<< Petting to Climax, and Age >>

Pre-marital heterosexual histories often involve a considerable amount of physical contact without actual intercourse or union of the genitalia of the two sexes. Such socio-sexual behavior American youth have come to know as necking or petting. The term petting is properly confined to physical contacts which involve a deliberate attempt to effect erotic arousal. Accidental contacts do not constitute petting, even though they may be responsible for some erotic arousal. While petting may not always result in arousal, we have considered that the term was applicable if there was an attempt to achieve arousal.

If there is anything unique in the pre-marital petting behavior of American youth, it cannot be in its occurrence or in the techniques which are employed. If there is anything unique, it must be in the incidences or in the frequencies of petting in this country, or in the significance of its position in the total pattern of American sexual behavior, or in the frankness with which such activity is accepted by modern American youth.

Although we will never be able to secure anything more than the most general idea of the incidences and frequencies of pre-marital petting in the United States prior to the turn of the present century, it probably occurred in an appreciable portion of the histories of earlier generations. The females in our sample who were born in the decade or so just before 1900, who belonged to a generation which by and large considered itself proper and sexually restrained, had some sort of petting in about 80 per cent of their histories. Even at that time petting must have been the most widespread type of premarital heterosexual activity.

About 88 per cent of the total male population has such petting experience prior to marriage (Table 134, Figure 141). There are some males (and a smaller number of females) who respond to such stimulation, whether generalized or more specifically genital, to the point of complete orgasm. Such petting, as it is usually called, is not entirely new with the younger generation; but frank and frequent participation in physical stimulation that is openly intended to effect orgasm is definitely more abundant now than it was among older generations. A great deal of the petting does not proceed to orgasm, but more than a quarter of all the males (28%) pet to that point prior to marriage (Table 135, Figure 141). The incidence of the phenomenon is still higher at upper educational levels where more than half of the males (58%) are ultimately involved. The highest incidence in any single age period is 31.8 per cent during the 21 to 25-year period, and the figures drop steadily from there until the time of marriage — or until they disappear in the old age of still unmarried males.

Tables 134-135. Accumulative incidence data on total petting experience and petting to climax
Age Total Petting Experience & Petting to Climax: Accumulative Incidence, Males
Total Population
U. S. Corrections		 Educ. Level 0-8 Educ. Level 9-12 Educ. Level 13+
Total Petting
Experience		 Petting
to Climax		 Total Petting
Experience		 Petting
to Climax		 Total Petting
Experience		 Petting
to Climax		 Total Petting
Experience		 Petting
to Climax
Cases % with
Exper.		 Cases % with
Exper.		 Cases % with
Exper.		 Cases % with
Exper.		 Cases % with
Exper.		 Cases % with
Exper.		 Cases % with
Exper,		 Cases %with
Exper.
8 3989 0.0 2304 0.0 682 0.0 419 0.0 493 0.0 289 0.0 2814 0.0 1596 0.0
9 3989 0.0 2304 0.0 682 0.0 419 0.0 493 0.0 289 0.0 2814 0.0 1596 0.0
10 3989 0.2 2304 0.0 682 0.1 419 0.0 493 0.2 289 0.0 2814 0.3 1596 0.0
11 3988 1.8 2304 0.2 681 1.2 419 0.2 493 2.2 289 0.3 2814 1.4 1596 0.0
12 3988 7.7 2304 1.0 681 6.9 419 1.4 493 8.7 289 1.0 2814 5.8 1596 0.3
13 3987 21.4 2303 2.0 680 18.7 418 2.6 493 24.1 289 1.7 2814 17.0 1596 1.6
14 3984 43.2 2301 5.1 677 35.5 416 5.3 493 50.0 289 5.2 2814 33.7 1596 4.1
15 3977 57.0 2295 8.4 670 51.2 410 8.8 493 62.9 289 8.3 2814 47.2 1596 7.6
16 3952 71.3 2271 12.8 651 64.5 392 10.5 488 77.0 283 13.4 2813 64.2 1596 15.5
17 3882 79.1 2213 17.9 607 71.7 356 12.1 466 84.3 264 19.7 2809 75.3 1593 23.0
18 3704 83.7 2097 21.3 559 77.5 322 14.6 414 87.4 241 22.4 2731 82.9 1534 31.2
19 3413 85.9 1969 22.6 500 79.6 285 14.7 351 88.9 210 22.9 2562 87.7 1474 38.4
20 3026 87.0 1816 23.6 437 80.5 249 14.1 284 89.8 178 23.0 2305 89.9 1389 46.0
21 2592 87.9 1616 24.0 384 81.8 220 12.3 231 90.5 156 23.7 1977 90.6 1240 50.1
22 2074 88.4 1347 23.7 309 81.6 174 11.5 186 91.4 126 23.0 1579 91.1 1047 52.8
23 1658 89.0 1123 23.1 256 80.9 139 11.5 155 92.9 112 21.4 1247 91.2 872 54.6
24 1313 88.6 903 25.8 223 82.5 121 14.0 125 91.2 94 24.5 965 91.7 688 56.3
25 1057 88.7 729 27.9 188 83.5 103 16.5 110 91.8 83 27.7 759 92.4 543 58.2
26 857 88.5 595 28.5 164 82.3 84 13.1 92 92.4 74 31.1 601 92.5 437 60.6
27 659 88.3 465 30.8 149 81.9 75 16.0 80 92.5 69 34.8 430 91.2 321 56.7
28 528 90.3 382 31.1 131 82.4 66 15.2 69 97.1 61 36.1 328 89.3 255 56.5
29 432 89.8 315 29.9 113 81.4 59 15.3 60 96.7 52 32.7 259 89.6 204 59.3
30 351 88.5 254 26.9 100 82.0 55 14.5 50 96.0     201 89.1 161 61.5
31 282 88.0 206 25.6 83 81.9             155 87.1 122 60.7
32 242 86.8 178 23.1 77 80.5             127 85.0 100 57.0
33 212 86.4 154 23.4 68 77.9             110 84.5 89 56.2
34 180 86.1 132 24.9 64 78.1             87 82.8 72 55.6
35 155 84.9 115 20.3 59 79.7             73 80.8 61 55.7
36 140 85.0 105 19.4 58 81.0             63 77.8 54 51.9
37 121 84.7     52 80.8             53 79.2    
38 114 86.2     50 84.0             51 80.4    
“Educ. level 0-8” are the males who never go beyond grade school.
“Educ. level 9-12” are the males who enter high school but never go beyond.
“Educ. level 13+” are the males who will ultimately go to college.

Covering pre-marital petting experience which leads to orgasm without coitus.
In three educational levels, and in the total population corrected for the U. S. Census of 1940.

Figures 141, 29f. Accumulative incidence:
pre-marital petting experience (of any kind) and petting to climax among single males vs.
masturbation (M) among single males and total heterosexual intercourse (I) among men and
(in blue lines) petting experience, petting arousal, and petting to orgasm among females

Figures 142, 143. Pre-marital petting experience (of any kind), and petting to climax:
accumulative incidence among single males in three educational levels

Each dot indicates percent of sample with some sort of experience by each of the indicated ages.
Based on pre-marital histories of population corrected for U. S. Census distribution.

Approximately 40 per cent of the females in our sample had had heterosexual petting experience by fifteen years of age, which is near the average age at the beginning of the second year in high school. Between 69 and 95 per cent had had such experience by eighteen years of age, which is at about the end of high school. About 90 per cent of the entire sample, and nearly 100 per cent of those who had married, had had some sort of petting experience prior to marriage.

It is clear that the number of years, as well as the number of partners involved in pre-marital petting, depends on the age at which the female marries, and therefore on the number of years that elapse between the high school age at which most females begin petting and the time of marriage. For instance, among the females who had not married until after thirty years of age, nearly three-quarters (73 per cent) had done pre-marital petting for eleven or more years.

Basing the data on reports from females who were married and who, therefore, had completed their pre-marital histories, the records show that 10 per cent had confined themselves to a single petting partner before marriage . About a third (32 per cent) had done petting with two to five males before they had married. Another quarter (23 per cent) had engaged in petting with six to ten males. Over a third (35 per cent) had engaged in petting with more than ten different males before marriage, and in a few instances with as many as a hundred or more. Nothing approaching this promiscuity in petting ever enters the female’s history of pre-marital coitus. But even among the most promiscuous females, there may be a restriction of petting activities to a single partner or two in the year or so which immediately precedes marriage.

However, only about 80 per cent of the total sample had ever become erotically aroused in the course of their petting experience. Some 97 per cent of those who had married had become erotically aroused in their petting. Some 39 per cent of the sample had responded to the point of orgasm on at least some occasion in the course of their experience.

Some sort of petting experience, whether with or without orgasm, had been had by a considerable proportion of the still unmarried females in the sample, in each and every age group. The active incidences were as follows:

Age % Having
Experience
Adol.-15 39
16-20 88
21-25 88
26-30 83
31-35 78
36-40 70

Petting had been carried to the point of orgasm by only 3 per cent of the females in the sample when they were between adolescence and fifteen years of age, but by as many as 23 per cent during their late teens (Figure 29f). About a third (31 to 32 per cent) of the unmarried females were reaching orgasm, at least on occasion, during their twenties and early thirties. After that the active incidences of those who were petting to orgasm began to drop until they included only 7 per cent of the females who were still unmarried in their late fifties.

If, as we have previously estimated, the median, unmarried female in the sample between the ages of fifteen and thirty-five had engaged in some kind of petting on an average of about once in two weeks, and if orgasm had occurred on an average of 4 to 6 times a year for something less than a third of those who were petting, we may estimate that the average (median) female in the sample had reached orgasm in only 5 to 6 per cent of her contacts. Moreover, in a fair proportion of all her contacts, the female had not received any sort of erotic stimulation at all. Some of the females had engaged in petting for a year or two, or even for several years, before they had ever been aroused; and even after they had begun to respond, they had failed to find erotic significance in a high proportion of their contacts. The male therefore has to initiate fully half of all the petting activity, and takes the lead in initiating most of the other half of it and the incidences and frequencies of any heterosexual experience are largely a measure of his interests and capacities.
Ehrmann 1952 finds that a heavy preponderance of the petting activity is initiated by the male partner.

The female’s responses to orgasm are, however, a measure of her interests and sexual capacities, and in considering the data for any heterosexual activity it is, therefore, important to distinguish between the female’s experience and her responses to orgasm.

The accumulative incidence curves for the female’s petting experience (whether with or without orgasm) develop rather abruptly between the ages of 12 and 18 and more or less level off by age 21. As we shall subsequently see, the curves for the female’s experience in coitus similarly develop in an abrupt way. They bear a striking resemblance to the male’s accumulative incidence curves for masturbation, nocturnal emissions, pre-marital petting, premarital coitus, and, to a lesser extent, even his homosexual activities. The abrupt rise of these curves at the time that the male turns adolescent must be ascribed to factors which are related to his adolescent development—probably to some hormonal change which occurs in that period.

On the other hand, the accumulative incidence curves which record the female’s petting activities to the point of orgasm mount only gradually over a long period of years. Their slow rise probably depends on a gradual development of the biologic, psychologic, and social factors which account for sexual responses in the female. This same gradual rise is also to be observed in the accumulative incidence curves for masturbation which leads to orgasm, and for nocturnal dreams in the female. The curve for orgasm in pre-marital coitus is very similar. These curves which show the development of activities which lead to orgasm are among the best measures we have of the female’s basic sexual interests and capacities.

Table 53. Petting to Climax, and Age
Age
Group		 Cases Petting to Climax: Sample Population Petting to Climax: U. S. Population
Total population Active Population Total
population		 Active Population
Mean
Frequency		 Me-
dian
Freq.		 % of
Total
Outlet		 Incid.
%		 Mean
Frequency		 Me-
dian
Freq.		 % of
Total
Outlet		 Mean
Freq.		 % of
Total
Outlet		 Incid.
%		 Mean
Freq.		 % of
Total
Outlet
Single Males
Adol.-15 3012 0.05 ± 0.00 0.00 1.69 17.3 0.28 ± 0.02 0.075 7.52 ± 0.62 0.04 1.31 18.3 0.22 4.69
16-20 2868 0.12 ± 0.01 0.00 4.17 38.5 0.31 ± 0.02 0.080 9.41 ± 0.49 0.08 2.56 31.8 0.25 6.10
21-25 1535 0.16 ± 0.01 0.00 6.16 42.7 0.38 ± 0.03 0.091 13.61 ± 0.82 0.08 3.02 28.5 0.30 9.26
26-30 550 0.11 ± 0.02 0.00 4.19 33.5 0.32 ± 0.05 0.084 12.29 ± 1.47 0.06 2.12 23.1 0.23 8.37
31-35 195 0.06 ± 0.01 0.00 2.56 23.6 0.25 ± 0.05 0.094 13.65 ± 3.09 0.04 1.58 20.8 0.17 10.03
36-40 97 0.02 ± 0.01 0.00 1.17 11.3 0.21 ± 0.07 0.100 13.00 ± 8.03 0.02 1.31 11.5 0.22 17.51
41-45 56 0.01 ± 0.01 0.00 0.82 10.7 0.13 ± 0.05 0.088 7.17 ± 5.31 .... .... .... .... ....
46-50 39 0.01 ±  0.00 0.00 0.14 5.1 0.05 0.075 0.50 .... .... .... .... ....
In this, and in the succeeding charts in this and the following chapter, means and medians represent average frequencies per week.
     “% of Total Outlet” in the total population shows what portion of the total number of orgasms is derived from masturbation in the total population.
A total of such figures for all the possible sources of outlet equals 100%, which is the total outlet of the group.
     “% of Total Outlet” for the active population represents the mean of the figures showing the percentage of the total outlet
which is derived from this source by each individual who has any masturbation in his history, in that particular age period.
The percents for the several possible outlets do not total 100% because different individuals are involved in the populations utilizing each type of outlet.

U. S. population figures are corrections of the raw data for a population whose age, marital status, and educational level
are the same as those shown in the U. S. Census for 1940.


Figures 38-43. Relation of age to frequency, incidence, and significance of petting to climax



Because petting often occurs sporadically, with several contacts in a week or even in a single afternoon or evening, and then possibly none for months at a stretch, it has proved too difficult for most of the subjects to estimate average frequencies, except for the petting which led to orgasm. Only a considerable series of day-by-day calendars could have supplied adequate data on this point.

For these reasons, we have had to be satisfied with rough estimates of the frequencies of petting experience. We have taken into account the fact that some girls may date almost every night over a period of some weeks or months or even years, while others may go for many months between dates. Very few of them, however, even among the socially most limited groups, go for a year without at least some dates. Some females do some petting on practically every date. Others do petting on only a small portion of their dates. Many girls attend dances or other social activities where they may become involved in petting with several different males in a single evening. In many cases the petting is limited to simple kisses and caresses; in other cases it quickly turns to those techniques which are specifically calculated to bring sexual arousal and possibly orgasm. In any computation of averages, a week’s record from a single one of the more active histories would balance the weeks and months of inactivity in the histories of some of the other females.

Taking these matters into account, it is our impression that the average frequencies of petting among unmarried females between the ages of fifteen and thirty-five (which is the period when the active incidences are at their highest) may range from about once in a week to once in a month. They may average once in two weeks for the typical female. Even though these estimates may be considerably removed from the reality, they may prove useful when considered in connection with some other data.

There was, of course, marked variation in the frequencies among the individuals in any single group. Most of the females had never experienced orgasm from pre-marital petting, some had not had such experience more than a single time before marriage, others had averaged as many as 7 to 10 orgasms per week for five or ten years or more before marriage. Most of the higher frequencies came from females who were capable of multiple orgasm.

The highest frequencies recorded for any individual male average 7.0 per week, in the 21 to 25-year group, after which the maximum cases drop quickly to 0.5 per week after 35 years of age (Table 49).

The frequencies with which males reach orgasm in pre-marital petting are relatively low, in all age groups (Table 53, Figures 38-43). This is one phenomenon where frequencies are not highest in the youngest group. Calculated in any way (as means, or medians, for the total, or for only the active portion of the population) the maximum performance is in the 21 to 25-year old group, where the mean of the active population is about once in three weeks (0.30 per week). The averages (means for the active population) then drop a bit from 26 to 40 years of age, and more abruptly thereafter.

The active median frequencies of petting to orgasm among the females in the sample were remarkably uniform in all groups between adolescence and fifty years of age. They ranged from about 4 to 6 times per year (0.09 to 0.13 times per week). There was a slight decrease in the median frequencies from 0.11 per week at age fifteen to 0.09 per week at age fifty. It is possible, again, that the older, unmarried females were the less responsive individuals, and a selective factor rather than any biologic aging may have been involved.

Between 21 and 25 years of age, the average male (total population) derives 3.0 per cent of his total sexual outlet from petting to climax. Leaving out the males who never do reach orgasm in petting, the statement can be made that about 6 per cent of the total outlet is so derived by the average male between 16 and 20 years of age, and this figure builds up to 17.5 per cent at 40 years of age. Since this source drops steadily in importance for the total single population, but rises in importance for individuals who are actively engaged in this activity, it is evident that the percentage of the population which is involved steadily decreases in older age groups. Petting is less important as a source of outlet than any other sexual behavior except intercourse with animals of other species. It is much more significant as a means of education toward the making of socio-sexual adjustments.

Petting had accounted for only a small proportion (4 per cent) of the total outlet of the younger adolescent girls in the sample. In the late teens and early twenties the importance of petting had increased; it had then provided about 18 per cent of the orgasms. In the late teens petting had been the most significant of the socio-sexual relations, but by the twenties it had been surpassed by pre-marital coitus as a source of heterosexual outlet. After the middle twenties, the petting had become less and less significant. By age forty, only 5 per cent of the outlet of the females who were still single had come from petting and only 3 per cent by age fifty. Masturbation and coitus, between them, had provided 75 to 90 per cent of the orgasms of the older, unmarried females.

The low incidence and frequency of petting to climax in the older, single groups may be correlated with the usually low rates of all sexual activities at that age, and with the fact that a large number of older, single males are apathetic, sexually inhibited, socially timid, or heterosexually disinclined. The present data, however, may be merely an expression of the fact that petting as a source of outlet has acquired vogue only in more recent decades. It is possible that some years hence those members of the present younger generation who are still unmarried may account for an increase in the frequency of this activity at older levels.

While petting is clearly an activity of younger ages, it is not certain that the decrease in later years is due to biologic or psychologic aging. It is not clear that aging factors appear in the sexual history of the human female until she has passed fifty or even sixty years of age. It is more likely that the lower figures for the older groups depend primarily on the fact that they were born before the turn of the XX century and, as we shall record, fewer of the females of that generation did any petting to orgasm. Moreover, the girl who does not engage in petting because she considers it morally wrong, or does not engage because she is not attracted by males, or is not attractive to males, is the one who is most likely to remain unmarried at the older ages. As she gets older, the number of unmarried males who are of her own age is sharply reduced; and she has little opportunity to do petting with younger males because many of them are not interested in older females. Moreover, a quarter of the older unmarried males may be predominantly homosexual. Finally, the unmarried, older males who are interested in heterosexual relations can secure coitus, and they are not likely to be interested in petting or even dating with females who will not accept coitus. It is a selective factor, rather than biologic aging, which accounts for the lowered incidences in the older age groups.
Other students who have noted that restraints on petting may prove a handicap to marriage include: Fuchs 1912:273. Dickinson and Beam 1934:117.

Simple correlations with the educational levels of the females in the sample suggest that there are slight differences in the accumulative incidences of petting experience in the grade school, high school, college, and graduate samples. The differences appear to have been still more marked in the incidences of erotic responses to petting and in the incidences of petting to the point of orgasm.

On the other hand, these differences prove to be primarily dependent upon the fact that females of the upper educational levels marry at later ages. For instance, by twenty years of age, marriage had occurred among 33 per cent of the grade school sample, 25 per cent of the high school sample, 13 per cent of the college sample, but only 6 per cent of the graduate group. If the data for petting or pre-marital coitus, are reexamined in terms of the ages at which the females had married, we find that almost exactly the same percentages in each educational level had done petting and petting to the point of orgasm before marriage. The apparent differences in patterns of petting in the several educational levels seem to depend upon these differences in the average ages of marriage in each group. For instance, by eighteen years of age, among the girls who married by the time they were twenty, some 94 per cent of the high school group, 97 per cent of the college group, and 93 per cent of the graduate group had had petting experience. Among those who had married between twenty-one and twenty-five years of age, similar incidences did not develop until the females were twenty years of age. Either girls do not begin their petting until a more or less uniform number of years before marriage, or else a certain number of years of petting activity contributes to the consummation of a marriage.

It will be recalled that we found that there were pronounced differences in the petting histories of males of the different educational levels represented in the sample. For instance, we found that petting to orgasm had occurred among 59 per cent of the college males but in no more than 30 per cent of the high school males and 16 per cent of the grade school males. While these figures should also be corrected for differences in the average age of marriage in these several groups, recalculations show that such corrections do not account for more than a small proportion of the differences in the petting records of the males of the different groups. On this point, males seem to be more specifically controlled by the attitudes of the social groups in which they are raised, and females are less often controlled by the group attitudes. This is one of the most significant differences between females and males.

In the sample, a distinctly smaller group of the females who had gone on into graduate work after college had ever married (Table 166). By forty-five years of age, when 91 per cent of the high school and 90 per cent of the college groups had married, only 59 per cent of the graduate group had married. In consequence, it is not surprising to find that the accumulative incidence of petting among females of the graduate group had never risen to the levels reached by the other educational levels. However, the average (median) frequencies of petting to the point of orgasm were remarkably uniform for the females of all the educational levels represented in the sample. Among those who had ever done any petting, the frequencies averaged about once in five to ten weeks (5 to 10 times per year), irrespective of the educational background. As in many other sexual activities, whatever effects the educational background, the generation in which the female was born, the religious background, or other social factors may have had in delaying the female’s initial experience, they had disappeared as soon as she actually began petting.

Since the frequencies of orgasm attained in petting relationships are some measure of the effectiveness of the techniques which are used, and of the female's acceptance and reaction to those techniques, it is particularly significant to find that the devoutly religious female, after she has once accepted orgasm in a petting relationship, engages in such activity about as often as the average of the less devout females.

Why the responses of the devout females in the sample were not reduced in frequency, is a matter that merits some attention. In some instances it seems to have been because the petting situation, once having developed, had repeated itself with a regularity in which the individual was more or less unintentionally trapped. In some instances it appears to have been because experience had led to a frank acceptance of the satisfactions which were being obtained from the contacts. In some instances there had been a thoughtful conclusion that premarital petting provides a good means for learning to make social and marital adjustments.

With two minor exceptions, the data fail to show any relation between the ages at which the females in the sample had turned adolescent, and the incidences of their petting experience, the incidences and frequencies with which they had reached orgasm in the course of their petting, the active incidences within any five-year period, or the proportion of their total outlet which had been derived from petting.

Those who had reached adolescence at earlier ages (by 11 or 12) had been the first to begin petting and petting to the point of orgasm, and those who had turned adolescent last were the last to begin petting and petting to orgasm. Few males are interested in either petting or coitus with pre-adolescent girls, and this male reaction, rather than any physiologic development in the female, probably accounted for the ages at which the female's petting had begun. In some of the five-year age periods, somewhat more of the girls who had reached adolescence first were petting to orgasm (the active incidences), and fewer of the girls who had reached adolescence at some later age.

There is, however, a striking contrast between the ages at which females and males begin petting. In most instances the male’s activity begins quite promptly with or immediately after the onset of adolescence. We have reported that within the year after adolescence, some 55 per cent of the males had started petting. It was in that same period that most of the males had begun masturbating, had their first nocturnal orgasms, and in some cases begun coital or homosexual experience. In the median female, on the other hand, petting did not begin until 15 or 16 years of age, which is three or four years after the average female turns adolescent. These differences between females and males may depend upon some hormonal factor.

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