Men's fear of sex with women: A cross-cultural study

Anthropologists have described cultural beliefs in many societies that suggest men fear sex with women. In this paper I derive and cross-culturally test the implications of four theories that may help explain such fear. These theories suggest that men may fear sex with women because their wives come from enemy villages; population pressure on resources favors the avoidance of intercourse; males are conflicted about their sexual identity; or males have an exaggerated Oedipus complex. The cross-cultural evidence is generally consistent with all four theories. A tentative causal model is presented to account for the results.This article is a revised and enlarged version of a paper presented at the fifth annual meeting of the Society for Cross-Cultural Research, February 13–15, 1976, in New York City. The author wishes to thank Judith Berman and Melvin Ember for their help. She also thanks the Graduate School and University Center of the City University of New York for providing the funds to support this research.