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Sex guilt and sex myths in

college men and women
a
Donald L. Mosher
a
Professor of Psychology , University of
Connecticut , Storrs, Connecticut, 06268
Published online: 11 Jan 2010.

To cite this article: Donald L. Mosher (1979) Sex guilt and sex myths in
college men and women, The Journal of Sex Research, 15:3, 224-234, DOI:
10.1080/00224497909551043

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 The Journal of Sex Research Vol. 15, No. 3, pp. 224-234 August, 1979

Sex Guilt and Sex Myths in College

Men and Women
DONALD L. MOSHER
Abstract
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Inventories measuring sex guilt, sex experience, and sex myths were
completed anonymously by 87 males and 88 female college students to study
the prevalence of sex myths and the relation of belief in sex myths to the
level of sex experience and the affective-cognitive structure of sex guilt.
College men endorsed significantly more sex myths than college women. The
level of sex experience was not correlated with belief in sex myths. Sex guilt
was negatively correlated with level of sex experience and positively corre-
lated with belief in sex myths. High-sex-guilt males endorsed myths portray-
ing sex as dangerous, and high-sex-guilt females regarded virginity as impor-
tant. It was concluded that structured sex education and values clarification
are needed to complement and amend traditional socialization into hetero-
sexuality.

While it can be argued, and often is, that we live in an age of sexual
enlightenment, there may be more heat than light in the sex lives of
college men and women. The present investigation examined the inci-
dence of beliefs in sex myths in college students. A sex myth is a false
belief about sexual behavior or physiology that is either scientifically
inaccurate or downright apocryphal. Sex myths are never useful, and
frequently they are pernicious.
Of particular concern in this study were individual differences in the
endorsement of sex myths by men and women as a function of the
student's level of sexual experience and sex guilt. While folklore has it
that experience is the best teacher, is that an accurate representation of
the ideal strategy for learning about human sexuality? Are college stu-
dents who have progressed to a more advanced level of premarital sex
less likely to endorse sex myths? Or alternately, does belief in sex myths
inhibit premarital sexuality?
It may well be that at least some myths are promoted as warnings to
inhibit sexuality (e.g., "Boys who masturbate excessively harm them-
selves by losing protein and blood through the semen that is ejaculated.").
Sex guilt can be considered an affective-cognitive structure that results

Donald L. Mosher, PhD, is Professor of Psychology at the University of Connecticut.

Requests for reprints should be addressed to Donald L. Mosher, PhD, Department of
Psychology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut 06268.

224
 SEX GUILT AND SEX MYTHS 225

from repeated interactions of the emotion of guilt with cognitions about

moral conduct in sexual situations. Well intentioned but ill informed
parents may use sex myths to bolster moral training, and the emotion of
guilt can come to inhibit not only sexual behavior but even seeking
information about sexuality. Individual difference measures of the attri-
bute of sex guilt have proven to be useful predictors (Mosher, 1961,1966,
1968), and the construct of guilt over sex is a frequently espoused
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explanatory variable in accounting for sexual behavior (Kutner, 1971).

Sex guilt was negatively correlated with sexual experience (Langston,
1973; Mosher, 1973; Mosher & Cross, 1971) and was a significant contrib-
utor to sexual decision making in college couples (D'Augelli & Cross,
1975; D'Augelli & D'Augelli, 1977). The research of D'Augelli, cited above,
demonstrated that high-sex-guilt college students are modally oriented
at Kohlberg's law-and-order stage of morality. Sex guilt was associated
with the avoidance of opportunities for vicarious erotic stimulation (Love,
Sloan, & Schmidt, 1976; Mosher, 1973; Schill & Chapin, 1972) or to
negative affective reactions following exposure to explicitly sexual mate-
rial (Kier, 1972; Mosher, 1973; Mosher & Abramson, 1977; Mosher &
Greenberg, 1969; Pagano & Kirschner, 1978). High-sex-guilt women re-
ported using less effective contraception (Mosher, 1973), and high-sex-
guilt women who were sexually active had more abortions than low-sex-
guilt women who were sexually active (Gerard, 1977). High-sex-guilt
subjects retained less information on birth control from a lecture
(Schwartz, 1973). Sex guilt appears to inhibit sex-related behaviors and
cognitions in a variety of contexts. Since sex guilt disposes the person to
avoid sex and sexual topics, it was predicted that high-sex-guilt subjects
would endorse more myths about sexual behavior.
While the parents are the active socialization agents in influencing the
attitudes and emotions comprising the affective-cognitive structure of sex
guilt, children receive most of their sexual information through peer
relationships. Males in early adolescence in particular are exposed to
homosocial peer discussions of sexuality that may be filled with exagger-
ations and distortions (Gagnon & Simon, 1973). Thus, males may learn
more myths than females, and the different socialization of the sexes may
involve the transmission of different myths.
Method
Subjects
The subjects were 87 men and 88 women enrolled in introductory
psychology at the University of Connecticut who participated in the
 226 DONALD L. MOSHER

study as part of their course requirement. Subjects volunteered for a

study in "sex attitudes and information," and there was no attribution
during the description of the requirements for participation.

Procedure

The subjects anonymously completed the Mosher Forced-Choice Guilt

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Inventory, Sex Myth Inventory, and the Brady-Levitt Sex Experience

Inventory in small, same-sex groups. The instructions emphasized the
importance of the investigation, of accuracy, and of honest self-disclosure,
and provided assurances of anonymity. Debriefing referred the students
to McCary's textbook for correct sex information.

Measures

Sex myths. The measure of sex myths was constructed for this inves-
tigation by selecting and editing 41 items from the list of 70 myths
contained in the chapter on myths and fallacies in McCary's (1967)
textbook on Human Sexuality. The myths selected seemed appropriate
to the concerns and educational level of the students and were trans-
formed into true or false questionnaire items.
Sex guilt. The sex guilt subscale of the Mosher Forced-Choice Guilt
Inventory (Mosher, 1966) consists of 28 forced-choice items with a cor-
rected split-half reliability of .97. Mosher (1979) has recently reviewed
100 studies supporting the construct validity of the measures of guilt.
Sex experience. Brady and Levitt (1965) developed a list of 12 sex
experiences that formed a Guttman scale. The items ranged from kissing,
to breast and genital petting, to coitus, to oral-genital sex. The sex
experience score was the number of items endorsed which provided a
summary of the level of sexual progression towards the complete range
of heterosexual behaviors. Although the Guttman format of the Brady-
Levitt Scale is a face valid measure, evidence relating sex experiences to
sexual attitudes, behavior, and reaction to explicit sex films supports its
construct validity (Mosher, 1973).

Results

Table 1 includes the means, standard deviations, and resulting t tests

of the differences between the mean scores of the men and women on sex
myths, sex guilt, and sex experience. The findings that men scored lower
 SEX GUILT AND SEX MYTHS 227

on sex guilt than women and of insignificant differences in the level of

sex experience for college men and women were replicative of previously
reported results cited in the introduction. Only one of the 12 specific
sexual behaviors of the Brady-Levitt scale differentiated men's from
women's sex experience in this sample. Face-to-face coitus had been
experienced by 53% of the men and 38% of the women, t(173) = 2.06, p
<.05.
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Of greater interest was the finding that men reported believing signifi-
cantly more myths than women. On the average, men endorsed three
more myths than did women. This significant difference emerged in large
part from responses to 12 specific myths that were endorsed by signifi-
cantly more males than females. The percentages of males and females
who endorsed each of the 41 myths are contained in Table 2.
In summary, significantly more males believed that:
(1) "Each individual can have just so many sexual experiences in his
life time, and when these have been used up, sexual activity is
finished for that person," £(173) = 1.98, p <.O5.
(2) "Boys who masturbate excessively harm themselves by losing pro-
tein and blood through the semen which is ejaculated," £(173) =
2.34,p<.05.
(3) "Sexual intercourse should be avoided during pregnancy to ensure
the health of the infant and mother," £(173) = 2.58, p <.O5.
(4) "Women ejaculate when they experience orgasm," £(173) = 3.97, p

(5) "Aphrodisiacs ("spanish fly," oysters, etc.) do increase sexual de-

sire," £(173) = 2.89,p<.01.
(6) "When women masturbate, they most commonly insert foreign
objects into the vagina," £(173) = 3.01, p < .01.
(7) "Conception is most likely to occur if the man and woman experience
a simultaneous climax," £(173) = 2.34, p < .05.
(8) "The absence of a hymen or maidenhead is proof that a woman is
not a virgin," t(173) = 3.07, p < .01.
(9) "Men and women lose their sex drive after the age of fifty," £(173)
= 2.88,/><.01.
(10) "It is not the man who determines the sex of the child," £(173) =
3.48, p < .001.
(11) "Menopause or hysterectomy terminates a woman's sex life because
of hormonal imbalance," £(173) = 2.35, p <.05.
(12) "The penis of the Negro male is larger on the average than that of
the white male," £(173) = 3.48, p <.001.
 228 DONALD L. MOSHER

TABLE 1
Means, Standard Deviations, and t Tests for Men and Women's Sex Myths, Sex Guilt,
and Sex Experience
Male Female

M SD M SD

Myths 11.61 4.33 8.60 3.46 5.08*

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Guilt -16.36 16.11 -8.53 18.71 2.96*

Experience 7.30 3.30 6.85 3.26 .90
•p < .001, df = 173.

TABLE 2
Percentages of Endorsement of 41 Sex Myths By College Men and Women
Percent of
Myths
Males Females
9 2 1. Each individual can have just so many sexual experiences in his
life time, and when these have been used up, sexual activity is
finished for that person.
66 69 2. The more sexually active a person is and the earlier the age at
which he begins that activity, the longer it continues into old
age. (R)a
15 4 3. Boys who masturbate excessively harm themselves by losing
protein and blood through the semen which is ejaculated.
41 50 4. It is a physical near-impossibility for a person to experience
orgasm or ejaculation too often. (R)
48 30 5. Sexual intercourse should be avoided during pregnancy to en-
sure the health of the infant and mother.
6 4 6. Oral-genital sex between a man and woman indicates homosex-
ual tendencies.
26 26 7. If heart patients remain physically inactive and quiet during
sexual intercourse they need not worry that sexual activity will
be detrimental to their health.
15 16 8. Virginity of the woman is one of the more important factors in
the success of a marriage.
56 46 9. Most men have had at least one sexual experience with a
prostitute.
5 5 10. It is necessary to have sexual intercourse twice in the same
encounter to conceive fraternal twins.
51 23 11. Women ejaculate when they experience orgasm.
22 20 12. Women can experience multiple orgasms within a single period
of sexual activity. (R)
39 40 13. Women can have nocturnal orgasms which accompany erotic
dreams. (R)
" (R) indicates reverse scoring of the item; thus, percentages reflect those not believing
the accurate statement.
 SEX GUILT AND SEX MYTHS 229

17 9 14. Sexual intercourse will weaken an athlete.

1 2 15. The best health is enjoyed by people who abstain from sex.
51 30 16. Aphrodisiacs ("Spanish fly," oysters, etc.) do not increase sexual
desire. (R)
12 10 17. "Wet dreams" are not indicators of sexual disorders. (R)
32 33 18. Most men ejaculate within two minutes of intromission during
sexual intercourse. (R)
56 34 19. When women masturbate, they most commonly insert foreign
objects into the vagina.
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26 22 20. The incidence of masturbation in males is about 95% of the total

male population. (R)
55 43 21. While it is very rare, humans can get "hung up" during sexual
intercourse like dogs more commonly do.
14 16 22. Circumcision makes it difficult for a man to control his speed of
ejaculation.
21 22 23. The glans ("head") of the circumcized penis is less sensitive
than the glans of the uncircumcized penis.
13 6 24. If a woman urinates after sexual intercourse it will reduce her
chances of becoming pregnant.
75 85 25. If a man urinates after sexual intercourse it will reduce his
chances of contracting some veneral diseases. (R)
40 24 26. Conception is most likely to occur if the man and woman
experience a simultaneous climax.
23 7 27. The absence of a hymen or maidenhead is proof that a woman
is not a virgin.
8 2 28. Masturbation causes pimples and acne.
16 3 29. Men and women lose their sex drive after the age of fifty.
17 8 30. Sterilization of adult sex criminals would diminish their sex
drive.
47 23 31. It is the man who determines the sex of the child. (R)
25 20 32. The ability to experience a vaginal rather than a clitorial orgasm
is a sign of a mature woman.
32 23 33. From a physiological point of view, there is only one kind of
orgasm in women regardless of the portion of the body which is
stimulated. (R)
26 13 34. Menopause or hysterectomy terminates a woman's sex life
because of hormonal imbalance.
16 8 35. Negroes have a greater sex drive than whites.
36 14 36. The penis of a Negro male is larger on the average than that of
the white male.
26 15 37. A large penis is important to a woman's sexual gratification.
24 20 38. There is little or no correlation between body size in a man and
the size of his penis. (R)
16 8 39. Premarital promiscuity often leads to difficulty conceiving after
marriage.
20 10 40. Prostitutes who have intercourse repeatedly and frequently can
become sterile.
18 15 41. It is dangerous to have sexual intercourse during menstruation
because of harmful wastes in the menstrual fluid.
 230 DONALD L. MOSHER

As can be seen from Table 2, women rarely, and never significantly,

believed more myths than men. The two myths in which women erred
more than men were in denying the validity of "If a man urinates after
sexual intercourse, it will reduce his chance of contacting some veneral
diseases," £(173) = 1.74, p < .10, and "It is a physical near-impossibility
for a person to experience orgasm or ejaculation too often," t(173) = 1.14,
p >.10.
By inspection of Table 2, it can be seen that approximately one third
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or more college students believed 13 of the 41 myths. Only 25% of the

men and 15% of the women realized the truth of the following as a
prophylaxis for gonorrhea, "if a man urinates after sexual intercourse it
will reduce his chances of contracting some veneral diseases." Surprising
percentages of college men (55%) and women (43%) accepted the myth of
coital lock, "while it is very rare, humans can get 'hung up' during sexual
intercourse like dogs more commonly do." Two thirds of college men
(66%) and women (69%) still do not know that "the more sexually active
a person is and the earlier the age at which he begins that activity, the
longer it continues into old age."
Table 3 presents the Pearson correlations among sex guilt, sex experi-
ence, and sex myths. The significant negative correlations between sex
guilt and the level of sex experience for men and women were expected
since the results were replicative of several studies. The majority of the
12 individual items of the Brady-Levitt scale of sex experiences were
significantly negatively correlated with sex guilt for both men and women.
Of greater interest in this study were the significant positive correla-
tions between sex guilt and sex myths and the insignificant negative
correlations between sex experience and sex myths reported in Table 2.
The higher men and women scored on sex guilt, the more sex myths they
endorsed. Men and women who were more sexually experienced had not
gained more accurate sex information or dispelled their myths through
their introductory experiences into heterosexual behavior. Since the data

TABLE 3
Correlations of Sex Guilt, Sex Experience, and Sex Myths

Sex Guilt Sex Experience Sex Myths

Sex guilt -.44* .36*
Sex experience —.45* —.15
Sex myths .32* -.12
Note. Males appear above the diagonal and females below.
•p<.001.
 SEX GUILT AND SEX MYTHS 231

are correlational, one could also argue that belief in sex myths did not
preclude seeking sexual experiences.
Sex guilt scores were correlated with endorsement of each of the 41
myths for men and women. Eight significant correlations resulted for
males, and four significant and two correlations bordering on significance
emerged for females. While the correlations were not large, the data were
revealing. As both men, r(85) = .30, p <.01, and women, r(86) = .22, p
<.O5, scored higher on sex guilt, they were more likely to believe the
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myth that "conception is most likely to occur if the man and woman
experience a simultaneous climax." As the disposition to sex guilt in-
creased, men, r(85) = .21, p <.05, and women, r(86) = .21, p <.10, were
more likely to believe that "it is dangerous to have sexual intercourse
during menstruation because of harmful wastes in the menstrual fluid."
Higher guilt men, r (85) = .22, p <.O5, denied, and women, r (86) = .21, p
<.10 tended to deny, that the "incidence of masturbation is about 95% of
the total male population."
As males scored higher on sex guilt, they were more likely to believe
that "premarital promiscuity often leads to difficulty conceiving after
marriage," r(85) = .38, p <.01, "oral genital sex between a man and
woman indicates homosexual tendencies, r(85) = .33, p <.01, "prostitutes
who have intercourse repeatedly and frequently can become sterile,"
r(85) = .25, p <.O5, and "sexual intercourse should be avoided during
pregnancy to ensure the health of the infant and mother," r(85) = .22, p
<.O5.
As females scored higher on sex guilt, they were more likely to believe
that "the absence of a hymen or maidenhead is proof that a woman is
not a virgin," r(86) = .25, p <.O5, "virginity of the woman is one of the
more important factors in the success of a marriage," r(86) = .24, p <.O5,
and "most men have had at least one sexual experience with a prostitute,"
r(86) = .24, p <.05.

Discussion

The present results demonstrated that inaccurate sexual information

and beliefs in sex myths are too common in college students. Misinfor-
mation and mythic beliefs about sex can only promote human suffering,
since sexuality is both biologically and psychologically central to human
living.
The enculturation of humans into sexuality often proceeds without
 232 DONALD L. MOSHER

open discussion and frequently occurs in a context of negative emotions

and negative injunctions. The heterosexual interactions of college stu-
dents are characterized by the attitude, "let's not talk about it, let's just
do it." The level of sex experience of college students was not significantly
related to belief in sex myths. That is, sex experience is neither educative
nor did belief in sex myths preclude heterosexual exploration.
Since the data indicated that males endorsed more myths than women,
it appears that the adolescent male peer group was not a good forum for
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sex education either. Sexual socialization of males in the homosocial peer

group may leave them vulnerable to sex myths confusing the biology and
psychology of male and female sexuality, to believing seduction myths, to
feeling sexually inferior, and to needless worry over masturbation. The
greater heterosocial rather than heterosexual orientation of the adoles-
cent female peer group may leave young women with fewer sexual myths
and errors to unlearn.
Research evidence (Mosher, 1979) supports the proposition that the
affective-cognitive structure of sex guilt inhibits sexual behavior and the
seeking of sexual information. The negative correlation between sex guilt
and sex experience is interpreted as reflecting the inhibitory effect of the
personality disposition of sex guilt on sexual behavior, rather than that
less sexually experienced students experience more guilty emotion for
engaging in less advanced sexual behavior. The latter appears to be true
as well, but the present theory of guilt postulates that it is the affective-
cognitive structure of sex guilt that predisposes individuals to the emotion
of guilt when they violate their more stringent and traditional standards
of sexual morality.
The significant positive correlations between belief in sex myths and
sex guilt for men and women can be interpreted as reflecting the inter-
action of cognitive and emotive processes in developing the affective-
cognitive structure of sex guilt and in learning sex myths. Through the
punitive socialization of emotions related to sexuality by the parents,
children begin to experience intense negative emotions, including guilt,
in sexual situations. The earliest cognitions associated with these emo-
tions are negative injunctions such as, "Don't play with yourself down
there," or simply, "Stop it." The schema of sex guilt assimilates additional
experiences and cognitions as the child develops. Parents may issue
warnings about the dangers of masturbation or premarital sex and intro-
duce moral training that advocates what a person should and should not
do sexually. Male peers or pornography can promote sex myths. These
 SEX GUILT AND SEX MYTHS 233

cognitions interact with the emotion of guilt stemming from knowledge

of culpable sexual behavior, desires, and fantasy.
The present data suggested that the affective-cognitive structure of sex
guilt was associated with beliefs that sex is dangerous, particularly in
males. While both males and females higher on sex guilt tended to believe
that intercourse during menstruation was dangerous, males also believed
that sexual intercourse should be avoided during pregnancy, and premar-
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ital promiscuity could create difficulties conceiving in marriage. There is

a flavor of retributive justice in the latter belief, as well as in the belief
that prostitutes become sterile from higher rates of sexual activity. Guilt-
prone men believed that oral sex revealed homosexual tendencies. That
is, sexual variety was equated with homosexuality, which high-sex-guilt
men regard with disgust and as a perversion (Mosher, 1973; Mosher &
O'Grady, in press).
The finding that women in whom sex guilt is a prominent component
of personality emphasized the importance of virginity is consistent with
the findings of D'Augelli and Cross (1975) that high sex guilt was
characteristic of women holding the sexual philosophy they described as
adamant virgins. The data for women were consistent with the presence
of a double sexual standard in high-sex-guilt women; that is, women
should be virgins while males are expected to be sexual with prostitutes.
The prevalence of sex myths in college students and the relation of sex
myths to sex guilt suggest that serious attention needs to be paid to
structured sex education and values clarification to complement and
amend the haphazard and sometimes pernicious adolescent enculturation
into sexuality. In particular, the hypothesized influence of the male peer
group in learning sex myths requires further investigation and consider-
ation.

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