Actual versus desired initiation patterns among a sample of college men: tapping disjunctures within traditional male sexual scripts.

Sexual scripts are mutually shared conventions that guide actors to enact a sexual situation interdependently. Scripts are composed of three realms and include the interrelationship between cultural scenarios, interpersonal scripts, and intrapsychic scripts (Simon & Gagnon, 1984, 1987). Cultural scenarios are those norms that guide sexual behavior at the societal, cultural, or subcultural level and help to determine the details (who, what, where, when, why, and how) of sexual interactions. The interpersonal script includes individuals' interpretations of cultural norms and allows cumulative personal experiences, socialization, and motives to shape action in a sexual situation. Finally, there is the intrapsychic realm, the way in which actors use the first two levels to construct the domain of their own desires and fantasies. It is here that repeated enactment of interpersonal and cultural codes also shapes individual beliefs and values in sexual scenarios, providing a link between broader societal-level scripts and the interpersonal realm.

There is some suggestion that sexual scripts may be changing for heterosexual women and men (Ortiz-Torres, Williams, & Ehrhardt, 2003; Segal, 1995). Researchers argue that contemporary femininity has stretched past notions of sexual passivity and responsiveness to men's advances to include assertiveness in sexual initiation, plea sure-seeking, influencing reluctant male partners, coercive behavior, and success at negotiating safer sex (Anderson & Aymami, 1993; Anderson & Sorensen, 1996; Exner, Hoffman, Dworkin, & Ehrhardt, 2003; Kamen, 2003; O'Sullivan & Byers, 1992, 1993, 1996). Researchers have also found that men have internalized shifts in contemporary masculinity in a manner that pushes male sexual scripts beyond sex as a conquest or instrumental outcome to include emotionality, commitment, and love (Seal & Ehrhardt, 2003; Seal, Wagner-Raphael, & Ehrhardt, 2000).

Some sociological and psychological research has attempted to move beyond overdetermined characterizations of men as hegemonic, aggressive initiators and orchestrators of sexual activity. This research has revealed the complexities of juggling between masculine ideals of conquest and desires for emotional intimacy and love (Brod, 1995; Klein, 1990, 1993; Messner, 1997; Schwartz & Rutter, 1998; Seal & Ehrhardt, 2003; Wagner, Seal, & Ehrhardt, 2001). Other researchers, primarily outside of sexuality studies, have noted that larger structural shifts have allowed for multiple forms of masculinity, or masculinities including the expressive "New Man," suggesting the potential for new configurations between emotions, behavior, and institutional locations (Coltrane, 1996; Connell, 1995; Messner, 1993, 1997; Segal, 1997).

Some of the above scholars are pushing for recognition of new configurations of gender relations that go beyond overdetermined notions of hegemonic masculinity and emphasized femininity (Connell, 1987, 2002). However, much public health research reveals that many women and men in heterosexual relationships do, in fact, enact culturally dominant scripts with traditional gender norms (Ortiz-Torres et al., 2003; Seal & Ehrhardt, 2003; Wagner et al., 2001; Wingood & DiClemente, 2000). Scripts research tends to overlook that men sometimes do not endorse culturally dominant scripts or that one or both members of a couple might want to depart from traditional scripts, even if these scripts are currently enacted in a relationship. Empirical study of departures from traditional scripts and rationales for such departures is important in order to avoid the conflation of sexual scripts with dichotomous gender norms in the cultural realm. By definition, scripts are more than an overdetermined internalization of gender norms in cultural scenarios; they also include resistance to norms and the active enactment of new cultural scenarios (Whittier & Melendez, 2004). Scripts also involve the interpersonal and intrapsychic realms (Hynie, Lydon, & Wiener, 1998; Plummet, 1982). Thus, current emphases on scripts as an internalization of dichotomous gender norms at the cultural level overlook a vital opportunity to use scripts theory to demonstrate how women and men reflexively make sense of or shift current sexual arrangements and experience disjunctures between enacted practices and actual desires.

This study aimed to explore more of the complexities of desire through a qualitative analysis of men's current and desired adherence to traditional scripts concerning sexual initiation. We also examine men's current and desired departures from traditional scripts concerning sexual initiation. The analysis focuses on (a) the ways that men characterize patterns of sexual initiation in their primary relationships; (b) the meaning that men give to their currently practiced patterns of sexual initiation; (c) the range of sexual initiation patterns that men desire; and (d) the rationales men offer for desired initiation patterns when these differ from what is currently practiced. Such an examination not only sheds light on the shifting nature of contemporary gender norms, but also underscores the way that disjunctures between actual and desired patterns of initiation challenge us to consider the cultural, interpersonal, and intrapsychic nature of desire in tandem.

According to traditional sexual scripts, men are socialized to initiate and orchestrate sexual interactions, and women are socialized to be restrictors or responders, meeting their partners' sexual needs (Gagnon, 1990; O'Sullivan & Byers, 1992; Schwartz & Rutter, 1998). At the same time, research demonstrates the existence of a nearly universal sexual double standard that gives men greater sexual freedom and rights of sexual determination than women (Blanc, 2001; Gupta, 2001; Gupta & Weiss, 1993; Seal & Ehrhardt, 2003). Even so, restrictive constructs of masculinity lead to men's own self-objectification during sex, phallocentrism, performance anxiety, and feeling pressure to be "ready" at all times for sex and to pursue sexual opportunities that arise (Brod, 1995; Fracher & Kimmel, 1995; Seal et al., 2000). Thus, research clearly underscores how straight-jacketed definitions of heterosexual masculinity translate into traditional scripts and can constrain both women's and men's interactions in heterosexual interactions.

Such a straightjacket is not simple evidence of an individual enactment of norms, but rather, it is also evidence of the intersection between institutional relations of power and individual behavior. For example, HIV researchers emphasize the dyadic, sociocultural, and structural dynamics of gender and power that shape contexts for safe sex (Amaro, 1995; Amaro & Raj, 2000; Wingood & DiClemente, 2000). Structural and institutional relations of power shape the way that gender norms and gender relations are defined within heterosexual encounters (Connell, 1987, 1995, 2002; Messner, 1997). Moreover, dyadic interaction is central to an analysis of safe sex practices since decision-making dominance, dependency on relationships, the ability to enact behaviors against a partner's desires, and the ability to control one's own and an other's actions are key to sexual negotiations (Pulerwitz, Gortmaker, & DeJong, 2000). There is a growing awareness of the extent to which gender norms and sexual scripts are modified in large part by larger power dynamics. Ultimately, these must be interpreted within this context (Laumann & Gagnon, 1995).

Whether one examines sexual scripts from the dramaturgical perspective, that individuals are "doing gender" in sexual scenarios (West & Fenstermaker, 1995; West & Zimmerman, 1987), or from the perspective that structural and institutional relations of privilege and inequality shape sexual interactions (Connell, 1987; Messner, 1997), scripts work intersects powerfully with HIV research. Adherence to traditional scripts may put both women and men at risk for HIV. Men may feel pressured to take risks and accept sexual opportunities regardless of safety concerns, and women may feel distanced from their own bodily and emotional needs or find it difficult to resist male partner's demands or insistence on unprotected sexual encounters (Byers, 1996; Campbell 1995, 1999; Exner, Gardos, Seal, & Ehrhardt, 1997; Gupta 2001; Logan, Cole, & Leukefeld, 2002; Seal & Ehrhardt, 2003; Seal et al., 2000; Wagner et al., 2001; Williams, Gardos, Ortiz-Torres, Tross, & Ehrhardt, 2001). Many women report considerable difficulty negotiating safer sex practices with men (Fullilove, Fullilove, Haynes, & Gross, 1990; Gomez & Marin, 1996; Gupta & Weiss, 1993), at times rendering unsafe sex a protective practice used to sustain the relationship or avoid abuse (Sobo, 1993). Furthermore, unequal economic and social status has been found to put women at a distinct disadvantage in terms of gendered power relations and negotiating sexual encounters or safer sex (Exner et al., 2003; Gupta, 2001).

Despite some documentation of flux in sexual scripts in recent years, traditional scripts continue to characterize many heterosexual relationships in Western countries (Hynie et al., 1998; Ortiz-Torres et al., 2003; Seal & Ehrhardt, 2003). Numerous studies have documented some shifts concerning femininity and sexual initiation, with newfound assertiveness and pleasure-seeking becoming more of common (Kamen, 2003; Ortiz-Torres et al., 2003; O'Sullivan & Byers, 1992; Segal, 1995). However, researchers rarely focus their attention on parallel shifts in contemporary masculine norms in heterosexual male sexual scripts. By definition, sexual scripts can change given the way in which larger cultural scenarios shape sequential interactions between two people who are responding to each other's cues and actions (Laumann, 1994). Scripts have been found to vary over time within the same culture, across cultures (Schneider & Gould, 1987), or across individuals (Whittier & Melendez, 2004), pointing to the need to examine a more dynamic field of play in scripts within current relational configurations. To examine more closely the standard conflation of sexual scripts with the cultural realm, we deploy the concept of disjuncture between actual and desired practices to tap the simultanaiety of the cultural, intrapsychic, and interpersonal realms.

This concept of disjuncture between current and desired practices informs our analysis of a sample of college men's reports of sexual initiation patterns. The data presented here are part of a larger study developing methods to assess power and gender roles in heterosexual relationships. In the first phase of this larger study, we conducted in-depth interviews with men and women in heterosexual relationships after they had completed three weeks' of diary data cataloguing their sexual experiences with their primary partner. These results explore the themes that arose in the in-depth interviews with the men in our sample.

METHOD

Participants

The sample included 32 men enrolled a city college in New York City. A recruiter distributed fliers in classrooms across campus and at college sites. Those wishing to participate were asked to telephone a study number for eligibility to be assessed. To be eligible, participants had to be between the ages of 18 and 24 and he in a sexually active, heterosexual romantic relationships of at least two months' duration.

The mean age of the participants was 20.2 years (range 18-24). Men reported having been in their current relationship an average of 30 months, but the length ranged from 5 to 48 months. Corresponding to the demographics of residents in the neighborhood, almost one third (30%) described their race as African American/Black, 50% as White, and 20% as Other. In terms of ethnicity, less than one quarter (20%) reported that they were Hispanic or Latino. Less than half were born in the United States (45%), 25% were from Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and Columbia, 20% were from Europe, and the remaining men reported other origins. The majority (65%) reported a monthly income of less than $1000 after considering all sources of income. Many students lived with their parents and came from working-class and lower middle-class families.

Most participants (90%) had never been married and were not currently living with their partner. Approximately half of the participants (60%) reported that their current relationship was their first serious relationship. Men reported having engaged in vaginal intercourse an average of 17.5 times in the preceding two months (range 2-60). Only 3 men reported other sexual partners during the preceding 2 months. Across their lifetimes, men reported an average of 6.6 sexual partners (range 1-20). There were no differences across racial/ethnic groups in terms of the number of lifetime sexual partners or condom use.

Measures

Individual interview protocol. The interview protocol, which consisted of four main parts, was designed to explore a number of aspects relating to young adults' intimate relationship histories. The first portion of the interview was designed to outline the timeline of the participants' relationship and provide general relationship information (e.g., intimacy, communication). The second portion asked participants to reconstruct the interactions that occurred within several specific incidents of their sexual encounters during the preceding three weeks, including the initiation of sexual activity and condom use. The third section asked participants to describe the salient norms they had learned growing up and those that they believed were active in their current relationship. The fourth portion explored participants' views of power in their relationship.

Demographic information, family structure, and residential circumstances. Participants were asked to provide the following information: age, race, ethnicity, current relationship status, and total income per month.

Sexual history. We also administered a short measure of participants' sexual histories with their current partner. Items addressed the frequency of oral, anal, and vaginal intercourse with their primary and any secondary partners, as well as condom use during these encounters.

Procedure

Participants who met all eligibility requirements were scheduled to meet with an interviewer at a convenient time at the college. Interviews were conducted by a male project staff member with training and experience in conducting sexuality-related interviews. Informed consent was obtained before the interview began, and participants completed the self-administered demographic and sexual history questionnaires. Then the interviewer began the session, which took approximately 45 minutes to complete. All participants received $30 for their time.

Data Analysis

To begin the coding process, we extracted excerpts of the transcribed interviews relating to men's actual patterns of sexual initiation, desired patterns of initiation, and perceived reasons for such patterns. After reviewing these excerpts, we generated an analytical matrix based on recurrent themes of responses concerning actual and desired patterns of sexual initiation and any relationship to condom use. Patterns of initiation were coded as "male-dominated," "egalitarian," and "female-dominated" according to whether participants described sexual initiation as mostly or solely self-initiated, shared, or mostly or solely initiated by their female partner.

Any inconsistencies in the coding were discussed between two analysts, and instances of a lack of concordance were taken to an independent research team for resolution. Inter-rater agreement was 90% between two independent reviewers. A few coding discrepancies were noted and were typically due to inconsistencies between information reported in diaries and qualitative interviews. In these instances, we determined that formal coding decisions would rely on responses offered during in-depth interviews that allowed for participant elaboration.

RESULTS

Four main patterns of actual versus desired sexual initiation emerged. The most common pattern of men's current sexual initiation was male-dominated, where men reported that they were more likely to initiate sex (N = 18, 56.3%). However, 13 of the 18 men (72.2%) reporting this pattern also reported desiring a more egalitarian pattern, whereas only 5 (27.7%) of those who practiced a traditional pattern desired to sustain male-dominated initiation. A second common pattern of sexual initiation was female-dominated (N = 8, 25%). Half of the men who reported female-dominated initiation desired to sustain female-dominated initiation patterns, while the other half sought to move to a more shared pattern with female partners. A third pattern of initiation was egalitarian (50-50 initiation) with a desire to sustain the same. A small number of subjects fit into other configurations. For example, one interviewee who currently practiced an egalitarian initiation pattern desired female-dominated initiation, and one interviewee who currently practiced male-dominated initiation desired a female-dominated pattern of initiation.

Current Male-Dominated/Desired Egalitarian

Among the 18 men who stated that they initiated sex all or most of the time, only five wished to maintain this arrangement (see Table 1). When men who practiced male-dominated patterns of initiation were asked to provide rationales for current practices, these were generally explained in terms of essentialized gender differences or individual psychologies and personality differences. For instance, men stated that current patterns took their current form because "I'm the man," "She's a girl," "It's not in her nature," "She's kind of shy," "We have stylistic differences," or "I'm more aggressive." Although five of these men described gendered cultural scenarios when they expressed wishes to maintain these patterns since they viewed themselves as "more dominant," or "more of a top," most men who practiced traditional initiation patterns desired more equal initiation with their female partners. Here, three main themes characterized men's desire for shared initiation, including (a) preferring to be more of an object of desire to female partners (b) wanting to share the work of initiation since it was considered a form of labor and (c) desiring sexual egalitarianism in the relationship.

Men wanting to be the object of desire from female partners. Nearly all of the men who practiced traditional sexual initiation patterns stated that they sought more egalitarian initiation so as to perceive themselves as objects of desire. Perceiving oneself as an object of desire has frequently been associated with the cultural constitution of femininity and vulnerability and has not previously been a central part of constructs of heterosexual masculinity (Connell, 1987, 1995). However, it appears that this is not the case in this sample of college-aged men from a community college campus. Men openly described a preference to be more of an object of desire specifically through female sexual initiation. For instance, one man stated,

   I've felt lonely--I know she's not gonna start it. I would like
   for her to come to me. It's hard to, urn, just always initiate
   it myself. There were couple of times when she came to me and it
   was a rush, exciting.

Another man agreed, linking this to the eroticism of having a woman in control of initiation and sex in general:

   I would like her to be in control more. More dominant I guess. I
   think it's attractive. I remember one time ... she actually grabbed
   my butt and threw me on the bed. It was a rush. It felt like ... I
   guess the word is erotic or something.

Men also described a desired mutuality around initiation, such as:

   She does initiate sometimes, but I wouldn't mind if she did a little
   more. It makes me feel better when she initiates it. It's kind of
   both people involved in it.

Sharing the "work" or labor of initiation. Some men with male-dominated sexual initiation patterns described current practices through a discourse of a division of labor that needed to be shared more equitably within the couple. These men stated that sexual initiation was work, and they seemed either resentful or tired of its demands. For example, one man stated that he preferred "a mix of initiation. I dislike doing all the work ... it feels like work." Other men agree: "initiating every day becomes a little tiresome. I don't have a problem if she initiates it."

Desiring more egalitarian sexual gender politics. A minority of men linked their desired initiation pattern of egalitarian to a rejection of traditional scripts and to a rejection of inequitable power arrangements between women and men. For example, one man disagreed with narrow definitions of femininity or masculinity, particularly given his social class and upbringing:

   I think it was up to, urn, both partners. It's not the male's or
   the female's initiation. And, um ... and it's up to both partners.
   There's ... no particular gender as pertaining to the role as
   initiator, I think I don't believe in the ... the man as the sole
   provider. I don't believe that the woman has to ... you know, stay
   home and not work. I don't believe in, uh, the man make all the
   decisions. I don't believe in the wife bein' submissive. I believe
   in a kinda ... give and take there ... and I just grew up believin'
   that it's a ... 50-50 type a thing.

Current Female-Dominated/Desired Female-Dominated

Another common pattern of initiation in the sample was female-dominated, with a desire to maintain female-dominated initiation. Unlike rationales for traditional patterns of initiation, where men indicated that patterns were related to male nature or personality differences with one's partner, rationales for female-dominated initiation included offering women the opportunity to express desire and meet women's need to satisfy men, men's fatigue at having their common sexual advances rejected, or men's medical problems. For example, when asked why the current pattern of initiation was female-dominated, men described that "she likes to satisfy me as well," or "I am the second person she's had sex with so she's like into it." Another man reported,

   Uh ... I think one reason ... like I take ... I take
   antidepressants, which like ... kind of like, makes your sex
   drive go down? And I think it's somewhat that ... and she
   generally always wants to.

Finally, men described female-dominated patterns as a way to solve the problem of being rejected by female partners when they initiated sex, "because when I tried to initiate I got shot down, so you just give up."

Two thirds of the men who experienced female-dominated initiation wanted to sustain the current pattern. When asked why, some men explained that they were tired of feeling rejected when they initiated sex. For example, one man explained that "I would want it to be ... that way, you know--her initiating--but in a more equal sense, where ... I don't have to worry about like, you know, um ... is she gonna shoot me down?"

A few men reported that they were tired of being accused of wanting sex all the time as men and that female-dominated initiation helped to ease assumptions about what men are like. "It's better like that like you know? [Her initiating more]. You initiate it too much they start thinking that's all he wants, you know? Let them initiate it." Some men made note of the importance of the interpersonal realm in enacting initiation decisions. This particular interviewee stated that women and men should negotiate their own desire among shifting levels of desire in the couple in order to keep arrangements equitable:

   I'm fine with her initiating. [Laughs] I think it's good. I think
   sometimes she feels like she initiates it ... too much of the time.
   That I should initiate it more often. Um ... I guess ideally, it
   would be better if I wanted to do it more often--or if she wanted
   to do it less often--and then the balance would be closer to not
   her wanting to do it as much.

In this case, the male partner makes comments that reveal assumptions about the gendered nature of desire. If the female partner is initiating more, she is read by the male partner as having more desire, and he argues that it would be better if he wanted to initiate more or if she wanted to do it less. This quote may indicate the way in which both women and men may still feel that men are, or should be, more responsible for sexual initiation. Alternatively, it may indicate that egalitarianism is the more desirable state of sexual equilibrium for some.

Current Egalitarian/Desired Egalitarian

The third most frequently occurring pattern of initiation was egalitarian with a desire for the same. Similar to other scripts research (Seal & Ehrhardt, 2003), men regarded a pattern of egalitarian initiation as being a function of time in the relationship. It was perceived that men initiated more sexual activities in the beginning of the relationship but that their female partners initiated more once they felt safe or more comfortable with male partners. For instance, one man reported that "she became more comfy with time. She was too shy at the beginning. But ... after we broke the ice, then it's the same ... for the both of us."

When asked about desired configurations of initiation, this group of men reported the same pattern of responses as men who practiced male-dominated initiation but desired egalitarian initiation: they enjoyed being the object of desire and preferred to experience mutual desire. For instance, one man explained,

   I think it's perfect the way it is, 'cause if I always ... like if
   I was always the initiator, I would feel as though she doesn't find
   me attractive and she doesn't ... she doesn't like want me. Like,
   I ... I'm glad that she wants me as much as I want her, 'cause any
   other way it would be too much of either side, you know? Because if
   I ... if I didn't initiate as much as she did, she would feel bad.
   She wouldn't think I find her attractive, you know? So ... it's
   good this way.

Despite stated patterns of actual and desired egalitarian initiation, some of these same men describe ambivalence about female initiation because of performance anxieties. For example, when asked how he would want initiation to be, one man stated,

   Yeah, I wouldn't like any other way. Some ... the times when I feel
   like she's the initiator, like I don't expect her to. Like one time
   she was in a room and I went to the bathroom. No one was in the
   room, but she was doin' her paper. And when I came back to the
   dorm, she was naked and she said, I'm ready.' And ... I felt ... I
   felt kind of ... uncomfortable. Usually when ... when she
   initiates, I have this thing I guess is in my unconscious--that I
   have to be like ... I have to perform ... like now. And right now!
   Like ... all kissing and hugging aside. Like, I have to be
   erect--we have to have sex--so ... I guess there's a certain amount
   a pressure to that.

Current Egalitarian/Desired Female-Dominated

A final pattern was egalitarian initiation with a desire for female-dominated initiation. Men stated that current patterns were shared, but that they were afraid that their sexual advances would be rejected and would therefore rather have their female partners come to them. For example, one man explained,

   She's not afraid to initialize it, you know? I can get shy, and I'm
   ... I'm afraid of rejection, you know? I don't wanna initialize and
   she's not in the mood. So sometimes I tend to wait to see how
   she's feeling or I'll wait to see what kind of vibe, you know, is
   in the room. That's ... that's when she and I were living together
   ... she used to do most of the initializing. But now it's a mutual
   thing. I would rather her, because like I said, just because of the
   fact that I'm afraid a rejection.... I would rather she initializes
   it, because I see that she doesn't have a problem with it either.

Such narratives may be consistent with research findings that examine performance anxieties as part of a fear of rejection during sex (Bordo, 1999; Brod, 1995; Fracher & Kimmel, 1995). Here, an egalitarian pattern of initiation is not preferred over a female-dominated pattern because female-dominated initiation may be perceived as eliminating the risk of rejection.

DISCUSSION

The current study set out to extend sexual scripts work by examining the cultural, interpersonal, and intrapsychic realms that shape men's sexual initiation patterns. We asked men to discuss not only their current initiation patterns, but also the meanings they attributed to these arrangements within their relationships. This helped us to capture their understanding of these social practices. We also inquired about men's satisfaction with their current arrangements and asked them to explain their desires to depart from current practices. Such an emphasis allowed us to uncover contemporary disjunctures between current (actual) and preferred (ideal) practices in sexual scripts, demonstrating some of the numerous ways in which men can and do critique traditional gender norms. Simultaneously, such questions allowed us to underscore how men negotiated desire both internally and with their partner at the interpersonal level. The results indicate that some men do not simply negotiate initiation patterns consistent with broader notions of hegemonic masculinity and emphasized femininity (Connell, 1987, 1995), but also experience sexual desire as something that can and should be shared, as something that might shift when negotiated as part of a division of labor, and as central to their sense of being desired.

Results revealed several main patterns of actual and ideal initiation. Most men practiced male-dominated patterns of initiation but sought more egalitarian sexual initiation that included preferences to be an object of desire to female partners or to share the labor of sexual initiation. One quarter of the sample experienced female-dominated patterns. Most of these men wanted to sustain these practices, although rationales for current patterns seemed to emerge from having previous sexual advances rebuffed or from concerns that women would perceive men as wanting sex too much of the time. Some men also currently practiced egalitarian patterns of initiation with a desire to sustain the same given an enjoyment of being a desired object in the partnership, wishing to share sexual labor, or wishing to produce more egalitarian arrangements in other facets of the relationship. Such narratives underscore the interrelationship between the intrapsychic realm (preferring to be an object of desire), cultural scenarios (desiring new sexual divisions of labor in the relationship) and the interpersonal realm (seeking more equitable levels of desire as expressed in sexual initiation between women and men).

The finding that so many men made mention of a preference to be an object of desire to female partners deserves further attention. Historically, heterosexual femininity has involved becoming a successful object of desire (Bordo, 1995; Connell, 1987; Lorber, 1995; Tolman, Striepe, & Harmon, 2003), with being desired being equated with success as a woman. Being an object of desire for heterosexual men is more contentious in the private realm, since it has traditionally indicated vulnerability and can be linked to other forms of subordination (Bordo, 1999; Connell, 1987; Eck, 2003). Objects of desire are generally defined by the dichotomy of feminine and masculine opposites that form the basis for some heterosexual sexual practices (Connell, 1987, 1995; Pringle, 1990; Weeks, 1985). Such categories are now contested and at play in a field of shifting power relations that also commonly include heterosexual men as sexualized in media imagery, as bodily commodities, and as objects of desire in postindustrial consumer culture (Bordo, 1999; Dworkin & Wachs, Forthcoming; Heywood & Dworkin, 2003; Messner, 1992; Miller, 2001).

Many men in this sample desired a shift from male-dominated to more egalitarian or female-dominated patterns of initiation. However, there are numerous ways to interpret these desires. Many of the men came from working class and lower working class families and may have grown up in households where both women and men had to work. It would therefore not be uncommon for such men to extend their understanding of women's assertiveness and independence into the sexual realm (Collins, 1990). Despite the common belief that working class and lower working class men hold traditional gender ideologies, much sociological work has underscored how working class men and men of color are actually more prone to sharing power in some areas of relationships. For example, men of color have been found to do more household labor and child care than do white men (John & Shelton, 1997; Stohs, 2000). Future research might therefore further explore the flexibility of heterosexual men's sexual scripts concerning masculinity in sexual initiation across socioeconomic status, since some researchers find more traditional attitudes about gender roles in lower socioeconomic couples (Seal et al., 2000) but some research points to the possibility for the reverse.

Results examined here may also mean shifts in broader gender relations towards more companionate norms, a stretching of traditional scripts, a desire for egalitarian relationships, or social structural shifts in women's or men's power that may make sexual scripts more flexible. Such possibilities may also mean a reinforcement of old rules: a discourse of women pleasing men (no matter who initiates) and questions as to whether sexual egalitarianism can or will translate into egalitarianism in other realms, such as household labor and child care.

At the same time, there may be other interpretations. As sociological researchers have asked, "how do we explain the gap between what many men say and what they do?" (Messner, 1993, p. 726). Indeed, "it may be in men's interests to change their words, but not to change their behaviors in any substantial manner" given the possible reality of men's privileges (Messner, 1993, p. 726). Even in the event that men view their sexual choices as constraining for themselves or others, it may be the case that "these problems are more accurately viewed as the costs of being on top," and this "does not necessarily signal a desire to cease being on top" in broader social or institutional terms (Messner, 1993, p. 730).

There are several limitations to the current study. The analysis is based on self-reports of one member of the couple without corresponding reports from the other member. Other researchers have found that women and men offer divergent reports concerning household labor, sexual practices, and child care (Coley & Morris, 2002; Coltrane, 1996; Liu & Detels, 1999; Ochs & Binik, 1999; Seal, 1997), and it is therefore preferable for future researchers to interview both members of the couple. However, our confidence in the validity of the findings is bolstered by the fact that interviews were preceded by three weeks of detailed diary data, allowing interviewers to discuss men's sexual behavior with diaries in-hand, offering less risk of recall bias (Graham, Catania, Brand, Duong, & Canchola, 2003). It may also be the case that men tend to over-report female initiation given interactionist pressures to "do gender" (i.e., enact masculinity) and therefore constitute their own desirability during interviews (Anderson & Sorenson, 1999; West & Fenstermaker, 1995; West & Zimmerman, 1987). Finally, social desirability biases may lead men to over-narrate discourses of egalitarianism. Simultaneously, however, we designed the current study to push past reifications of the cultural realm as dichotomous gender norms by asking men not simply about present arrangements, but also about departures from traditional scripts and discrepancies between current and desired practices. By probing men about what they practiced, what they desired, and why, we saw new opportunities emerge for analysis among all three levels of scripts.

Although this was a small, exploratory analysis, our findings suggest the need to consider that traditional norms of masculinity and femininity may not deterministically lead to desires for traditional scripts. Future scripts and HIV researchers might consider shifting relations of egalitarianism or men's need to be objects of desire to female partners as avenues in which to intervene creatively on traditional scripts (if these continue to be deemed harmful to relationships or to risk). For example, if initiation is central to whom has power over the pace and content of sexual activities, and men are increasingly seeking to be desired through female initiation, it may be strategic for women to negotiate safer sex protection as part of their own sexual initiation practices, as opposed to when their male partner initiates sex. Future research should elaborate on the possible importance of female sexual initiation in scripts for its relationship to safer sex outcomes.

Our results are consistent with those of gender studies scholars who seek to conceptualize gendered power not as cohering in a unified and singular gender role with static power relations within a sexual script, but rather, see gender relations as more fluid, dynamic, negotiated, and contested (Connell, 2002; Heywood & Dworkin, 2003; Messner, 1997, 2002; Morrell, 1998, 2001). In this study, men negotiated internally and with their partners among traditional, egalitarian, and female-dominated strategies concerning both actual and desired forms. This analysis indicates that women's and men's everyday interactions might not simply derive from larger cultural scenarios, but might actively reproduce, contest, or shift the gender order (Messner, 1992).

Other researchers have noted the common misuse of script theory as something that is culturally dictated and handed down, directly shaping intrapsychic or interpersonal sexual scenarios (Plummet, 1982; Whittier & Melendez, 2004). Such an emphasis negates the fact that culture is not homogenous, that gender relations are fluid, complex, and differ by race and class, and that individual and intrapsychic meanings are actively created by individuals in ways that do not simply reflect dominant cultural meanings, but also challenge and construct new meanings. Scripts and HIV work that includes the complexity of men's and women's actual and desired gendered lives across multiple levels of the sexual script, instead of privileging a single realm within scripts, remains a promising area for future research. This may prove more innovative than past attempts that often assumed that dichotomous gender norms deterministically translate into the three realms of the sexual script.

Table 1. Current vs. Desired Sexual Initiation Practices
(N = 32)

                     Male-Dominated   Egalitarian   Female-Dominated

Current Initiation         18              8               6
Desired Initiation          5             19               8

Note: Editorial processing of this manuscript was carried out by John DeLamater.

This research was supported by NICHD Grant R01 HD41721 (Principal Investigator: Lucia F. O'Sullivan) and by a training grant from the National Institute of Mental Health (T32 MH19139 Behavioral Sciences Research in HIV Infection; Principal Investigator, Anke A. Ehrhardt, Ph.D). We are grateful to Michael A. Messner, Susie Hoffman, Theresa Exner, Michael Kimmel, Anke A. Ehrhardt, and Isabel Howe for their careful reviews and suggestions.

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Manuscript accepted September 14, 2004

Shari L. Dworkin and Lucia O'Sullivan

HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies, Columbia University and

New York State Psychiatric Institute

Address correspondence to Shari L. Dworkin, Ph.D., HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies, Columbia University and New York State Psychiatric Institute, 1051 Riverside Drive, Unit #15, New York, NY 10032; e-mail: [e-mail].