The Effects of Religiosity on Perceptions about Premarital Sex

Opinions about premarital sex have been attributed to several social factors. Religiosity is thought to be one influence on peoples’ sexual behavior. Many studies confirm that religiosity reduces the number of sexual acts outside of marriage, but there is a scarcity of studies that examine the social ideology surrounding sexual acts. In an effort to fill the gap in explaining beliefs about premarital sex, the main objective of the current research is to investigate the extent to which religiosity affects views about premarital sex. Using the General Social Survey datasets for 1988, 1998, and 2008, the present paper examines the effects of religiosity and other selected control factors on the opinions of ordinary Americans about premarital sex. The results of the regression analysis indicate that religiosity is the single most important factor that determines one’s beliefs about premarital sex. The effects of control variables, such as age, sex, race, social class, marital status, and education were found to be inconsistent over time, and did not seem to mediate the effects of religiosity on the beliefs about premarital sex