The proportion of women saying they have had sexual contact with another woman has more than trebled in the past 20 years (Image: Sven G枚rlich/Plainpicture)
Let鈥檚 talk about sex, baby. The UK population has become more accepting of sexual diversity, but less tolerant of partners who stray.
That is the message from the UK鈥檚 , which took stock of the sexual behaviour of 15,162 Britons aged between 16 and 74. The results were compared with previous surveys carried out in 1990 and 2000.
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In 2010, 16 per cent of women said they鈥檇 had sexual contact with another woman, compared with just 4 per cent in 1990. Their average number of sexual partners doubled over the same period, from 3.7 to 7.7. Men鈥檚 average number rose from 8.6 to 11.7.
Acceptance of homosexual behaviour has increased, too. In 1990, 22 per cent of men judged relationships between men to be 鈥渘ot wrong at all鈥� 鈥� compared with 48 per cent in 2010. A similar pattern was seen in women.
But people are less tolerant about playing the field: in 1990, 44 per cent of men considered infidelity 鈥渁lways wrong鈥�, and this has now risen to 63 per cent. In women, it has increased from 53 to 70 per cent.
鈥淎s a nation, we鈥檙e thinking about a new ethical framework,鈥� says of University College London, co-leader of the survey. 鈥淲e鈥檙e having a debate about the kind of sex that does harm to people,鈥� she says. 鈥淪o while we鈥檙e happy now to accept oral sex, gay and anal sex, we鈥檙e moving into discussion of sex that does harm to others.鈥�
Abuse was the main focus of an accompanying paper, led by at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. It found that 1 in 10 women and 1 in 70 men reported having been forced to have sex against their will. Yet of those, only 42 per cent of the women and 32 per cent of men had told anyone about it, with only 13 and 8 per cent respectively telling the police.
Most were young at the time: women were 18 years old on average and men 16. Macdowall says that the findings warrant greater emphasis in sex education on the quality of relationships in which sex takes place.
Journal references: The Lancet, DOI: ; DOI:
