Original scientific paper
Hypnerotomachia Poliae: Sexual Styles of Women Living in Croatian Cities
Aleksandar Štulhofer
orcid.org/0000-0001-5138-3644
; TRIS Fellow, Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences
Abstract
In sharp contrast to the general propensity to stress negative, risk-taking aspects of human sexuality in social science research, the analysis of sexual styles focuses primarily on positive aspects. Based on the findings of the sexual behavior and attitudes survey earned out in 1998 on 580 Croatian women (ages 18-49) living in the five largest cities, the sociocultural background and sociopsychological effects of four, behaviorally defined, sexual styles are discussed here. Preliminary analyses point to the social embeddedness of sexual styles, and the direct influence they have on the levels of sexual communication, activity, and pleasure. A non-standard sexual style is found to be directly related to the highest levels of pleasure, but also to the psychological costs caused by the social pressures to confonn. The choice of sexual styles seems to be guided by contemporary cultural changes marked by the permissiveness trend and declaratory sexual egalitarianism.
Keywords
sexual styles; sexual expression; female sexuality; traditional and liberal stands on sexuality; Croatia
Hrčak ID:
154405
URI
Publication date:
30.6.1999.
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