes and low hills. The climate is cold, potentially subarctic, but comparatively mild because of the moderating influence of the North Atlantic Current, Baltic Sea, and more than 60,000 lakes.

In July 2002, Finland had an estimated population of 5.18 million. (All data are from The World Factbook 2002 (CIA 2002) unless otherwise stated.)

Social services are well developed in Finland. People receive free counseling in contraception for family planning at the communal health centers, expectant mothers have been given free guidance in childcare centers for decades, mothers of small children have paid maternity leaves, and there are inexpensive communal daycare places for children and financial compensation for childcare given at home, as well as child benefits until the age of 18. As a result, Finnish women play as active a part in paid employment as Finnish men.

In 1992, the sexual life of the Finns was studied using nationally representative data on the 18- to 74-year-old population in Finland (Kontula & Haavio-Mannila 1993). The response rate for the 2,250 Finns in this FINSEX survey was 76%. Each of the respondents was interviewed personally and asked to fill out a questionnaire about the most intimate sexual matters. The questionnaire responses were not shown to the interviewers. The results of this study have been compared with a corresponding 1971 study (Sievers et al. 1974) to provide a detailed picture of Finnish sexual attitudes and behaviors in recent decades. Worldwide, the 1971 study was only the second population survey based on nationally representative data of sexual matters. (The first nationally representative sexual study was done in Sweden in 1967.) The results of this most recent FINSEX study will be discussed in different sections of this chapter.

[Update 2003: In 1999, the authors conducted a follow-up to the 1992 survey by a mailed survey (Haavio-Mannila, Kontula, & Kuusi 2001). This sex survey had 1,496 respondents. Because of this new data-collection technique, the response rate was 46%. By analyzing the distributions of several identical retrospective questions measuring sexual issues in different birth cohorts in the three Finnish surveys, Kontula (2001) showed that the low response rate in 1999 did not bias the recorded sexual histories of those who were under 55 years old. In the age group 55-to-74, the male respondents were more monogamous than those participating in the two earlier Finnish sex surveys. (End of update by O. Kontula)]*

*Editor’s Note: Because most of the updates to this chapter are brief inserts to add the results of this third national survey in 1999 (Haavio-Mannila, Kontula, & Kuusi 2001), we indicate these only with brackets to avoid breaking the reader’s attention; longer updates are in our standard format, i.e., beginning with Update 2003 and ending with the updaters’ names.

B. A Brief Historical Perspective

There is archeological evidence that Finland was inhabited already at least 50,000 years ago. In a better-known history, the early settlers of Finland probably arrived about 2,000 years ago from the Ural area to the southeast. Swedish settlers brought the country into the Kingdom of Sweden in 1154, where it remained until 1809, when it became an autonomous grand duchy of the Russian Empire. A strong national spirit emerged, with Finland declaring its independence in 1917 and becoming a republic two years later. Finland was invaded by the Soviet Union in 1939, forcing the Finns to give up 16,173 square miles (41,888 km²) of territory. Further cessions were exacted by the Soviets after World War II. Finland became a member of the European Union in 1995.

1. Basic Sexological Premises

A. The Character of Gender Roles

Historically, Finland has a longer tradition of gender equality than most other countries of the world. This can be seen in the realm of politics, paid work, and in the division of labor at home.

In 1906, Finnish women gained parliamentary voting rights, second in the world after New Zealand. Finnish women also were the first in the world to gain the right to serve in Parliament. These rights were immediately implemented. In 1907, 19 women were elected to a Parliament of 200 members. At present, 39% of the MPs in Finland are women. In the 1994 presidential election, the female candidate got 46% of the votes, indicating that a woman can reach the highest positions of power in this country. [Update 2003: In the 2000 presidential election, a woman candidate was for the first time elected President of the Republic. (End of update by O. Kontula)]

Women in Finland are gainfully employed nearly as often as men. In 1991, some 72% of the women in the working-age population and 78% of the men were part of the labor force. In Finland, both women and men work on a full-time basis. In 1991, the proportion of women working part-time was 10% and that of men 5%.

The large proportion of gainfully employed women is also reflected in their high percentage of the entire labor force. In 1991, 48% of the labor force were women, and women made up 51% of the salary and wage earners. Unlike most European countries in the 1980s, Finland had a lower rate of undisguised unemployment for women than for men. However, the rate of unemployment among women over 55 has been higher than the rate among men of the same age.

Public offices are equally open to women and men, and under the Equality Act, no vacancy in the private sector can be announced exclusively for women or men on any other than weighty and acceptable grounds relating to the nature of the work. Nevertheless, the Finnish labor market remains somewhat gender-segregated. Women comprise approximately 60% of the labor force in the service sector, while the industrial and building sectors are dominated by men. The segregation extends to occupations and specific tasks. No dramatic change has taken place in the gender segregation of the labor market, although employees who have made nontraditional choices have entered practically every occupation dominated by the other sex. Another illustration of the gender-segregated labor market is the differences in the positions that women and men occupy in the official hierarchies. Men advance rapidly and attain higher positions than women (Haavio-Mannila & Kauppinen-Toropainen 1992).

Recent studies indicate that the quality of working life for women has deteriorated considerably in some respects. Time pressures and stress have become a more prevalent feature of jobs held by women.

The differences between women’s and men’s earnings diminished both proportionally and in real terms in the 1970s. In 1983, this development shifted, and the pay differentials between women and men began to grow in real terms in most sectors. In 1991, women’s pay was 80% of men’s pay.

Women are slightly more-often unionized than men, and their daily working hours, as well as the time spent working during a lifetime, are nearly the same. The characteristics of women workers—unionization, rise in educational standards, full-time work, and very short absences from the labor force—have not served significantly to narrow the pay differentials between the sexes.

As most women work for pay, it is necessary that men share household work with them. In international comparison, gender equality in the division of housework is high (Gershuny 1990). Nevertheless, women still do more domestic work than men, even though their share of it has declined from 67% in 1979 to 64% in 1987 (Niemi & Pääkkönen 1989). In the United States, the percentage was 67% in 1987 (Robinson 1988).

B. Sociolegal Status of Males and Females

As the number of children in the families is small, children are valued as individuals. Even though there is a slight tendency to prefer boys when asked which gender one wishes the future child to be, girls are taken care of and loved as much as boys.

The provision of daycare for children is a municipal responsibility. The Day Care Act of 1973 aims at providing communal daycare for all children in need of it. Since 1985, parents have been able to choose between placing their child in communal daycare or receiving a homecare allowance for taking care of their child at home. This allowance may also be used to cover some of the costs of private daycare. Taking care of one’s child at home with the help of a homecare allowance does not terminate employment or, since 1991, lower employee pension.

When the educational level of the entire population is examined, it is discovered that women and men are now at the same level. In 1989, half of those who had completed senior secondary school or vocational education or had a university degree were women. Women have reached a high level of general education. In the working-age population, women have a senior secondary school diploma more frequently than men, a circumstance that will prevail in the future, because 60% of senior secondary-level students are women.

Men still have the majority of masters’ degrees (60%), but women are quickly catching up; since 1986, the number of women graduating from universities has exceeded that of men. For example, in 1989, women represented 54% of students who obtained a master’s degree and 34% of those with a higher degree. The proportion of women who have a doctorate has been steadily increasing since 1976. The percentage of women in the senior faculty of universities remains small.

The choice of fields is segregated by gender. The proportion of women is the largest in healthcare, and quite considerable in the fields of pharmacy and veterinary science. Similarly, students in teacher training are predominantly women. At the university level, clearly the smallest proportion of women can be found in the mathematical and technical fields.

The dropout rate at the basic level of education is very low nowadays. The law provides for compulsory education until the age of 16. The dropout rate at the upper secondary level was 7% in 1988. Somewhat fewer women leave school prematurely than men.

Leisure pursuits are differentiated according to gender. Girls are more interested in arts, boys in sports. Attempts to achieve equality in training are made by offering girls and boys the same opportunities to engage in various kinds of arts and sports.

Women are more active than men as consumers of cultural services. They go to the library, theater, concerts of classical music, museums, and art shows more frequently than men, and form the majority of students in voluntary adult education. Men go to sports competitions more often than women, and somewhat more often to the cinema and to concerts of popular music.

Gender differences in drinking alcoholic beverages have diminished; women have started to imitate the drinking habits of men. This applies particularly to women working with men (Haavio-Mannila 1992).

While men and women are, in principle, equal in Finland, the position of men in the public sphere—in politics, work, and the economy—is still better than that of women. In the private sphere, at home, women have more power than men, but it also means a heavier workload there.

C. General Concepts of Sexuality and Love

People in Finland have a positive attitude toward sexual behaviors as a health promoter—they do not see it as a threat to health. In 1992, 88% of Finnish men and 79% of women thought that sexual activity promotes health and well-being. A clear majority, 74% of men and 70% of women, believed that masturbation does not endanger one’s health. [In 1999, these figures were 81% and 76%, respectively.]

Sex is considered to be an important aspect of a steady relationship. In 1992, most Finns, 86% of men and 78% of women, considered sexual life very important or important for happiness in their relationship. Among women, the strength of this opinion had declined from 1971 to 1992. In 1971, 40% of women aged 18 to 54 considered sexual life very important for happiness in their relationship, while only 21% held this view in 1992, a development that reflects the strong public preoccupation with sexual liberation 20 years ago. [In 1999, this figure had increased to 29%.]

Women are expected to be more restricted than men in their sexual behavior. These expectations are rationalized by referring to gender differences in sexual needs. In 1992, 51% of Finnish men and 61% of women thought that a grown-up man has a clearly or somewhat stronger sexual need than a woman. Forty-one percent of men and 33% of women considered the sexual needs of men and women as equally strong. Only 7% believed that the sexual needs of women are stronger.

In the case of marital fidelity, a double moral standard is not very strong. In 1971, 34% of men and 29% of women aged 18 to 54 said that one must be able to accept a husband’s temporary infidelity, and 28% of men and 30% of women would accept a wife’s temporary infidelity. In 1992, the corresponding liberal attitudes in regard to a husband’s infidelity were 19% of men and 21% of women, and to a wife’s infidelity by 22% and 23%, respectively. [In 1999, the corresponding figures were 23% and 13% related a husband’s infidelity, and 21% and 15% related to wife’s infidelity. Women’s approval of sexual infidelity had decreased significantly.]

Even though attitudes toward many aspects of sexuality, for example, adolescent and homosexual sex, have liberalized with the course of time, attitudes toward marital unfaithfulness have become more conservative in the last 20 years. This may be because of the fear of AIDS, or to a general increase in familism in the society. It is easier to be liberal in issues not directly tied to one’s own life than in matters related to the personal relationship.

[Update 2003: The trend toward increasing expectations of marital faithfulness represents a renaissance of romanticism in a time of increasing individualism. Sex belongs currently to a romantic script in which sexuality is highly valued. According to this approach, individual pleasures are integrated into romantic relationships. Romanticism does not mean an orientation toward the partner at the expense of oneself. The romantic ideas highly valued in traditional female culture have become transformed into valuing the relationship between the partners. This has happened especially among women and in the youngest generation. (Kontula & Haavio-Mannila 2003.) (End of update by O. Kontula)]

2. Religious, Ethnic, and Gender Factors Affecting Sexuality

A. Religious Factors

In terms of religiosity, Finland is a uniform country, for about 87% of the people belong to the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland and about 50,000 people to the Orthodox Church. Both churches are considered state churches. Only a few thousand people at the most belong to each of a few other religious groups. About 8% of the Finns do not belong to any religious communities. The religiosity of the Evangelical Lutherans is, in most cases, rather passive; only a small percentage attends church services regularly. The influence of religion and religious values has declined significantly during the last few decades. Religious thinking does not have much meaning in the sexual lives of people, especially the younger generations.

Marriage is no longer considered a prerequisite to having a sexual life in Finland. The quality of the relationship has become more important than its religious or civil form. Sexual relations are accepted in steady dating relationships and most couples live together before marriage. A significant number of cohabiting people do not get married even after years of living together as a couple. The sexual life of single persons is also widely accepted. The percentage of single persons has gradually increased, with about 30% of the middle-aged not living with a sexual partner. One third of these single persons have a steady relationship with a person with whom they do not live.

B. Cultural Factors

It is an essential principle in recent Finnish legislation concerning sexual issues that people may and can do privately all they want when it does not involve forcing another person. In this regard, Finnish legislation aims to respect the individual’s right of self-determination. This was a decisive principle in the reform of Finnish legislation around 1990. This principle is also strong in the general population where liberal sexual attitudes prevail among the secularized and independent-thinking majority. This liberalization of sexual attitudes is a significant change, because those with liberal attitudes on sexual issues are usually more satisfied with their sexual life than are others.

The interval between publication of results from the 1971 national survey (Sievers et al. 1974) and the FINSEX survey (Kontula & Haavio-Mannila 1993) was marked by a great change in attitudes, values, and practices that began in the sexual revolution of the 1960s. Public discussion about the sexual revolution at the beginning of the 1970s in Finland concerned, to a great extent, the increased availability of sexual material and its commercial use in advertising and mass communication in general. The change could also be seen in legislation where the individuals’ liberty to decide about their own sexual matters was increasingly recognized. While increased open discussion about sexual issues in society continued the erosion of some of the still-existing old taboos, a clear step was taken towards more-accepting attitudes to sexual issues as a whole. Today, the sexual life of unmarried people is almost as accepted as that of married couples.

A major factor in this shift to more-liberal attitudes has been a rise in the level of education, but even without this, the changes would have been significant. More-positive attitudes about the sexual rights of adolescents, women, and homosexuals have been matched by more-liberal attitudes regarding the acceptability of casual sexual relationships that are not based on love.

In 1971, two women out of three set the promise of marriage as the condition for beginning a sexual relationship; in 1992, only 16%, [and in 1999, only 11%] of Finnish women were of this opinion (see Table 1). Among adolescents, the revolution is even more apparent. Dating has replaced marriage as an institution, with sexual intimacy almost as accepted during dating as it was earlier only within marriage. As a consequence, very few young people marry their first sexual partners any more. As late as 30 years ago, 60% of women married their first sexual partners.

Attitudes have also become more positive towards casual relationships (see Table 2). About 70% of Finns think that even a casual sexual relationship can be happy and satisfying. The necessity of love as a premise for sexual intercourse has also diminished. Sexual intercourse without love was considered wrong by 42% of men and 64% of women in 1971. In 1992, the corresponding shares were 29% and 43%. [In 1999, they were almost unchanged: 28% and 42%.]

Still, 70% hold that living in a steady relationship in which sexual fidelity prevails is most desirable, compared with 10% who believe that living apart is most desirable. Twenty percent of men and 4% of women would like to maintain several concurrent and continuous sexual relationships. So, as far as their hopes are concerned, women are more monogamous than men.

Finns also take a more liberal attitude than before toward sexual relationships that are outside their own steady relationships. This shift is linked with the greater acceptance of sexual relationships among unmarried and single persons. Attitudes toward homosexual relationships are also significantly more accepting than before. In 1971, close to half of all Finns, 44% of males and 45% of females, regarded homosexual behavior between adults as a private affair with which officials and legislation should in no way interfere (see Table 3). In 1992, this opinion was supported by 59% of men and by 72% of women. [In 1999, the corresponding figures were similar: 58% and 72%.] On the other hand, attitudes toward extramarital relationships of spouses and pornography have become somewhat stricter, but only among women. Two thirds of the men and one third of the women considered watching pornography sexually arousing for themselves. The quite-free sale and distribution of pornographic films and videos were supported by 51% of men and by 24% of women.

Based on attitudes towards sexuality, equality of gender has made remarkable progress in Finland. Women’s right to be the initiators at sexual intercourse when they want it so, was supported by 94% of men and by 90% of women in 1992. This is a significant increase, especially among women. [In 1999, these proportions were still higher: 97% and 94%.] Three out of four women were of the opinion that a respectable woman could openly show her interest in sex.

The cohort analyses show that part of the changes in attitudes do not concern the oldest people at all, especially not the women. Women aged 55 to 74 approve of women initiating a sexual relationship, casual relationships, and sex without love as rarely as they did 20 years ago when they were 35 to 54 years of age. On the other hand, the attitudes towards gays and sexual relationships between steady-going adolescents have become more liberal in all the gender and age groups.

The differences in sexual behavior between Finland and the U.S.A. are not very big. However, Finns are significantly more liberal than Americans, at least, in their attitudes towards the beginning of sexual life with adolescents, homosexual relationships, and pornography (Smith 1990). A corresponding difference was observed 20 years ago between Denmark and the U.S.A. (Christensen & Gregg 1970).

3. Knowledge and Education about Sexuality

A. Government Policies and Programs for Sex Education

Legal restrictions designed to control sexarche, the beginning of sexual coitus, which prevailed in Finland until as late as the 1800s, were gradually replaced by the moral education given by the Church and the school. This education with its religious morals gradually changed, giving way to medical views on sexual matters. In sexuality education, the main attention gradually turned from teaching about what is immoral and a sin to focusing on the prevention of pregnancies and the ill health effects caused by sexual relationships. Contrary to the custom in many other countries, giving information, advertising, or distributing contraceptives have never been officially prohibited in Finland.

In the 1920s and 1930s, sex education was considered a family responsibility. There was no sex education in the schools as yet. In 1944, the National Board of Education sent a letter concerning sex education to the schools, directing teachers of biology, hygienics, Finnish, and religion to give instruction in sexual matters.

In 1948, an expert board set up by the Ministry of Education produced a program for instruction and education in sexual morals. The program contained guidebooks both for teachers and students. These guidebooks were distributed to schools, colleges, municipal officers of health, church registry offices, and youth organizations at the public expense. Apart from information about personal relations and sexuality, the program, with the guidebook to accompany it, also contained moral views about conditions in which sexual life was considered appropriate for young people.

In the early 1960s, the first summer university courses were held for teachers on family education. In the schools, sex education was still very scarce. In the 1970s, the National Board of Education set up a working committee to make a curriculum for the education in personal relations and sexual matters for the comprehensive school. The work was finished in 1976, but it did not lead to any wider reform of teaching. Instruction in contraception was, however, given in most schools.

From the 1950s on, Finnish municipalities have arranged equal school healthcare for all students, and sex education was already a part of this care prior to the 1970s. In practice, however, sex education has—and continues to be—concentrated on the anatomy and physiology of sexuality, contraception, and sexually transmitted diseases. Its outcome has largely depended on the personal interest of those teachers of biology and health education, together with physicians and nurses, who are responsible for the planning and the implementing of the educational experiences, most of which are aimed at the 15- to 16-year-old students in the 9th grade. However, in comparison with the 1960s, all young people have been included in this program, and other sources of information have also been available.

Since the early 1970s, the number of unwanted pregnancies and abortions among adolescents has decreased considerably. In part, the increased liberalization may have contributed to the decline in sex-related research efforts at the end of the decade.

Since 1972, the Primary Health Care Act has required municipalities to organize contraceptive counseling for all who want it, including schoolchildren, who were given access either to public clinics or to school physicians and nurses. When a physician or school nurse has found it necessary, girls have been provided with contraceptive pills.

In 1996, a comprehensive national study of sex education was started at the upper stage of the comprehensive school (grades 7 to 9). A questionnaire was mailed to the biology teachers in all upper-stage schools in Finland (N = 603) in February 1996. A total of 421 acceptable responses were returned from 70% of the target population.

The survey came during a period of transition in school sex education, for, in many schools, significant reductions have been carried out in the lesson hours reserved for Health Education. Family Education is about to disappear altogether and new self-governed curricula of the schools have recently been implemented.

Prior to the survey, sex education had been included in the curricula of most of the schools. Only 6% of the teachers reported otherwise. It has been given by a filtering method in connection with several other school subjects.

In the 9th grade, the biology teachers usually discuss the subject in connection with biology and the home economics teachers in connection with family education. In the 8th grade, the boys’ and the girls’ physical education teachers take up the subject in connection with health education. In addition, approximately half of the schools use school health nurses in sex education (as instructors in contraception) in each of the upper-stage grades.

In the 7th grade (aged 13 years), half of the schools had given instruction in the developments in puberty and menstruation. In the 8th grade, new items were: sexual intercourse, “the first time,” contraception, sexually transmitted diseases, dating, and emotions, which had been dealt with in every other school. In the 9th grade, in addition to the above subthemes, nearly all the schools’ sex education dealt with genitals and their functioning, ejaculations, conception, pregnancy, birth, and abortion. Other generally discussed new subthemes were sex roles, sexual minorities, sexual morals, sexual terminology, and sex life in adulthood.

Almost all the schools had used videotapes or films in the 9th grades. Textbooks had been used by four out of five, brochures of different kinds had been distributed by two out of three, and condoms had been given at least for examination in every other school. In one third of the schools, visits had been arranged to contraception or family planning clinics; and every tenth school had made visits to youth offices and/or to the congregation. A special event or happening related to sex education had been arranged in 16% of the schools within the school year.

According the survey, the most important objectives of school sex education were directing the growth to responsibility, transmission of correct information, promoting the growth of personality, and learning easy attitudes towards sexuality. On the other hand, teaching abstinence, finding the sexual experience nice and stimulating, as well as learning that casual relationships were unsatisfactory were considered the least important objectives. The chosen objectives emphasized promoting adolescents’ readiness for couple relationships and sexual life. The teachers wanted to avoid moralistically intervening in adolescents’ own choices or “feeding” them their own moral values. The teachers did not want to warn against sex too much; neither did they want to advertise it.

One of the objectives of the survey was to explain the possible differences in sex education across the country. As a whole, these differences were not strikingly great or systematic between the provinces. The perceived differences were mainly explained by the local governments’ activity in arranging further training in this field or various campaigns.

The greatest problem in the Finnish school sex education is its timing: It comes too late for the stage in the adolescents’ development. The present sex education given to the 9th graders (aged 15 years) should be provided two years earlier. Both the students themselves and the experts in this field agree unanimously that sex education in its full extent should already be given to the 12- to 13-year-olds. According the latest news, the syllabi of biology will cover sex education for the 8th graders (aged 14 years).

The strength of school sex education in Finland comes from the school healthcare, which brings out sexual matters in connection with annual physical examinations. Over a third of the girls and a fifth of the boys go to the school health nurse even at other times to talk about sexual matters. In most schools, they also give contraceptive pills. According to the survey, school health nurses also give proper lessons in sex education in at least every other school. Without the contribution of the school healthcare, the level of adolescents’ knowledge of sexual matters would be significantly lower than what it is now.

[Update 2003: In 2002, health education was prescribed as a compulsory subject of the national primary school curriculum. Sex education was integrated in health education. This will harmonize and improve sex education in Finland.

[Teenage sexual knowledge was tested in Finland in 2000 (Kontula et al. 2001). Fourteen- and 15-year-old students of the 8th grade responded to the national sexual health knowledge survey. It was organized as a competition between schools. The survey had 30,000 respondents. It revealed that the quality of sexual knowledge was much poorer among the boys than among the girls. On the average, boys got 48 points and girls 57 points of the maximum 80 points. Girls had better knowledge in all areas of the sexual health topics. Because of more-limited sources of information, sex education provided in the school is more important for the boys than for the girls. (End of update by O. Kontula)]

No detailed and effective public program for the development of sex education or other public services related to contraception can take credit for the quite-effective system of school sex education and the low teenage pregnancy rates in Finland. Rather, we would credit the liberal climate around adolescents and their sexuality for the teachers’ natural willingness to teach the subject. Adolescents’ need for information about sexual matters has been taken for granted. When sexual relationships between adolescents are accepted, it is clear that they are entitled to be prepared and well informed about various matters related to sexual life.

Public healthcare plays a significant role in sex education and advising on contraception. The system of maternity and childcare of the public health centers covers the whole country for almost all the expectant mothers and families with children. In the maternity centers, sexual life during pregnancy and contraception are discussed, among other things, and mothers and fathers are psychologically prepared to welcome the baby.

A liberal attitude towards sexuality may be reflected in the condom advertising found in the mass media, especially during the summer months. Women’s magazines have also contained numerous sex-related articles that are read by both sexes.

B. Informal Sources of Sexual Knowledge and Education

In the FINSEX study (Kontula & Haavio-Mannila 1993), people were asked if they had gotten information about sexual matters in their childhood homes in their youth or sex education at school. At the same time, the people were asked to evaluate the sufficiency of the information and education they had received and their willingness then to receive such information about sexual matters in general. Similar questions were asked both in 1971 and 1992.

Discussion of sexual matters has gradually increased both in the homes and in the schools. In their childhood home, information had been received about sexual matters by 39% of men and by 41% of women in 1971, and in 1992, correspondingly by 61% and by 64%. Ten percent of men and 14% of women in 1971 regarded the information received at home as sufficient. In 1992, the percentages were 29% and 32%, respectively. Until recently, most people have, thus, not been getting very much information about sexual matters at home, even if these matters have been more talked about.

In 1971, 28% of men and 33% of women reported having received sex education at school, and in 1992, 64% of males and 74% of females. [In 1999, these proportions were already 78% and 81%.] In 1971, 7% of men and 8% of women considered this information sufficient; in 1992, the percentages were 25% and 32% [and in 1999, 36% and 43%]. This shows that sex education in the schools has clearly improved, although only around 40% of the respondents considered the education sufficient. Close to 5% of the people said that they would not even have wanted such education. Slightly more people would have wanted to receive more education from the school than from the home.

Young people report clearly more often than others of having received sufficient information concerning sexual matters from the school or home (see Table 4). This suggests that speaking and teaching about sexual matters has clearly become more common, at least with those people who lived their youth in the 1980s. During the past 20 years, there was an especially clear increase in dealing with sexual matters. After 1971, the share of those who had received sex education in the school increased nearly threefold. Only a few people in the oldest age groups reported they had talked enough about sexual matters in their homes or at school.

The school has often tried to avoid taking the responsibility of giving sex education, maintaining that it is a question of family privacy with which the school should not interfere. This has been an attempt to cover the teachers’ own feelings of insufficiency about the teaching of sexual matters. The homes again have shuffled off the responsibility upon the school. The young people in this awkward situation have had to find the information they needed from the most diverse sources. Such sources have been the mass media and sex-related literature, from which the information received has been spread from one to the other in the circle of friends. Boys often use sex magazines as a source of information—often as their only source—where they have found actual information about sexual practices. The girls again have been more interested than the boys in the medical facts about becoming pregnant and contraception. This information has often been found in the readers’ queries sections of magazines.

The attitudes about the school’s sex education are fairly trusting in Finland nowadays, since at least 63% of the men and women reported that they did not think sex education in the schools would induce the young to start their sexual life too early. Only 19% of the men and 22% of the women feared that sex education would induce young people to have intercourse too early. Those who supported this opinion were strongly concentrated in the over-55-year-old age group, where one in every two held this opinion. Since the people of this age group have had their say in the decision making of sex education in the schools up to now, it is no wonder there are still some deficiencies in the teaching.

4. Autoerotic Behaviors and Patterns

A. Children and Adolescents

According to Kontula and Meriläinen (1988), between 2% and 3% of both the boys and the girls reported having started masturbating already before age 10. In childhood, touching genitals to cause pleasure cannot very often be connected with masturbation. In addition, adolescents often dare not report it in a survey such as this. The researchers, therefore, believe that the percentage of children practicing masturbation at an early age is surely more than 2% or 3%.

In the follow-up of the same survey (Kosunen 1993), 13- to 17-year-olds were asked if they had ever practiced masturbation and if they had masturbated during the last month. Of the 13-year-olds, 36% of the boys and 23% of the girls reported that they had sometimes practiced masturbation; of the 15-year-olds, 67% and 45%, respectively, reported this practice; and of the 17-year-olds, 79% and 59%. About 40% of the boys had masturbated during the last month and about 20% during the last week. With the girls, the corresponding figures were 20% and 5%. With age, the masturbation activity of the young increased.

B. Adults

The proportion of adults engaging in self-loving, clearly more common among men than women, has definitely increased during the last 20 years, according to the FINSEX study. There has been an increase in the practice of self-loving both during the previous month and during the past year. In 1971, 28% of the men and 16% of women reported masturbating during the previous month. In 1992, the corresponding shares were 42% and 25% [and in 1999, already 60% and 37%]. The strength of the change can be seen in the percentage of women who had masturbated during the previous year. In 1992, this figure for women was higher than the corresponding data for men in 1971.

With the spread of a more-natural attitude towards self-loving, fewer and fewer people abstain from it entirely. In 1971, 49% of the women and 26% of the men had never tried this sexual outlet. In 1992, the corresponding figures were 23% and 10% [and in 1999, 14% and 6%]. So, a large majority of both women and men have engaged in self-loving at least some time in their life.

Self-loving is considerably more common with the young than with older people (see Table 5). This, however, is not so much because of age differences as it is to changes in the times. People seem to keep the frequency pattern of self-loving they adopted in their youth throughout their lives. There are no obstacles to this, since masturbation is in no way dependent on the presence of a partner. With the aging of the present middle-aged people, the incidence of self-loving will increase further in the population.

The increase in self-pleasuring is explained by the fact that fewer and fewer people believe in the unfounded arguments that it entails health risks, as booklets on sex education maintained as late as the 1950s. Two thirds of the women and over one third of the men who still believed in these risks, or were at least uncertain about them, had never engaged in this sexual activity. Very few of these women had masturbated during the last month. On the other hand, half of the men who had totally lost their belief in the health risks of masturbation, and nearly 30% of the women, had engaged in self-pleasuring during the last month. The spread of accurate information had been a major factor in encouraging people to feel free to enjoy their sexuality with self-pleasuring.

Having a steady sexual partner somewhat diminished the need for self-loving: The unmarried, the divorced, and the widowed engaged in self-pleasuring more regularly than did married people. The better-educated people engaged in self-loving more often than others. Religiosity did not relate to the incidence of self-loving, but those who consumed more alcohol were more likely to masturbate than others. During the past 20 years, the differences in the incidence of self-loving among the different age groups has disappeared, while the differences between the marital-status groups and alcohol-user groups had grown.

Young low-income men and women engage in self-pleasuring more often than others. This relation of the masturbation frequency to low income persists in middle-aged men. Further, this higher incidence of self-loving is related to the observation that low-income men enter into steady relationships less frequently than others. Masturbation thus serves them, at least in part, as a substitute for an intercourse-centered sexual life.

[Update 2003: One important finding of the current study is that masturbation does not necessarily decrease during the course of one’s life. In fact, the three surveys in Finland show that masturbation remained almost at the same level in every birth cohort from one survey to another. This implies that the masturbation habits, which each generation adopted in its teenage years, tend to remain very similar throughout life, even over a 27-year time span. This tells us how important a generational approach is to understand differences between age groups in sexual attitudes and behaviors. Comprehensive sex education for teenagers would help new generations enjoy their sexuality free from unnecessary fears and anxiety (Kontula & Haavio-Mannila 2003b).

[According to studies of the sexual autobiographies of ordinary people, fears related to masturbation have been common among many generations in Finland, Estonia, and St. Petersburg. Several authors of the sexual life histories have been afraid of the negative consequences of masturbation after reading warnings in publications or after hearing about them from others. Fears (of becoming insane) and guilt related to masturbation were common especially before the 1970s. Some people explained how they had tried to stop masturbating because of these fears, usually unsuccessfully. Even among women in the youngest generations, feelings of guilt remained common (Kontula & Haavio-Mannila 1997; Haavio-Mannila et al. 2002). (End of update by O. Kontula and E. Haavio-Mannila)]

The use of pornographic materials has remained almost the same among men but decreased among women between 1970 and 1990. Even when sex videos were included in the printed publications in 1992, fewer people, on the average, had viewed such material during the previous year. During the past year, 50% to 60% of the men in the different age groups, and from 15% to 20% of the women, had watched a sex video or read a sex magazine.

Obviously, interest in pornographic publications was exceptionally high in 1971, because open nakedness had come, for the first time, into the pictures of the sex magazines at the end of the 1960s in Finland. The charm of novelty and the taste of “the forbidden fruit” made this material especially attractive. More recently, this high excitement and attraction have settled down. Besides, the so-called soft pornography is now within everyone’s reach, for example, in the pictures in the afternoon tabloids, although it is no longer referred to as pornography.

[Update 2003: In 1999, the popularity of pornography had again increased: 64% of the men and 21% of the women had looked at sex magazines during the last year. For sex videos, these proportions were 57% and 27%, respectively. (End of update by O. Kontula)]

5. Interpersonal Heterosexual Behaviors

A. Children

Small children often play sexual games (doctor games) and masturbate, during which they examine the genitals of both their own and the other sex. According to the KISS study conducted in Finland (Kontula & Meriläinen 1988), sexual games have been played by at least 40% of the young adults in their childhood, half of them more frequent than one or two incidents. These games may also include imitating and trying the sex habits the children had seen adults using. This cannot, however, be regarded as an actual initiation of sexual life, because it is not yet conscious activity that could be interpreted as sexual. Sexual meanings are not generally understood before approaching adolescence and the effects of pubertal hormones on the brain. Puberty brings a quite new kind of interest in sexual matters.

B. Adolescents

Puberty

By age 13, about four out of five girls have had their first periods of menstruation and about 60% of the boys their first ejaculations. As a result, many young people show considerably more serious interest in the opposite sex than before. Over half of the boys of this age and one third of the girls have already viewed sex magazines and sex videos, and more than half of both boys and girls have kissed, according to the 1992 data. Many have experienced caressing over the clothing. Almost half of the 13-year-olds are ready to accept sexual intercourse in their peers’ relationships. About as many report having already had a dating relationship with the opposite sex. Mostly, this means going around together with the dating partner as part of a group of young people. Sexual intercourse has been experienced by about 5% by the age of 13.

Between ages 14 and 15, most Finnish adolescents go to a confirmation class, a one-week church-sponsored camp, after which they are confirmed. This has become a kind of initiation rite for becoming a sexual adult.

Adolescence is a time of rapid changes, and, with age, sexual experience quickly grows. In Finland, the greatest changes in adolescent sexual behaviors occurred between 1960 and 1970. In 1992, Finns between ages 18 and 54 reported they had kissed for the first time, on the average, at the age of 14, had started dating at 17, and experienced their first sexual intercourse at the age of 18. Young people with a long education began sexual intercourse later than others.

Nowadays, young people mature, both physically and mentally, earlier than before. Because of the increased economic well-being, they live in a more grown-up way at a fairly young age, when they build their sexual identity through a multinational youth culture. As a result, the age of sexual initiation has fallen. On the other hand, the time spent in education has lengthened and the age of entering into marriage has risen. This explains why young people have more relationships, both successive and casual, today, and why marriage has been displaced by cohabitation, at least before having children.

In the 1992 FINSEX survey, one third of the 18- to 74-year-old women and a quarter of the men reported dating (going steady) by age 15. About four out of five had experienced kissing, and two out of three caressing over the clothing. Petting under the clothing had been experienced by one of every two younger Finns. Sexual intercourse before the age of 16 had been experienced by 31% of the girls and 19% of the boys according to the 1992 data (see Table 6). On average, Finnish girls begin having intercourse somewhat younger than the boys. This is quite understandable, because girls often date boys from two to three years older than they themselves are. The boys are more eager to have intercourse than the girls, but the girls have better opportunities.

Early Noncoital Experiences

The sexual life of young Finns does not generally begin with sexual intercourse, but with kissing and caressing. These behaviors are often associated with first dating relationships. It has been observed in Finland that four years, on the average, elapse from the first kisses and caresses of the young people to the first sexual intercourse (Kontula 1991). These experiences are surely as important to the young as the first intercourse. In the past, when a great number of people wanted or had to put off beginning sexual intercourse until marriage, kisses and caresses were the only forms of sexual life before entering matrimony.

A great number of people have already kissed before their first steady relationship, according to the 1992 FINSEX study. After the mid-1970s, about 60% of the men and 70% of the women were dating before the age of 18. About 40% of the present-day under-35-year-olds had had a steady dating relationship before the age of 16. Before the 1950s, it was quite unusual for women of this age to date. Nowadays, only 3% of the over-25-year-olds have never had a dating relationship. Since the 1980s, there have not been great changes in the onset of dating.

The age of sexual initiation has clearly fallen during the past few decades. Both first kisses and dating relationships are experienced at a younger age today than in the past. Four out of five have kissed before the age of 16, and two out of three have been going steady before the age of 18.

Characteristic of those adolescents who initiate a sexual life earlier than the others is a lifestyle that emphasizes a break with the norms of childhood and an orientation towards a freer social life. To these young people, free social life represents a means rather than a goal. The reverse is true for those who have less self-confidence and fewer sexual experiences. The acquired values and moral codes, such as associating love with family, lose their importance after sexual initiation.

Based on the KISS study (Kontula 1991), it can be said that the values associated with starting a sexual life early are today often connected with symbolic opposition or rebellion to authorities. Extended education with its upper-class values is ideal for arousing such opposition.

Sex is used to sell things and ideas to the young, but sex itself is rarely sold to them. Society and parents rarely provide adolescents with interpretations of sex (scripts) that would give a positive and an enjoyable picture of sexuality. Thus, adolescents, girls in particular, do not expect much good of their first sexual experiences, especially of sexual intercourse. Normally, organized education and instruction only provide warnings about the risks of getting pregnant, being infected with an STD or the HIV virus, getting a bad reputation, and similar dangers.

Moral values concerning reproduction and marriage have gradually been replaced by the values of satisfying one’s social needs. This shift has contributed to a widening of interpretations relating to sexual interactions guided by strict Christian and conventional scripts towards “games,” in which various tactics to achieve first sexual experiences are possible. The morals of satisfying social needs, which emphasize the importance of sexual life, give young people permission to initiate a sexual life in various practical situations. This widening of the sexual script towards “games” is one important reason for an earlier sexual initiation among Finnish adolescents during the last few decades (Kontula 1991). Tactics, interpretations, and values, which are all part of sexual interactions, are, however, still strongly regulated socially and culturally.

Dating

The age of first dating, like the age of first kisses, has lowered in recent years. In the 1930s, only half of the under-20-year-old people had dating relationships; currently, more than four fifths of the under-20-year-olds are dating. This increase stopped in the 1980s.

In the Finnish-Karelian culture area, “night courting or prowling” was a common way for young people to become acquainted until the early 20th century. In rural areas, it was customary for groups of boys to visit several girls during a single outing, since the girls belonged to the same social group. In going to the girls’ sleeping quarters, “night courting” constituted a formal social venture or endeavor, with identifying knocks, introductions, overtures, seductive lines, and poetry. The choice of a conversation partner was made with the help of night proposal rites. The many customary rules and norms in night courting were aimed at the preservation of morality (Sarmela 1967). In their classic study Die Einleitung der Ehe [The Introduction to Marriage] (1937), K. Rob and V. Wikman divided night prowling into two main types: organized-group and individual courting. In group prowling, the boys watched, often very strictly, over each other’s behavior. The girls could not refuse the visits of such groups. It was, nevertheless, in the power of the girls to decide which boys in the group would be allowed into their sleeping rooms in the storehouse or building where they were spending the summer.

Sexarche

Sexarche, first sexual intercourse, requires finding an appropriate partner and becoming sexually aroused. What a person defines as “appropriate” is closely associated with the interpretations given by society. “An appropriate partner” may be understood as a partner with whom one has a love relationship and a relationship in which both partners feel “ready” for sexual intercourse. The importance of these social conditions is emphasized by the fact that about 20% of the 15-year-olds with steady partners would have liked to have sexual intercourse, but, for some reason, they had not had that experience. They had had both the chance and the willingness; nevertheless, all the social conditions had not been fulfilled.

At the age of 15, adolescents usually accept the sexual intercourse of their peers on grounds of love. Thus, an important condition for starting a sexual relationship is that two people love each other enough. The importance of love in legitimating sexual relationships of the young people is somewhat greater among farmers and the upper-middle class. This applies to both youths and their parents. This emphasis on love is closely connected with the demand for faithfulness.

Girls tend to value sex less, to masturbate less frequently, and to report considerably less desire for sexual intercourse than boys of their age. Girls who have never had a steady relationship with a boy are less likely to report a strong sexual desire. A female culture that emphasizes love does not attach a high value to sexual enjoyment in the expectations of Finnish girls. The dating institution, however, diminishes the effect of this romantic value that delays sexarche. Among the girls, the importance of sex quickly increases with an increase in experience. Dating clearly brings the expectations of sexual life closer to each other in boys and girls.

Twenty percent of Finns currently experience sexual intercourse before the age of 16, and approximately 50% by age 18. [Update 2003: According the latest results (2003), about three quarters of women and over half of men experience sexual intercourse before the age of 18. The mean age of first intercourse was 17.6 years for women and 18.1 years for men. (End of update by O. Kontula)]

Seventy percent of the women and half of the men reported that they had had their first experience of sexual intercourse with a steady partner. Only 60% of the women and 50% of the men reported being in love with their first sexual partner (see Table 7).

Among the older Finns surveyed, nearly half of the women had their first sexual intercourse after the age of 20. With the men, the corresponding share was about one fifth. Among younger Finns, about 10% have their first intercourse after age 20. Two percent of the over-30-year-olds reported that they had never had sexual intercourse.

The age of first sexual intercourse does not differ significantly in the provinces of Finland. Nor is it related to population density, although people living in the rural areas start having sexual intercourse somewhat later than urban youth, probably because rural living provides fewer opportunities for making social contacts.

A significant change has also occurred in the extent to which sexual intercourse is involved in the first dating experiences. When ages of first dating relationship and first sexual intercourse are compared, it appears that, as late as the 1930s, sexual intercourse was not generally a part of a steady dating relationship. Less than a third of the women who had been dating at a particular age had had sexual intercourse at that age. After the 1930s, there was a continuous even growth in the proportion of the women who experienced sexual intercourse while dating. By the end of the 1970s, the proportion of women dating who had had sexual intercourse grew to nearly 90%. During the 1980s, it dropped a little and is now about 80%.

Women’s greater sexual initiative and willingness at the first intercourse has contributed to this change. However, for many women the first experience of sexual intercourse is still painful and a disappointment. Many women go through their first experience expecting it as a necessary routine in order to be able to start really enjoying their sexual life after this “puncturing.”

The decreasing gap between the willingness of men and women to initiate sexual relations in the interval between the 1970s and 1990s is statistically very significant. In two decades, the share of the women who were reluctant at their first sexual intercourse fell from 40% to 10%. This increasing equality between women and men has been matched by an increase in equality in other sectors of life, such as education, work, politics, family, and leisure time. Part of this change may be because of the more-honest reporting of both men and women to these questions than before.

Early Contraceptive Use

The use of contraception at the first intercourse has increased considerably in recent decades (see Table 8). Only a few percent of the over-55-year-olds had used contraception at the first time, and about 70% had been entirely without contraception. Withdrawal was the most common contraceptive method. The use of the condom as a contraceptive method at the first intercourse increased significantly with the under-55-year-olds, especially among the young after the middle of 1960s. In the 1970s, the use of the condom decreased slightly, according to age-group comparisons, but increased again in the 1980s, obviously because of the condom campaigns against AIDS. In the recent years, 60% of the men and 65% of the women had used the condom at the first intercourse. About 15% used no contraception at all. These proportions correspond well with results of the most recent surveys among adolescents.

C. Adults

Single Adults

In 1992, 30% of Finnish men ages 18 to 74 and 34% of women were not married or cohabiting. One third of these had a steady sexual relationship. In the whole population covered by our survey, 11% of both men and women had a steady sex partner with whom they did not live.

The proportion of single adults, i.e., not having any steady sexual relationship, is highest in the youngest and oldest age groups (see Table 9). A large proportion of people under 30 years have not yet started to live together with a partner but will probably do so later. Many of the women over 60 years are single because of widowhood and the shortage of older men. Among men, singlehood does not increase with age because they less often get widowed and have more potential partners available.

Singlehood in Finland does not mean celibacy. A large proportion of single people have a regular sex life: 40% of all single men and 28% of single women had not experienced periods of at least six months without sexual intercourse over the course of the previous five years. On the other hand, 8% of single men and 30% of single women had not engaged in sexual intercourse during the previous five years.

More single adults never had engaged in sexual intercourse, 14%, compared with 3% of the total population. Single women started their sexual activity at a later age than other women, but for men, singlehood was not connected to the age of initiating sexual intercourse.

Single men have a more-varied sex life than single women. Forty-six percent of single men and 20% of single women reported sexual intercourse during the previous month. Thirteen percent of the single men and 3% of the single women had engaged in sexual intercourse at least once a week during the previous month.

Measured by the number of partners, the sexual life of single adults is also livelier than that of married and cohabiting people. Close to half of all single men and more than a third of single women had had more than one sex partner during the previous year.

For single adults living without a steady sexual relationship, their last sexual partner was usually a sexually unaffiliated person. Fourteen percent of single women and 9% of the men said that their last partner was a spouse or steady partner of somebody else. Of single men, 2% said that their last partner was a prostitute. One tenth of single men had, during their lifetime, had intercourse with a prostitute. This is the same proportion as for married or cohabiting men. No single women reported contact with a paid sex partner.

Single people do not use as varied sex techniques as cohabiting couples and other people having a steady relationship. The positions used in last intercourse resemble those of married people: the missionary position with the man lying on top and the woman underneath. In the casual sexual relationships of single people, the love play and coital positions are fairly traditional: There is little oral sex and stimulating of a partner’s genitals by hand.

For women, the incidence of orgasm in sexual intercourse varies according to having or not having a steady sexual relationship. However, 26% of single women did not recall whether they had an orgasm during their last intercourse, perhaps because this may have been several years ago.

Single adults reported less satisfaction with their last intercourse than other people. Single adults also reported less satisfaction with their sex life as a whole than people having a steady sexual partner. Single people have a lower sexual self-esteem than other people; this may be one reason for their lack of sexual partner. People not having sexual relationships do not receive positive sexual feedback, which might strengthen their self-esteem.

Slightly more single men have had some homosexual experiences during their lifetime than attached males, 7% compared with 4%. Single men also are more likely to have a homosexual identity or identify themselves as bisexuals than other men (see Section 6 on homosexuality and bisexuality). Single women are not more often lesbians than other women.

Masturbation is more common among single adults than other adults. Half of single men and one fourth of single women reported self-loving during the last month, twice as high as married people. Self-loving is most common among single people living with their parents. Most of these are young people.

In addition to using self-loving to compensate for not having a steady sexual partner, singles watch sex videos. Forty percent of single men had watched sex videos at least a couple of times during the previous year. This is the same frequency as cohabiting men and more than married men. Only 5% of single women had watched sex videos during the year, less than cohabiting or married women had done. Similar differences were found in the use of pornographic books and magazines. Women with steady partners may get invitations from their partners to watch sex videos or read pornographic materials. Single women seem to be too shy to buy or borrow sex materials to use alone.

Sex toys and aids are generally not used as substitutes for sexual relations (see Section 8 on unconventional sexual behaviors). Vibrators are not used more by single than by other women—about 5% of all women had ever used them.

Alcohol is associated with the sexual life of single adults more than it is for affiliated persons. As many as 58% of single men and 26% of single women reported drinking alcoholic beverages before their last intercourse. For single men, this proportion is almost double that of other men, perhaps because the casual relationships of single adults often begin in restaurants and other social situations where alcoholic beverages are served.

Even though single adults suffer from feelings of loneliness more than people living in a couple relationship, not all of them long for a sexual partner. Many deny the importance of having sex or living with somebody.

Cohabitating Adults

All over the world, families and couple relationships have changed in recent decades. In the developed countries, children move away from the parental home earlier than before, cohabitation has become a common form of starting a marriage, divorces have increased, and the number of children has declined.

Because of the higher standard of living, adult Finns today live less often with their parents than in earlier times and more often alone (see Table 10). The increase in unmarried cohabitation has decreased the proportion of married people in the population. In 1971, 64% of the respondents ages 18 to 54 lived together with their spouse and only a few percent with their fiancées or steady partners. The rapid growth of cohabitation can be seen from the 1992 survey: 16% of the 18- to 54-year-olds were cohabiting and only 53% of the population in this age cohort were married. [In 1999, 15% were cohabiting and 50% were married. Living apart together (LAT) relationships had increased; their proportion was already 13%.]

The increase in cohabitation has not meant that there are more couples living together than earlier. When one adds the percentages of married and cohabiting people together, their proportion only grew from 66% in 1971 to 69% in 1992. The main change is that nowadays more people delay or do not enter a formal marriage, and maintain an official status as single. In the past 20 years, the proportion of never-married people among the 15- to 54-year-old Finns rose from 35% to 40% for men and from 27% to 36% for women.

The developmental cycle of the present union greatly varied by age in 1992 (see Table 11). In the older age groups, 55 years and over, a large majority first moved in together after the wedding. In the age category 25-to-44 years, half of the people first lived together and then married. Four fifths of the less-than-35-year-old people living together with someone were cohabiting without marriage. At present, most Finns start their marital life as a cohabiting couple.

In 1992, the age at moving in together was for men aged 15 to 64 years, on average, 0.9 years lower than age at marriage in 1971, and among women 0.6. The increase in cohabitation thus made men, in particular, more inclined to move in together with their partner relatively early. Twenty years ago, the average age at first marriage was 24.6 for men and 22.3 for women—there are no data on when couples moved in together from that era. In 1992, men initiated cohabiting, or married for the first time, on average, at age 23.7 years, women at age 21.8. [The mean age of women at first marriage in 2000 was 28.0 years. This difference is because of the fact that, practically speaking, everybody cohabited before they married.]

Of all the men interviewed in 1992, 79%, and of the women, 83%, had lived in a matrimonial relationship. In the oldest age group, 65 to 74 years, there was a gender gap: 7% of men and 13% of women never had cohabited or married. This is partly explained by the fact that single men die young and single women live long.

A longer life expectancy and the growing divorce rate have contributed to the fact that people have time to enter several unions during their lives. According to the 1971 study, 5% of the ever-married men and 6% of the women had been married at least twice. In 1992, the proportions were 17% and 22%, respectively, [and in 1999, 26% and 25%].

Cohabitation does not always lead to marriage, particularly among young people. One fourth of the 1992 respondents had been cohabiting without getting married to the partner. Among people under 35 years, the proportion was more than half.

Marital, Extramarital, and Postmarital Sexual Behaviors

Sexual Intercourse. The frequency of sexual intercourse 20 years ago was almost as high as nowadays. Finns have sexual intercourse usually once or twice a week. The share of people who had had sexual intercourse during the last two days among the people ages 35 to 54 was higher in 1992 than in 1971 (see Table 12). Sexual relations seem nowadays to remain consistent and regular later in life than they did 20 years ago. The frequency of sexual intercourse does not decrease significantly until after the age of 55, especially among women. Even this change does not necessarily follow from aging but from generational differences.

[Update 2003: In the 1990s, the frequency of sexual intercourse had not changed significantly. In 1999, the number of intercourses per month in the age group 18-to-54 years was 6.3 for men and 5.9 for women; the annual totals for men was 75.9 and for women 70.3. (End of update by O. Kontula)]

Sexual intercourse has become more varied. While in 1971, as much as 68% of the most recent occurrences of sexual intercourse among 18- to 54-year-old people were the missionary position, in 1992, the proportion was 43%. The proportion of those who had used many different positions during their most recent sexual intercourse had increased in a very significant way, from 16% to 32%. [In 1999, this proportion was even higher: 44% of men and 36% of women.]

Twenty years ago, it was usual that the man was the sole initiator of sexual intercourse in 49% of the incidents. In 1992, only 37% of the most recent experiences of sexual intercourse were initiated solely by the man. Fifteen percent of the male respondents said that the woman was the initiator of the last sexual intercourse, but this figure was only 10% according to the women’s responses. Women were slightly more likely than men to report that both partners took an equal role in initiating intercourse, 51% compared with 45%. Women may find it more difficult to admit that they have taken an active role in coitus.

Alcohol consumption before the last sexual intercourse became slightly more frequent in the past 20 years. In 1971, alcohol had been used by 21% of the men and 11% of the women; in 1992, this figure was 25% and 16%, respectively, [and in 1999, 34% and 23%, respectively]. This reflects an increased consumption of alcohol among Finns in general.

Sex Styles. Sexual satisfaction can be attained in many ways. Following a factor analysis of the 1992 data to measure variables associated with different sexual habits and partners, three sex styles were identified:

The connection of the social background with these sex styles was examined by regression analyses. As explanatory variables in the simple linear regression model, there were gender, age, place of residence, type of marital relationship, years of education, income, days on working trips, religiosity, and two variables about alcohol consumption: the frequency of alcohol use and of getting intoxicated.

Sex in a steady relationship, meaning frequency of sexual intercourse and familiarity of the last sexual partner, relate naturally to living in a steady relationship, but also to youth and high income with a lower level of education. This sex style is typical of ambitious couples. The regression model explained 41% of the variation in the steady-relationship sex.

Those who practice casual sexual relationships, or people who have numerous sexual partners and/or sex with foreigners and paid partners are men, city residents, well-paid, who travel a lot for their work. They are indifferent to religion and often consume alcohol. The people cohabiting or in a steady noncohabiting relationship more often than other people had transient sexual relationships. The typical male practitioners of casual sexual relationships may well be called “rich good-time boys” for their social background, even if they can be found in all age and gender groups. The regression model explained 18% of the variation in the casual sexual relationships.

Alternative sex was related to male gender, youth, frequency of alcohol consumption, and frequency of intoxication. The married and the single people did not engage in alternative sexual habits as much as the people living in cohabitation or in steady sexual relationships. Alternative sexual habits are related to the lifestyle of young go-ahead men. As much as 43% of the variation in alternative sex was explained by these social factors.

Sexual Partners. For Finns ages 18 to 54, the average number of sexual partners during their lifetime has risen from 7 to 10 during the last 20 years. In 1971, women of all ages had about 3, men about 11 partners, and in 1992, correspondingly, 6 and 14. In 1992, the male respondents between ages 25 and 44 years had the most partners, between 40% and 50% had at least 10 partners; of the women in the same age cohorts, about 18% had at least 10 partners (see Table 13).

[Update 2003: The number of sexual partners had somewhat increased in the 1990s. In 1999, the mean number of sexual partners was 16 for men and 7 for women; 43% of men and 25% of women had had more than 10 sexual partners in their lifetime. (End of update by O. Kontula)]

In both surveys, the large number of sexual partners is related not only to gender and age, but also to marital status, according to a Multiple Classification (multivariate) analysis: The married people had fewer partners than the unmarried, widowed, and the divorced. Those alienated from religion, as well as the frequent consumers of alcohol, had more sexual partners than the religious and temperate people. Those who had passed the matriculation examination had fewer partners than the less educated; this difference, however, was no longer statistically significant in 1992.

Worldwide, in all the sex surveys, men claim to have had more sexual partners than women. This survey refined this general data by separating out data on Finnish men and women who had foreigners, homosexuals, or prostitutes as partners. When those who had, at some time in their life, at least one foreigner, one homosexual, and one prostitute as a sexual partner, were separated from the data on under-56-year-old men and women, the men still had at least 10 sexual partners—about twice as many as the women. One explanation of this might be that the Finnish men subconsciously overestimate the number of their partners, while the women underestimate their contacts. Another possibility is that many of the men with multiple sexual partners who responded to the survey have as sexual partners a small group of women who, for the main part, were left outside the survey and were among the nonrespondents of the questionnaire.

Finns report a somewhat higher number of sexual partners than Americans (Laumann et al. 1994). This may partly be explained by the fact that in the United States, a greater proportion of survey respondents left the question concerning the number of partners during their lifetime unanswered.

In addition, during the prior 12 months, the Finns more often than the Americans had more than one partner. During the previous year, 21% of the Finnish men and 11% of the women had had two or more partners; the corresponding figure for Americans was 17% and 7%, respectively. Only 4% of the Finnish men and 7% of the women reported that they had had no partners at all during the prior year; in the United States, the proportions were 13% and 24% (see Tables 14, 15, 16, and 17).

These results suggest that the sexual life of the Finns is at least as active as that of the Americans. Indeed, fear of AIDS and traditional sexual attitudes may restrict the number of sexual partners in the United States more than in Finland.

Extra or Concurrent Sexual Relationships. The partners in the most recent sexual intercourse have mostly been steady partners or spouses in marriage or cohabitation. In 1992, only 6% of the men and 4% of the women in a steady sexual relationship had had someone other than the steady partner as the last partner. However, a greater and greater share of people have experiences of sexual relationships alongside their steady sexual relationships. Sexual relationships of this kind, including extramarital relationships, are called extra or parallel sexual relationships in the study.

The number of extra sexual relationships has approximately doubled during the 20 years among the Finns between 18 and 54 years old. In 1971, 24% of the men and 9% of the women who were married at the time of the survey stated that they had had sexual intercourse with some persons other than their spouses during their marriage. In 1992, 44% of the men and 19% of the women who were living in cohabitation or marriage had experiences of parallel sexual relationships during their cohabitation or marriage (see Table 18). [In 1999, these proportions had somewhat decreased among men, but increased among women.]

In 1992, the respondents were also asked how many parallel sexual relationships they had had while in their steady relationship with their then or earlier partner. Of all the people aged 18 to 74 years who had sometimes lived in a steady relationship, 52% of the men and 29% of the women admitted having experienced at least one relationship of this kind. Even if the incidence of parallel sexual relationships has increased, attitudes to parallel sexual relationships have become stricter during the past 20 years. This discrepancy between liberated actual behavior and tightening attitudes may be related to the fear of AIDS and the growing conservatism in the society in general (Haavio-Mannila et al., 1997). [Comment 2003: It may also imply higher expectations for permanent couple relationships and a renaissance of romanticism in the 1990s. (End of comment by O. Kontula)]

Incidence of Oral and Anal Sex. In the 1992 data, stimulation of the partner’s genitals (e.g., fondling and stimulating by hand) in order to give him or her satisfaction without sexual intercourse is a common form of petting and love play. It may or may not be linked to vaginal intercourse. A large majority, 86% of men and 76% of women, had at least sometimes during their lifetime stimulated a partner’s genitals. [In 1999, these proportions were 84% and 81%.] During the past month, this had been done by half of men and more than a third of women. More than one year had gone by since the last incidence of stimulation by hand for 26% of men and 42% of women. Women thus have been less active than men in giving satisfaction to a partner without sexual intercourse. Maybe some men offer fondling and stimulation by hand to their partners who otherwise do not have an orgasm in intercourse.

Young people stimulate their partner’s genitals by fondling much more commonly than do older people. Of women and men over 55, half of the women and 30 to 40% of the men have never done it, whereas the proportion among 25- to 34-year-olds is only 5%. This huge age gap indicates that fondling the genitals was not considered a part of a “normal” sex life to satisfy one’s partner when today’s older generation was in their youth. Vaginal intercourse was then the main sex technique.

Anal sex (sodomy) has been practiced throughout history for pleasure, birth control, and to avoid breaking a virgin’s hymen. Including the anus in sexual activity is taboo in some cultures.

Clinically there is no difference between stimulation of the mouth, ears, nipples, feet, or anus in the production of pleasure sensations to the brain. None of these activities have a direct role in reproduction so it seems inconsistent for people to accept some and not all points of arousal in sexual activity. (Love 1992, 10)