The city boy’s failure to understand what life can mean to a boy who is raised on a farm, and the farm boy’s idea that there is something glamorous about the way in which the city boy lives, apply to every avenue of human activity, including the sexual. This popular interest in knowing how another group lives is projected into the sociologist’s invariable search for basic differences between the mores of city groups and the mores of farm groups; and this accounts for the fact that the few data which have been available on the sexual life of the rural male have commanded widespread attention.
Unfortunately, the only specific comparisons of the sexual activities of rural versus urban groups come from a small study made by Pearl in 1925. The study covered a limited number of sexual items on 174 older males, of whom 39 were farmers. The calculations derived from these few cases seemed to show that the farmers were sexually more active than the merchants and the bankers, and they in turn were more active than the professional men. These conclusions have been quoted many times in the sociological literature, although the data are, of course, altogether too scant to warrant any generalizations concerning such a tremendous population as the rural American group constitutes. It is unfortunate that such poorly established conclusions should have gained such wide credence, and particularly unfortunate because the conclusions are diametrically opposed to what now appears to be the fact. The Pearl series was not broken down for educational backgrounds or any other social measures of the individuals involved. Since lower social levels have higher frequencies of total sexual outlet, particularly of marital intercourse (Table 88), and since marital intercourse was the only sexual outlet for which Pearl had data, it is probable that the farmers in the Pearl study rated high in sexual activity because they belonged to lower educational levels. Conversely, the merchants, bankers, and professional groups, which constituted the major portion of Pearl’s urban sample, were from upper white collar and professional classes, and these always have lower rates of marital outlet.
Reference to Chapter 3 in the present volume will show the definitions by which the subjects in the present study have been classified as rural or urban. It is unfortunate that the limited rural sample which is now available has made it impossible to make the complete breakdowns which are shown in Chapter 3, and the analyses in the present chapter have been made on a simpler basis. They must be taken as indications of trends which will have to be analyzed more precisely when more material is available.
Throughout this chapter persons have been classified as rural if they ever belonged to the rural-urban group which is numbered 3 (Chapter 3), either alone or in conjunction with some other rating which they held at some other period of their lives. This means that they have been considered rural if they lived on an operating farm for an appreciable portion of the years between 12 and 18. This is the late pre-adolescent and adolescent period which is so important in the shaping of sexual patterns (Chapter 11). Persons have been classified as urban if they ever belonged to rural-urban groups 0, 1, or 4, or to some combination of these groups, without ever belonging to class 3. This means they have been rated as urban if they never had more than incidental residence in rural areas, or if their rural residence occurred only after the age of 18, which is the age by which most of the patterns of sexual behavior are already laid down (Chapter 11). Ruralurban group 2 was not used because the sample was too small. As treated in the present chapter, the rural group is very definitely rural, but the urban group involves some individuals who have had chiefly city residence but some less significant rural contacts. It is unfortunate that no finer breakdown could be made with the material available at this time.
For the population as a whole, it has been shown that frequencies of sexual outlet depend upon the age of the individual, the age at which he became adolescent, his educational background and occupational class, and his religious background. This is equally true of the rural portion of the population and of the urban portion of the population, and no comparison of the frequencies of total sexual outlet or of the sexual outlet from the several sorts of sexual activity can mean much unless there is a preliminary breakdown on most of these other factors.
An examination of Table 116 will show that the differences between the total outlet of the rural males and the total outlet of the urban males are never very great. In general, the differences would not be particularly significant if they did not all lie in the same direction, which is almost without exception in the direction of a lower frequency of total sexual outlet for the rural males. The differences are most marked in the lower educational level, where the rural males may not have more than three-fourths as frequent activity as the urban males. Differences are less for the males of the high school level and among the boys who go to college.
City-bred persons might expect the farm boy to have higher rates of outlet, inasmuch as he sees sexual activity among animals and hears free discussion of sex from the time he is very young; but the specific data do not bear out such an idea. In fact, it might be possible to theorize to the effect that early and constant acquaintance with sex would reduce the farm boy’s erotic responses and leave him less interested; but this still remains unproved theory. The average city dweller thinks of the farm boy as having more privacy than the city boy has for carrying on socio-sexual activities, but the theory does not seem to fit the fact. There is a general opinion that rural communities are in general stricter in their religious adherence than city communities, and this may be one of the explanations of the slightly lower rates of rural groups, but this is not demonstrable with the present data. It might be suggested that the city boy has more opportunity for making social contacts in general, for dating girls and, consequently, for obtaining sexual relations with girls; and this may, or may not, be an explanation of the fact that socio-sexual contacts are in actuality less frequent for the boy who is raised on the farm. There are other possible explanations of the lower rates of the rural males, but none of these is more than a possibility which will need investigation when sufficient series of cases become available.
Masturbation. Self-induced orgasm occurs in almost exactly the same proportions of the rural and of the urban populations (Table 117). Frequencies are rather lower for the youngest adolescent group of farm boys who never go beyond eighth grade or high school; but at all ages the frequencies among the boys who will ultimately go to college are practically identical for the rural and for the urban groups. Since the total outlet of the rural male is a bit lower, and since the actual frequencies of masturbation are about the same as those of the urban group, the part of the total outlet which the farm boy derives from masturbation is a bit higher at all ages and in all educational levels.
Nocturnal Emissions. These occur with much the same incidences and frequencies among the rural and the urban groups. This is true at all ages, and in all social levels (Table 118). In the few places where the table indicates some differences, there are no consistent trends.
Petting to Climax. Orgasm achieved through heterosexual petting occurs in a definitely higher percentage of the urban males (Table 119). The frequencies are somewhat higher for the urban males who do not go beyond eighth grade or high school, but at the college level the frequencies of petting are 2.5 to 3 times as high among the urban males. Perhaps the farm boy is not so often involved because girls simply are not so available in a rural community; or perhaps he is not so often involved because the smaller community has not yet acquired the newer customs that are found in the city. The fact will have to be determined by a detailed examination of more histories.
Pre-marital Intercourse. The differences between rural and urban groups are greater in regard to pre-marital intercourse than they are for any of the preceding activities. In most age groups and at all educational levels, more of the city boys are involved and fewer of the farm boys (Table 120). At the grade school level, 91 per cent of the city boys may be involved between the ages of 21 and 25, but only 80 per cent of the farm boys. At the college level in the same age period, 55 per cent of the city boys have some premarital intercourse and about 47 per cent of the farm boys. The differences in frequencies of pre-marital intercourse between rural and urban groups are of about the same order.
Intercourse with Prostitutes. Pre-marital relations with prostitutes are even more distinctively an activity of the city group (Table 121). While it is commonly believed that farm boys are particularly interested in securing intercourse with prostitutes when they go into the city, the record indicates that fewer of them ever arrive at such experience. The frequency with which they have relations with prostitutes is definitely lower than the frequency with which city boys have such relations.
Marital Intercourse. In marital relations, the rural male again has a slightly lower rate of outlet than the city male (Table 122). The differences are not great but are consistent in several groups, as far as our limited data apply.
Homosexual Outlet. Orgasm effected by contacts with other males is, on the whole, less frequent among the farm boys who have contributed histories to this study, more frequent among the urban males (Table 123). The two groups are most distinct at the grade school and high school levels. The differences in incidence are very minor at the college level. Among the boys who have not gone beyond grade school, 32 per cent of the city boys may be involved between the ages of 16 and 20, but only 21 per cent of the farm boys. Among males of the high school level, at a corresponding age, the figures are 46 per cent for the city boys, 26 per cent for the rural. For the boys of the college level, in the same age group, the figures are very nearly identical, 16 or 17 per cent in both groups. Differences in frequencies are of the same general order, with the city boy having the most frequent contacts.
There is a wide-spread theory among psychologists and psychiatrists that the homosexual is a product of an effete and over-organized urban civilization. The failure to make heterosexual adjustments is supposed to be consequent on the complexities of life in our modern cities; or it is a product of a neuroticism which the high speed of living in the city imposes upon an increasing number of individuals. The specific data on the particular rural and urban groups which are shown in Table 123 do seem to suggest that there is something in city life which encourages the development of the homosexual. But the distinctive thing about homosexuality in the city is the development of a more or less organized group activity which is unknown in any rural area.
Large cities have taverns, night clubs, restaurants, and baths which may become frequented almost exclusively by persons interested in meeting homosexual friends, or interested in rinding opportunities for discussions with others who do not object to the known homosexuality of their companions. In this city group, the development of an elaborate argot gives a sense of belonging which may defend a minority group against the rest of society; but it also intensifies a feeling which the group has that it stands apart from the rest of the population. Moreover, it is this city group which exhibits all the affectations, the mannerisms, the dress, and the other displays which the rest of the population take to be distinctive of all homosexual persons, even though it is only a small fraction of the males with homosexual histories who ever display such characteristics. None of these city-bred homosexual institutions is known in rural areas, and this may well acount for a somewhat lower rate of the homosexual among farm boys.
On the other hand, the highest frequencies of the homosexual which we have ever secured anywhere have been in particular rural communities in some of the more remote sections of the country. The boy on the isolated farm has few companions except his brothers, the boys on an adjacent farm or two, visiting male cousins, and the somewhat older farm hand. His mother may see to it that he does not spend much time with his sisters, and the moral codes of the rural community may impose considerable limitations upon the association of boys and girls under other circumstances. Moreover, farm activities call for masculine capacities, and associations with girls are rated sissy by most of the boys in such a community. All of these things are conducive to a considerable amount of homosexuality among the teen-age males in the most isolated of the rural areas. There is much less of it in the smaller farm country of the Eastern United States.
Beyond this, there is a fair amount of sexual contact among the older males in Western rural areas. It is a type of homosexuality which was probably common among pioneers and outdoor men in general. Today it is found among ranchmen, cattle men, prospectors, lumbermen, and farming groups in general—among groups that are virile, physically active. These are men who have faced the rigors of nature in the wild. They live on realities and on a minimum of theory. Such a background breeds the attitude that sex is sex, irrespective of the nature of the partner with whom the relation is had. Sexual relations are had with women when they are available, or with other males when outdoor routines bring men together into exclusively male groups. Such a pattern is not at all uncommon among pre-adolescent and early adolescent males in such rural areas, and it continues in a number of histories into the adult years and through marriage. Such a group of hard-riding, hard-hitting, assertive males would not tolerate the affectations of some city groups that are involved in the homosexual; but this, as far as they can see, has little to do with the question of having sexual relations with other men. This type of rural homosexuality contradicts the theory that homosexuality in itself is an urban product.
Animal Contacts. Sexual relations with animals of other species are, of necessity, most often found in rural areas. Ultimately about 17 per cent of the farm boys have complete sexual relations with other animals (Table 124), and perhaps as many more have relations which are not carried through to climax.
There is, of course, a considerable amount of pre-adolescent contact with animals (Chapter 5). Among adolescent and older males of the rural groups, the lowest incidences of animal contacts are to be found in Eastern areas. The incidences increase considerably in the ranch country of the West. For the available rural sample, which is largely Eastern in origin, the active incidence figures begin at about 9 per cent in the early adolescent years of the group which never goes beyond grade school, and grades down to about 3 per cent for males of that educational level who are not yet married between the ages of 21 and 25. Among the rural boys who go into high school but not beyond, the active incidence figures stand at about 11 per cent between adolescence and 20 years of age. For the rural boys who will ultimately go to college, about 28 per cent have animal contacts between adolescence and 15, about 15 per cent in the late teens, and 4 per cent in the early twenties. Sexual contacts with animals are, it will be seen, most abundant among boys of the college level during their early and later teens.
Surprisingly enough, in the grade school portion of the urban population the boys have an appreciable amount of animal intercourse. About 4 per cent of these boys are involved between adolescence and 15. However, the frequencies for the city boys are very low, not amounting to more than a half to a fifth of the frequencies found among rural males. At the high school level, and particularly at the college level, there are fewer (1 to 4 per cent) of the city boys who are involved, and the discrepancies between the rural and the urban histories become very great on this point. For instance, the incidence among males of the college level, at 16–20 years of age, is 0.7 per cent for the city-bred boys and 15.4 per cent for the farm group. The differences in frequencies are even greater, the farm boys having 30 to 70 experiences for every one which the city boy has.
It is, of course, surprising to find that the city boy is ever involved, because he does not have such access to animals as the farm boy has. The city boy’s contacts usually occur when he is visiting on a farm, and so in actuality this still remains rural behavior. In the city itself he may have contact with horses or ponies in some stable, or with some other animal in a city stockyard; but most of his contacts are with the household pets, particularly with pet dogs.
The absolute frequencies of animal contact are, in actuality, low. In a high proportion of the histories they are isolated occurrences, or events that happen two or three or a half dozen times in the boy’s early adolescence. With a few individuals they may occur several times a week, and there are some cases of farm boys who depend upon this source for their major outlet. In Western farm areas there are more boys who have animal contacts with weekly or bi-weekly regularity through their early and perhaps later teens, and occasionally into their early twenties.
In summary, it may be emphasized again that there are few material differences between the histories of farm boys and the histories of boys raised in the city, or between adult males living in the two places. In general there are slightly lower frequencies of total sexual activity in the rural population, and lower frequencies in most of the particular sources of outlet. Nocturnal emissions occur with nearly identical incidences and frequencies in rural and in urban groups. The rural population is most distinct in having fewer socio-sexual contacts (meaning pre-marital heterosexual petting, pre-marital and extra-marital intercourse, and homosexual relations), and in its much higher frequencies of animal intercourse. But the city boy’s interest in animal contacts as soon as they are available makes it clear that it is simply a question of opportunity which differentiates the rural and urban groups on this latter point.
