Young People’s Views Of Sexual Terms Undergo Big Changes

January 5, 2005

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The language of sex has changed greatly in the past 15 years, but men and women often still don’t connect when it comes to sexual subjects ranging from orgasm to rape, a new University of Florida study finds.

“We found that young people’s evaluation of sexual terms has changed with recent shifts in the cultural landscape,” said Virginia Noland, a professor in health science education who did the study. “It’s very important to understand not only the dictionary meaning of words, but the emotions that people attach to them.”

Understanding the connotations young men and women may attach to sexual terms is critical to health care, law enforcement and other professionals being able to communicate effectively about health information and services, Noland said. At the same time, inhibitions about sexual language may limit a person’s ability to discuss sexual topics with a partner or potential partner, describe symptoms, provide a reliable medical history or offer accurate accounts of rape, she said.

Noland led a team of researchers that asked 567 male and female undergraduates age 16 to 45 years, with an average age of about 19 years, enrolled in a “healthful living” course at a large Midwestern university, to rate their impressions of 42 sexuality-related terms on a seven-point scale from extremely positive to extremely negative. Men rated “feminist,” “gay,” “heterosexual” and “sexual assault” more positively than did women. Women, on the other hand, rated the terms “breast enlargement, “erection,” “gonorrhea,” “Internet sex,“ “oral sex,” “pornography,” “syphilis” and “transgender” more positively than did men.

The researchers compared the results with a similar study done in 1989 by researchers at the University of South Florida and Southern Illinois University. Since then, the advent of the World Wide Web and the explosive popularity of cable television have exposed young people to many more sexually oriented programs, Noland said.

The current study, published in the November issue of the journal Sex Roles: A Journal of Research, revealed the term “rape” is viewed more negatively by both men and women than it was 15 years ago, Noland said. The word elicited the most adverse reaction of any of the 42 terms for men, while “date rape” produced the most adverse reaction among women, she said.

“We interpreted these differences to possibly mean that rape to a man is a crime he can be charged with, … whereas date rape in his eyes may be something almost like an act of passion or something he doesn’t see himself as having much control over,” she said.

For women, date rape may seem especially traumatic because the perpetrator is someone she knows and has gone out with, making it a violation of trust as well as a physical violation, she said.

Another change over the 15-year period is the increasing favorability with which college women view the term “orgasm.” “I think this signals a shift in orgasm becoming something that is acceptable for both men and women, and something women shouldn’t be ashamed of talking about or achieving,” she said. “There’s a growing realization that women are sexual creatures, too.”

For example, she said, orgasm has become more common as the focus of articles in women’s magazines during the past few years.

The researchers also were surprised to learn women were more likely than men to give a positive rating to the term “Internet sex,” which didn’t appear on the 1989 survey.

“Perhaps the anonymous environment of the Internet provides a safe venue for women, allowing them to be sexually expressive with minimal risk to their self or self-esteem,” she said.

Another term making its debut in the more recent study was “breast enlargement,” which women rated more positively than men, Noland said. “The favorable rating women give to breast enlargement could signal acceptance of unrealistic body image expectations and surgical techniques to try to achieve them,” she said. “Such a trend warrants attention by health education professionals.”

Another potential cause for concern: Men rated the term “HIV/AIDS” only slightly on the negative side, a sign they may mistakenly believe the disease is primarily a problem for homosexuals or bisexuals, Noland said.

Women, meanwhile, were less disparaging of the terms “gonorrhea” and “syphilis” than they were of “herpes” or “chlamydia,” perhaps because they don’t consider themselves at risk for contracting those “classic” sexually transmissible infections, Noland said.

“Many people assume that students come to college with an understanding of sex and sexually transmitted infections, as well as how to use various types of contraception, because so many young people have had intercourse by the time they get to college,” she said. “I’ve found through my years of working in sexuality education that many students come to college very inadequately prepared to deal with these topics.”

Michael J. Basso, a public health adviser at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and author of “The Underground Guide to Teenage Sexuality,” said the results reinforce the need to train people in health-related fields about the importance of word and phrase selections when working with target audiences.

“This study emphasizes the importance and need for health professionals to recognize the power of words and the constructive or destructive effects they may have on each individual,” he said.