Mark Regnerus and Jeremy Uecker, authors of Premarital Sex in America: How Young Americans Meet, Mate and Think About Marrying, report in their new book, “One of the biggest unacknowledged facts about sex is the underlying economy to it all. When you look into it, it’s really amazing how it works. And it’s fairly elementary as well: We put a price tag on sex. You might not think we ought to do that, but we do. Sex, at one level, is an exchange. Each person gives the other person something of themselves. But it is typically a different something.”
They’ve found that those who want to save sex for marriage don’t have an advantage anymore. Some women “hold out for the highest price for sex, which is marriage. Today, that is a high-risk strategy,” Mr. Regnerus explained. “You can’t just decide that your house is worth $500,000 if everyone else is getting $200,000.”
Mr Regnerus says that most women limit their sexual access with men, all women tend to benefit and lead to fewer hookups, more effort by men to woo women, and more marrying.
However, he says none of those things are occurring today and that the price of sex is quite low.
Thank goodness, because if all women held out until marriage, most people would marry too young and for the wrong reasons, resulting in many more unhappy marriages and an even higher divorce rate.
Read the entire article here: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/jun/14/economy-of-sex-its-cheap-these-days/?page=all#pagebreak.
