While Puritan mores no longer hold sway for most Americans, rumors about a permanent sexual revolution in America have been greatly exaggerated. The average American’s views on marriage are fairly conservative.

Not that you would ever get that impression from watching American movies or television. According to Nielsen Media Research, each year there are approximately 65,000 scenes of a sexual nature on American TV – and only 20% of them are between a married man and woman.

In a survey of powerful television writers and producers a decade ago, sociologists tried to gauge Hollywood’s view on sex and marriage. 93% of the respondents rarely or never visited a church, 97% believed in a woman’s right to an abortion, 5% believed homosexuality to be unnatural, and only 16% believed that marriage infidelity was a reprehensible act.

By contrast, 80% of Americans view marital infidelity as a reprehensible act. And yet a significant percentage of the population continues to engage in it. Various surveys show that 25-35% of American men and 15-25% of American women have cheated on their spouses. Even conservatives are in on it – a survey by the magazine Christianity Today of its readers showed that 23% were engaged in sexual relations outside the family.

Perceptions about infidelity are even more pessimistic – a Gallup poll revealed that most men and women believe that marital infidelity affects about half of all marriages. Over half of respondents said they knew an adulterer among either their family or close friends.

Adultery does not always have to mean sex (as Bill Clinton found out). 67% of Americans believe that a kiss constitutes a form of cheating; 66% considered phone sex to be cheating; 64% believed the same was the case with online sex chatting, 43% were against hand-holding. But only about half of all women considered it cheating if a husband went to a strip-club. And only a third of all respondents said that adultery would automatically end their marriage.  (VG)