College students’ incorporation of initiator and restrictor roles in sexual dating interactions

According to the traditional sexual script, men are the initiators and women the restrictors of sexual activities (McCormick, Brannigan, & LaPlante, 1984). While recent attitudes have shifted toward a more egalitarian standard (DeLamater & MacCorquodale, 1979) and sexual experiences are becoming more permissive (Finlay, Starnes, & Alvarez, 1985), it is not known whether this has resulted in changes in sexual scripts. Therefore, 50 men and 55 women were used in a self‐monitoring procedure to record three aspects of sexual frequencies: sexual initiations, responses to initiations and considering initiations over a two‐week period. The results indicate that men and women are guided by a similar sexual script with regard to responding to initiations and considering initiations, but not with regard to initiation of sexual activity. Men still initiate sexual activity more frequently than women. It was concluded that men and women still appear to be guided by the traditional sexual script with respect to initiations, but women may no longer serve as the restrictors of sexual activity as women respond positively to initiations as frequently as men do.