Sex, sex guilt, and contraceptive use revisited: The 1980s.

The Mosher True-False Sex-Guilt Inventory and questionnaires about sexual activity and contraceptive use were administered to a sample of 93 female college students in the 1983-1984 academic year. Comparison of this sample with comparable samples collected in the 1973-1974 and 1978-1979 academic years revealed an increase in sex guilt, a decrease in sexual activity, and an increase in the use of effective contraceptives between 1978-1979 and 1983-1984. These shifts indicate that both sexual behavior and contraceptive use returned to approximately the same level as in 1973-1974, whereas attitudes toward sex were more conservative than in either of two previous cohorts. Thus the current data provided the opportunity to test the emotional inhibition hypothesis of contraception during a period of relative sexual conservatism. The discussion deals with the relation between the personality disposition of sex guilt and trends in sexual values and behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)