ABSTRACT
The management of sexual commitments within a marital relationship characterizes the largest part of postadolescent sexual experience in our society. The following charted presentation of the sequencing of conventional sexual development is primarily of heuristic value for examining the connections among the various agents and institutions involved. Few women ever move into a concern with sexuality that matches that of men, and in consequence men are presented with at least some of the problems that they faced in pursuing girls or women when the men were premarital. In addition to that between spouses in the marital state, there are three situations in which heterosexual activity may occur during adulthood. The sources of sexual experimentation outside marriage must be sought, then, in the social and psychological domain, rather than in the specifically sexual. In general, it is our feeling that sexuality and sexual activity are, by and large, derivative functions, even during adulthood.
