title: Evidence of change in men's versus women's emotional reactions to first sexual intercourse: a 23-year study in a human sexuality course at a midwestern university.
abstract: With a large sample (N = 5,769) of university students obtained over a 23-year period (1990-2012), which represented three decades of first sexual intercourse experiences, the present study examined gender differences in pleasure, anxiety, and guilt in response to first intercourse. Men reported more pleasure and anxiety than women, and women reported more guilt than men. Anxiety decreased over the three decades for men; pleasure increased and guilt decreased for women. As a result of these changes, the differences between men and women in emotional reactions decreased slightly over time. The magnitude of the gender differences overall and in the most recent years of data collection, however, suggests that emotional responses to first sexual intercourse should be included in a small list of sexuality variables that are exceptions to Hyde's ( 2005 ) gender similarities hypothesis.
authors.affiliation: a Department of Sociology and Anthropology , Illinois State University.
authors.forename: Susan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sprecher
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001007:Anxiety / Q000523:psychology; D015331:Cohort Studies; D003075:Coitus / Q000523:psychology*; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D005783:Gender Identity; D006167:Guilt; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D057181:Pleasure; D012727:Sex Characteristics; D019529:Sexuality; D012922:Social Change; D012945:Social Values; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014481:United States; D055815:Young Adult