The Sexual Revolution

The death of Pope John Paul II is a reminder of the profound changes in sexual mores over the past half century in the United States and many other countries, of the Pope’s strong defense of conventional Roman Catholic sexual morality (including opposition to abortion, contraception, married priests, and all nonmarital sexual activity, including homosexual sex and even masturbation), and of the growing gulf between that morality and the actual sexual behavior of Roman Catholics in the United States (which is, on average, similar to that of other segments of the community), including the recent sex scandals involving the priesthood. Let us consider first why sexual morality has changed so much over the past half century. If one takes an economic approach to the question, then since the benefits of sex in the sense of the pleasure or relief of tension that it yields have deep biological roots, it is probably to the cost side that we should look for an answer. The costs of engaging in sexual activity have fallen dramatically over the last half century (AIDS notwithstanding), for many reasons. One was the discovery that penicillin is a safe, certain, and inexpensive cure for syphilis. Another was improvements in contraceptive technology that have greatly reduced the likelihood of an unwanted birth (with minimal interference with sexual pleasure). It is true that the number of unwanted births has risen, but this is because other factors influence that number besides contraceptive technology. And to the extent that improved contraceptive technology induces more sexual activity by making sex safer, the number of unwanted births will not fall by the full percentage reduction in the probability of such a birth; the reduced probability per sexual act is somewhat offset by an increase in the number of acts. Legalizing abortion has further reduced the risk of an unwanted birth, although legalization can be viewed as a response to, rather than a cause of, a change in sexual mores—or more plausibly as both. Of fundamental importance is the changing role of women in society. The rise of the service economy, with its abundance of physically light jobs, together with the advent of highly efficient household labor-saving devices, has greatly increased women’s job opportunities outside the home. That increase has in turn increased women’s financial independence and thus reduced the gains to them from marriage. It has also increased the opportunity costs of childbearing—the higher a woman’s income, the more she gives up if she leaves the labor force, whether temporarily or permanently, to have children. So this is another factor raising the cost of marriage to women. The consequence of all these things has been to reduce the marriage rate and delay the average age of marriage, and also to reduce the cost of divorce to women (and to men, by reducing the benefits of marriage to men who want to have children and stay-at-home wives). With less and later marriage and more divorce, women spend less of their sexually active years married and so their demand for nonmarital sex—sex made in any event less risky by improved contraception and the availability of abortion—soars. The increased demand for divorce was a factor in the successful movement for easy divorce, and easy divorce makes it impossible to channel sex into marriage. In communities (and there are still some) in which premarital sex is strongly disapproved, young people marry to have sex, but marriages so motivated are likely to end in divorce, producing more unmarried people and so more demand for nonmarital sex. Another factor that influences behavior in the same direction, though one that predates the developments that I have just been discussing, is the long-term decline in child mortality, as a result of which it is no longer necessary for women to be almost continuously pregnant in order to have a reasonable number of children survive to adulthood. In addition, with the decline of the farm population and the rise of social security, children’s value as farm labor and old-age insurance diminishes, and as a result the demand for children falls. With more and more sex taking place outside of marriage, homosexual activity comes to seem less anomalous than in a society in which almost all sexual activity is (or at least is believed to be) confined to marriage. That is, once the link between marriage and sex is weakened, and sex comes to be thought of as worthwhile in itself rather than just as a means of procreation, nonprocreative sex—of which homosexual sex is a conspicuous example—begins to lose its opprobrium. It may seem paradoxical to suggest that marriage and homosexuality are somehow linked; but they are. In societies like that of ancient Greece, in which men are expected to marry in order to procreate but are not expected to establish an intimate emotional connection with their wife (for example, in ancient Greece husband and wife did not eat together, and the wife rarely was even permitted outside the house), it is not difficult for homosexual men to marry. But when companionate marriage becomes the norm—when men are still expected to marry but marriage connotes much more than occasional intercourse—homosexual men become anomalous; the institution of companionate, as distinct from patriarchal, marriage tends to extrude them from a fundamental social institution. Companionate marriage is still the marriage norm, but fewer people are married, so unmarried men are less conspicuous. The major Western religions, especially Christianity, and within Christianity especially Roman Catholicism, are increasingly defined by their opposition to the modern loosening of sexual mores. This is not because these religions have become increasingly prudish (though Catholicism takes a harder line against abortion than it did until the nineteenth century, and though a concern with sexual conduct plays a notably small role in the New Testament), but because their teachings on sex have become ever more removed from the behavior of their votaries. Pope John Paul II seemed unusually conservative in matters of sex not because he was making Catholic sex doctrine more severe, but because he was refusing to yield to strong pressures to relax it. He was swimming against the tide. Even though the United States is in the midst of a very striking religious revival, religion’s grip on behavior has weakened. Hence the contrast between vastly increased tolerance for homosexual behavior and powerful opposition, much though not all of it religiously based, to gay marriage. Hence, too, the great difficulty the Catholic Church is having in attracting young men into the priesthood, especially young heterosexual men—an all-male occupation holds obvious attractions for homosexual men, especially if the behavioral constraints of religious doctrine are weakening even for persons who desire a religious career. To the extent that as a result of economic and technological change, sex ceases to be considered either dangerous or important, we can expect it to become a morally indifferent activity, as eating has mainly become (though not for orthodox Jews and Muslims). At this writing, that seems to be the trend in many societies, including our own. This is not historically unprecedented; many cultures have been far more casual about sex than our own—ancient Greece, for example. I emphasize that this has been an essay in positive rather than normative moral theory. My concern is not with whether the changes in sexual mores that I have been discussing are right or wrong, but with trying to explain what has brought about the changes. I believe they can largely be explained in economic terms.

Comments

[Kosta Calfas]

The variety of alarmism that attends most pop-statistics about sexual behaviour from a variety of interest groups of various stripes should not be taken as evidence for the institutionalization of casual sex. The fact remains that sex is mere liesure only amongst those that have the time for such liesure in lieu of any other activity. Further, lacivious behaviour has never been encouraged or unproblematic in any society, even those fun-loving ancient greeks.

Paradoxically, and sadly, those in the worst position to raise well-adjusted offspring are most likely to have children in significant numbers despite the availability of contraception. Sexual knowledge, like any variety requires of the participants some understanding of the mechanics and stakes involved. The same people who would lack the education or attention span to pick up a book are less likely to follow doctor's directions about the proper use of birth control, or "coincidentally" end up being the 1 in 500 who suffer "condom malfunction."

The goal of any social policy should be to maintain balance between our animalistic urges, and our capacity for higher reason. Neglecting the former leads to what Nietzsche disparagingly referred to as "decandence" not unlike religious zealots preaching complete abstinence as the sole message of sexual education, and neglecting the latter leads to social decay and barbarism.

When you're young and have little to no life beyond the basic fulfillment of your bodily urges, you tend to spend the preponderance of your time on those urges which has the unfortunate side-effect of producing more human beings. Sadly, our popular culture is full of the kind of nihilism and skepticism that implies that immediate material gratification is all there is.

A possible, although troubling, solution is some variety of government-sponsored birth control programs where one can target communities where teen-pregnancy rates are high. This has the rather unsettling odour of eugenicism, but as Holmes put it in one of his more eugenically sympathetic moments, and as a visit to any bar or liquor store would support:

"public welfare may call upon the best citizens for their lives. It would be strange if it could not call upon those who already sap the strength of the state for these lesser sacrifices, often not felt to be such by those concerned, in order to prevent our being swamped with incompetence... Three generations of imbeciles are enough."
-Oliver Wendell Holmes [Buck v. Bell (1927)]

[judith]

Where is Becker's reply to Posner's poses? I just got this and am curious.

[M. Webb]

There is an extremely interesting possibility that niether Judge Posner nor Prof Becker, nor anyone posting comments has addressed regarding religion. Namely, certain religions, such as the Roman Catholic Church may have an economic motivation to become more distinct from the mainstream, rather than follow (witha lag) mainstream culture. To see this imagine that people choose their religious affiliation based based on standard U=u(...). Now think about what might go in the function (i.e. fill in the (...). Obviously, a number of variables would not have an impact on the non-mainstreamness of the reglion (e.g. people choosing a relgiion to foster social connection.) However, a critical variable is going to be the desire for some eternal reward and the somewhat related concept that adhering to special rules (which of course may be a way to further one's eternal reward). Both of these elements, seperately and in tandem, are obviously major factors in many relgiions: think the special dietary laws of orthodox jews, the special dress of the Amish, the special dress and dietary restrictions of conservative muslims. If a religion such as the Catholic Church adopts adopts certain restrictions that run counter to the rest of society they may attract adherents who get particular utility from special practices. Of course they will lose adherents who do not want to follow special practices or who find these special practices offensive. However, tis MAY not be a bad thing from an economic perspective since these people may have been less comitted in the first place and been more "price conscious" (i.e. more willing to go to another church). In other words, a stricter theology, may alienate some adherents but gain other adhenerents with more inelastic demand. On balance this may be in the interest of the church.

Now coming out of theory world I am not sure whether this would explain the conservatism within the Catholic church. At least in Europe and North America the vast majority of catholics do not follow the church's teaching on contraception. On the other hand this is not where the church is gaining adherents. in addition dramatic growth has occured in mroe conservative strains of a number of relgiions (Wahabism in Islam for example). This could also be explained by people's desire to follow special rules and/or through this adherence to spcial rules gain some type of eternal reward. In short, I am not sure that Posner and Becker are correct in their implicit assumption that relgions such as the Catholic Church will become less strict as societal mores change. A plausible economic arguemnt exists that they may become mroe strict.

[Carson]

Sex can never be equated with eating. We know in our hearts that sex is different than eating. Just think of our obsession with sex. Do people spend hours on the internet looking at pictures of steaks and apple pie? Sex is biological, but it is much more than that.

[wannabe]

Fascinating discussion - I have one wee point.

Paul Barnes stated: "For the most part, I can agree with JP II when he says that contraceptives lead to a utilitarian view of the partner. In the end, I do think there is a causual relationship in contraceptive use and the objectivization of women, from a man's perspective."

With all due respect to the Pontiff, I don't think it is the condom that leads to the utilitarian view of one's partner because men have been using women for sex with or without condoms, whether for pleasure and/or reproduction, inside and outside of marriage, well since time began, though usually men of "higher station" if I may use that archaic term, and women have always paid the higher price historically for having let themselves be so used, regardless of their station.

Because historically marriage has been more about economics and reproduction than love and sex, via the arranged marriage, I suspect many husbands and indeed wives have viewed their spouses in purely "utilitarian" perspectives. [As a modern example, think Chuck and Di - she was just there to provide the heir and the spare except someone forget to tell Di, she thought she was entering a "companionate" marriage]

[wannabe]

M. Webb makes some very interesting points.

Will the Catholic Church get more strict or loosen the rules regarding contraception?

The problem I have with the Catholic Church's position on contraception is what about the economics of uncontrolled or unsustainable population growth.

Ironically the Church's largest growing constituencies are in those areas where populations are already having a problem with sustainability.

Let's look at China - you may hate the one child per family policy [it is going to create its own problems admittedly since I hear the current generation has a disportionate ratio of males to females, I'd read the ratio is 3 males to 1 female, because of the unfortunate preference of a male over female child, but then again it means there will be far fewer females to reproduce the next generation which is a good thing if you are trying to limit population growth] but the general consensus is that if the Chinese had not implemented the one child per family policy when they did, the results would have been catastrophic. China has since been able to push itself forward economically and is reportedly loosening up the policy a bit.

Even if you could get most people to "behave", does there come a time when the economics of uncontrolled or "unsustainable" population growth, even if decades, centuries away yet, comes into a direct clash with religious doctrines?

Practical realities vs principle?

[Paul Deignan]

Unsustainable population? In what sort of an economy?

Family sizes vary by society based on degrees of mechanization. So the size of a sustainable family is larger in poorly mechanized societies than in those such as Western Europe which has to import labor from abroad (also the US).

China has the problem it has because of draconian central planning and dictatorial control. The society is far less stable than that of the US because of these policies. Chinese authorities fail as a matter of policy to mechanize agricultural production so as to concentrate manufacturing capabilities so as to leverage its clout in international affairs. Meanwhile, they have a policy of isolation of rural peoples to prevent political upheavals.

This is not "unfortunate"; it is a human rights travesty.

[scott cunningham]

One reason for the need for legal marriage, as opposed to cohabitation, is how marriage benefits the female. Without a legal contract, the female may be caught in the midst of a type of hold-up problem in which, after she's made some kind of relationship-specific investment with this man, he opts to leave her after impregnating her. So, in exchange for intercourse, the female has a guarantee that she will be supported while she leaves the labor market to have children.

Don't ask me if I believe what I just wrote. I'm just saying that that may be one economic explanation for why marriage would persist and is preferred over cohabitation. Also, Posner is clearly drawing upon Becker's 70s, 80s and 90s articles and books on marriage and the family. You should check those out, if you haven't (not meaning that to sound condescending at all; simply saying that if you want to criticize the model that Posner is working out of, you should familiarize yourself with Becker's work on the subject).

[scott cunningham]

Judith - the usuallly respond to comments towards the end of the week. This one will probably merit a lengthy response from both, given the activity in the forum.

[scott cunningham]

Paul - Becker's models, FWIW, never prescribe a single motivation for marriage. He also, at least in the original JPE pt. I paper from what I remember, focused just on marriage. But in it, I think he began simply with the assumption that the joint utility from marriage had to exceed the single state. So whatever reason people marry for is not important to his models - they do so because the match leaves them with a higher personal level of utility than otherwise was possible. The consumption of the public goods in marriage are, I believe, the reason for the match. And if some of those public goods are positively related to marriage over cohabitation, that is the place to begin. I do think that the hold-up problem I mentioend could have some justification to the institution of marriage, although I am not going to tell my wife that just yet.

[Corey]

"public welfare may call upon the best citizens for their lives. It would be strange if it could not call upon those who already sap the strength of the state for these lesser sacrifices, often not felt to be such by those concerned, in order to prevent our being swamped with incompetence... Three generations of imbeciles are enough."
-Oliver Wendell Holmes [Buck v. Bell (1927)]

You know, if you are going to quote that case, you should disclose that Holmes was actually approving of the forced sterilization of a mentally disabled mother who had been raped while under the care of an institution. Some 60,000 Americans were forcibly sterilized in the years following. Later, an evil Nazi doctor quoted the case in his defense at the Nuremburg Trials. It has never been explicitly overruled. Just some fun facts.

"... you tend to spend the preponderance of your time on those urges which has the unfortunate side-effect of producing more human beings."

Did No-Kidding have a recruitment drive on college campuses or something? Its easy to be cynical. Wisdom does not lie on that path.

This week's discussion makes me want to tell a good economist joke. How many economists does it take to... you can fill in the rest.

I can't think of a topic less suited to dispassionate economic analysis than intimacy and procreation. When relationships are the primary focus of an activity, a science which treats each person as an individual, self-interested market actor is bound to produce stupid results. There is a deep and interesting legal scholarship explaning why.

[David]

Judgo Posner makes an interesting point that the "sexual revolution" is related to the changing economony and, specifically, the changing role of women. But I think Judge Posner avoids -- perhaps consciously -- discussing the sexual revolution as a political movement spurred by the political awakening of 52% of the population. I think it should be obvious to any student of history that the expanded economic opportunities for women were a product of this political revolution, and once women gained a more or less equal position in society, they demanded sexual freedom (which men had previously, through prostitutes and mistresses). That sexual freedom necessitated the right to use birth control and the right to have abortions.

As to Judge Posner's comments on homosexuality, I think he ignores the fact that it has always been present, just not out in the open. This too is a political revolution that is just starting to happen. The backlash among social conservatives is not unexpected, but it will probably be short-lived. 50 years ago, there was the same sort of opposition to inter-racial dating and marriage.

[RWS]

David, I think the current majority opposition to homosexual marriage runs a bit deeper than interracial dating issues. Homosexuality, the choices involved, and the psychology of it have been the subject of cultural discussion across continents and history. I don't think that, 50 years from now, we will look at discussions of the normative aspects of homosexual activity as being kind of silly in the way that we look at miscegeny questions.

[Palooka]

Riding the righteousness of the civil rights movement will only get gay marriage so far. I love how Andrew Sullivan and others decry the scaremongering of the polygamy question. But what would have civil rights leaders said about gay marriage flowering from the elimination of miscegenation statutes? I think, quite rightly, they would have insisted that was nonsense and scaremongering. But here we are today, where perfectly reasonable people think that gay marriage is the natural extension of Loving v. Virginia but can't fathom the possibility that Goodridge could be a basis for legalizing polygamy or polyamory. That logic never fails to astound me. Loving was different because that was addressing racial classifications which hold a special and established place in our history and legal traditions. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on your perspective, there is no such basis for court-mandated gay marriage. Finding a "right" to civil marriage based on sexual orientation does, indeed, open up a can of worm which Loving, by virtue of the classification it addressed, did not.

[Palooka]

"That sexual freedom necessitated the right to use birth control and the right to have abortions."

At least today, I don't think women are any more likely to favor abortion rights than men. In fact, I think they may be slightly less likely. Let me fill you in on a little secret, the legalization of abortion in this country wasn't the result of democratic processes. Roe overturned abortion laws in every state in the union. Some populist revolution.

[Paul Deignan]

Scott,

I'm just referring to Posner's model presented in the post.

I have not read any material outside this, do not infer it, and do not presume that anyone else has either.

[Paul Deignan]

So here is Posner's model:

1. Sex is a good to be maximized. We are currently maximizing sex through advances in technology.

2. Institutions that stand astride of this dynamic will diminish since these constraints are artificial.

3. The stability point for sexual gratification is satiation.

Criticisms of this model:

1. Sex is a controlled variable that has an inherent cost in terms of energy. It produces nothing of lasting value outside of a committed relationship.

2. Sex produces something of value within committed relationships.

In short, "recreational" sex is a symptom and not a cause of the fundamental dynamic which has not changed significantly despite the cost adjustments brought on by widely available contraceptives. There is an intrinsic limit, also, to the ability to satisfy the recreational sex demand in an economic maximization problem due to the necessity for the development of energy preserving social micro-structures.

So, my fundamental criticism of Posner's analysis is that it is "half-baked". Again, I attribute this effect to technology (as advertised in the commercial media and spam) and admit that this technological effect produces a stable energy dissipating cycle that is peripheral to the fundamental dynamic (so we have this essay and an otherwise inexplicable demographic for red Corvette/Porshe demand).

[JS]

Why men marry:

Men want sex from the highest quality women they can get but prefer not to be in committed relationships. Women want a committed relationship (with sex) from the highest quality man they can get. If a man chooses a woman that is below his qualtiy level, he gets sex without a relationship. However if a man chooses a woman who is above his quality level, he has to give her a committed relationship to get sex. While it is true that the couple has sex before marriage and the man can leave when he is tired of having sex with her, he implicitly promised marriage when having premarital sex. The same as we do not explicitly have to give a tip after a good meal but we all do it anyway.

[Paul Deignan]

I should add that I do not buy the opportunity cost argument for increasing the presentages of women in the workplace due to light industry.

However, if there is a thorough economic analysis that can back up this assertion (one that includes the value of domestic work adjusted for the relative worth of vertical structures (families) v. horizontal structures (social insurance) I might be persuaded otherwise.

It appears for now that the workplace disparity of the past was an adaptation to maximize total economic good through specialization that continues today in many industries despite the alleiviation of the aforementioned costs, i.e. the degree of specialization relies on intrinsic factors not a part of this model. I think this was recently discussed by Summers.

[Paul Deignan]

JS,

Then explain Prince Charles. Yikes!

[RWS]

Good point.

[Paul Gowder]

Palooka: what's wrong with legalizing polygamy? (Apart from the logistical problems that it would create with inheritance and tax laws.)

Consenting adults should be able to arrange, and legally establish, their romantic relationships on any basis they please, non?

[Paul Deignan]

BTW, the simplest generic relationships are the most efficient for intergenerational development.

The key aspect is making the information-responsibility loop most direct. Otherwise, society would have to pad the relationships (and they would be less efficient). Note that diversity requires male-female pairings.

So polygamous relationships should not be encouraged by law. Be sure to distinguish between encouragement and prohibition. Any sort of private sexual relation (except with minors, farm animals (FDA problems), pets (SPCA), etc. is de facto allowed--see Lawrence.)

[Paul Gowder]

Paul D.: are you suggesting that we should somehow be concerned about encouraging breeding, or breeding in a certain fashion? And all this time, I thought we were overpopulated, with predictable consequences for our media, democracy, etc. (Massification of public discourse, lack of access to both governmental and corporate decisionmakers, etc. -- read some Habermas to start, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere is useful on issues of massification, though I don't recall him tracing it to overpopulation, I do.)

[JD]

I didn't know Judges blogged!