European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - January 29, 1989, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Bycura Suplee Washington Post o idea obsessed America s election year psyche like the noisily touted return to family values with its implied Promise of Kinder gentler sex lives in the years to come. Conjugal cocooning and dread of aids we were told were combining to create a daydream decade of sensible sex marital stability and babies on Board. In Short be fretful and multiply. But for better or worse these May be the most misbegotten prognoses since the great herpes panic of 82, when time s cover Story predicted that the gregarious virus would bring a grudging chastity Back into fashion and help bring to a close an Era of mindless  several billion random copulations later that obituary seems somewhat premature. So do the latest Pollyanna forecasts. According to leading libidinal indicators after More than two years of mass forbearance the nation s suppressed sexual appetites seem to be reasserting themselves. If indeed they were Ever really gone. Terrified by the disease that Harvard Bio seer Stephen Jay Gould called potentially the greatest natural tragedy in human history every broadcast outlet and periodical Short of Field & Stream was warning americans to put their ids in cold storage. Then a year ago health and human services Secretary Otis r. Bowen announced at a news conference on aids we Don t have the fear of the breakout danger into the heterosexual population that we once  perhaps that broke the tension. But perhaps there was less to break than we d thought sex researchers now report seeing few examples of permanent change in behaviour. And in fact after the government deluged the mails with its much ballyhooed aids brochure Federal officials decided not to do a Post mailing Survey to assess behaviour change science Magazine reported because they assumed none would  whatever the reason by last fall Mademoiselle s cover was panting going out gets hot again and the latest edition of Elle has dubbed 1989 the year of  and in new York City so often a Harbinger of our carnal customs the backlash has already begun the club crowd is starting to rebel against repression with Little explosions of Drunken guilt free pleasure writes Michael Musto in the Village voice. A lot of straights Are not advisedly convinced that aids is staying within certain High risk groups so they can have any sex any  in Manhattan at least dumb lust is Back wet to shirt contests and All. Teen agers Are coupling with appalling abandon approximately half of . Girls have now had Intercourse by the age of 15. We re not alone in the United kingdom 65 percent of women aged 16 to 24 had lost their virginity by 16. At the same time the average adult s sexual repertoire has expanded to include practices unthinkable outside Tijuana 20 years ago. Thanks to the increasing masculine nation of female roles women feel empowered sexually in a Way they never did in the past says Lillian Rubin author of intimate strangers. Even when they re married the youngest women writes sociologist Annette Lawson have overtaken men in the Speed with which they have  for the foreseeable demographic future the nuclear family has just Plain exploded. New studies of census data show that we re evolving into a Post marital society characterized by More singles More wedding less cohabitation More births out of Wedlock and More female headed families. Marriage one researcher writes has become an optional life  and although the 90s will see less rather than More extramarital sex writes Lawson in her new Book adultery that s because unless divorce becomes less accessible or less sought following adultery people will not stay married Long enough to see it  fifty percent of new marriages will end in divorce within about four years. Gay sexual practice at this time is More conservative than heterosexual behaviour says Richard Goldstein a senior editor of the Village voice who writes a column about sexual customs. And in the future heterosexual sex is going to get Kinkler  Gay sex gets More Plain  in the 90s, he believes Gay males will tend to a very traditional heterosexual Model. The big issues will be the rights of couples adoption Laws involving inheritance and real estate the so called Gay family  conversely lesbians will move to a much More audacious image and take the Vanguard role in  Kew views of in the meanwhile even the straightest straights Are bunking Down in unexpected ways. Today Young people Are postponing marriage for so Long writes Martha Riche in the Dow Jones journal american demographics that an unprecedented number will never marry at  in 1890, the average age at marriage was 26.1 for men and 22.0 for women. It dropped until the 1960s, bottoming out at 22.6 for men and 20.3 for women but has since risen to a near record 25.8 for men and a 20th Century High of 23.6 for women. At the same time the remarriage rate has been dropping steadily since 1970. Even in that oversexed min skirted year 205 out of every 1,000 previously divorced men remarried by 1985, Only 122 did so. Businesses should regard with some scepticism the Many projections for the 1990s that show married couples dominating household growth warns Riche. When More than one Iri four Middle aged americans Are not married it is time for businesses to change their  nor is the next generation of adults Likely to be More marriage prone. Teen age pregnancy used to be the prelude to Many a Shotgun wedding. Teen age childbearing peaked in the 50s yet in 1955, Only 14.9 percent of pregnant adolescent girls ended up unmarried by the time they gave birth. But thanks to shifting attitudes or gun control the unwed teen mom figure hit 56.3 percent in 1984 and is still rising. According to the census Bureau 2.4 million . Households Are now made up of unmarried couples and one third of them Are raising children. Other developed countries have just As much teen age sex but lower pregnancy rates perhaps because of better education. Sweden and Holland for example have had contraceptive ads on to and although 95 percent of the current adult population in the United states has been or will be married at some time in their lives a marriage expert at the National Center for health statistics estimates lower rates for kids born in 1984 91 percent of females and 88 percent of males. O in the ensuing role muddle we re moving to a variety of forms of family relationship says psychologist Eli Coleman president elect of the society for the scientific study of sex and a professor in the program in human sexuality at the University of Minnesota medical school. In the new arrangements a couple May include in their immediate family a Parent or relative from a previous marriage or even a previous spouse. The traditional monogamous relationship is now an alternative life  in the summer of 85, Rock Hudson confessed to a shocked nation that he had aids and time s cover asked ominously How far will it spread by 1988, Federal spending on aids research Rose to $1.3 billion surpassing even heart disease in total funding. Condom sales increased astronomically. In new York and other cities restrictive dating services and private clubs for the putatively his negative became a lucrative Market. New York s ampersand singles club had a $600 membership fee blood tests not included so did the dial a porn "976" numbers. Worry mothered numerous inventions including sexual surrogates known As outer course forms of self titillation ranging from dirty dancing parties to computer Chat lines and bulletin boards with blatantly autoerotic purport. And that was just the tip of the iceberg. In Houston there was Couch dancing whereby nightclub dollies provided a few minutes of private strip Page 16 the stars and stripes sunday january 29,1989