If you believe most of the the media, especially the movies coming out of Hollywood, it is suave and debonair singles who are enjoying fantastic sex while the married set suffers a gray, passionless fate.

That is why the Sex in America survey, released in October 1994, regarded as the most authoritative and comprehensive survey on the topic yet, shocked many in its findings that:

* 4 out of 5 married persons are faithful, ie. have never cheated on their partner.

* Married persons had more sex and said they enjoyed it more than singles.

* 9 out of 10 of the married said their sex lives were "very" satisfying. About the same said their sexual relationship was emotionally satisfying.

* Those people with more than one partner in the last year expressed the lowest rates of satisfaction.

* The study concluded that the vast majority of adults were either abstinent or monogamous (8 out of 10) and satisfied with their situations.

Previous studies of sex in America by Kinsey, Masters and Johnson, Playboy and Hite gave radically different pictures of widespread infidelity.These were biased because they depended on volunteers who may not be representative of the national population. The new survey, conducted by the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center is considered more accurate because the people interviewed were randomly selected.(Source: University of Chicago, National Health and Social Life Survey, random sample of 3432, ages 18-59, released October 1994)

After the Revolution

This study as well as others relating to the role of marriage in society are discussed in a program released by the Center for Educational Media in October, 1994. The program, After the Sexual Revolution: the role of marriage in societywas presented at the University of Texas in Austin in October and at Yale University in November by CEM founder Richard A. Panzer to audiences of roughly 30 students each.

At Yale many students stayed after to talk about the ideas in the presentation for about 40 minutes. One student, a sophomore, spoke about his involvement in a sexual relationship that he felt had been extremely destructive. He said his girlfriend had already dropped out of school as a result and shared his intention to do so as well. A female coed stayed to debate whether the institutions of marriage and engagement are really necessary. Another student asked how people who are married where one or both are going through a mid-life crisis can stay together.

At the University of Texas, two student groups cosponsored the event. While many students expressed agreement with the benefits of marriage and the harsh difficulties imposed on the children of disrupted families, some questioned what they felt was a one-sided portrayal of feminist writers and leaders. The presentation discusses the well- known statement by feminist author, Gloria Steinem, who said: "a woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle." Richard A. Panzer conceded that the two parent family has not always been a "family heaven", and that many view it as a "patriarchal hell," but he said that the solution to dysfunctional families is not to abolish or abandon them. He advocates a "paradigm shift" mentioning such authors as Rollo May who states that love is more important in relationships than sex and Stephen Covey who has written about the value of developing one's character in several books including the best-selling Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

Richard A. Panzer's presentation even gets to Freud, stating that our culture has misunderstood him by assuming that he advocated "sexual liberation." Several of Freud's writings near the end of his life are quoted to document that Freud acknowledged the existence of nonsexual love and even the religious conception of unconditional love.

Richard A. Panzer concludes by pointing out that many baby boomers are returning to their religious roots to strengthen their marriages. But while such mainstream healthy trends are encouraging, children in a growing underclass are ravaged daily by a culture of violence associated with absent, often nameless, fathers.

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