God Given Parts? The Role of Religion in Gendered Sexual Scripts

Abstract Sexual scripts operate at the levels of cultural scenarios with role expectations, interpersonal interaction patterns, and intrapsychic scripts that organize our personal desires. Importantly, these sexual expectations tend to be distinct for men and women. Religion also functions at these three levels to shape an adherent’s cosmology and cultural logic, templates for interpersonal behavioral, and personal ideals. Religious communities often promote very particular boundaries around sexual behavior and gender roles, yet despite these parallels, very little research has explored how religion relates to adopting gendered sexual scripts. This study addresses this gap by examining the relationship between religious factors and accepting male-centric sexual stereotypes. Data are drawn from the Public Discourse and Ethics Survey (PDES), which is a nationally representative study of adults in the United States. We find that higher levels of religiosity and identifying as Protestant or Catholic predict significantly higher agreement with male-centric sexual scripts compared to those who are not religiously affiliated. Religiosity has a more pronounced relationship to script agreement among women, while differences between religious groups are more pronounced among men. After controlling for marital gender traditionalism, our results suggest that Protestantism provides a unique source of male-centric sexual attitudes distinct from hierarchical gender thinking more generally.