{"id":8501,"date":"2016-08-03T17:42:23","date_gmt":"2016-08-03T17:42:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/?p=8501"},"modified":"2016-09-14T15:16:17","modified_gmt":"2016-09-14T15:16:17","slug":"promiscuous-papas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/2016\/08\/03\/promiscuous-papas\/","title":{"rendered":"Promiscuous Papas"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n Abigail Weitzman, <\/span>“Do Fathers\u2019 Sexual Behaviors Vary with the Sex of Firstborns? Evidence from 37 Countries,” Journal of Health and Social Behavior<\/em>,<\/a><\/span> 2015<\/span><\/div>\n
\"Photo<\/a>
Photo by Steven Sim, Flickr CC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Parents undoubtedly play a role in their children\u2019s understanding of gender and sexual health.\u00a0But can children have any effect on their parents? In a study investigating how becoming a father influences men’s sexual behavior, sociologist Abigail Weitzman<\/a>\u00a0finds that\u00a0the gender of a father’s firstborn child has a significant influence on that father’s likelihood of being sexually promiscuous later in life.<\/p>\n

Using 61,801 Demographic and Health Surveys from 37 developing countries, Weitzman\u00a0looks at how the sex of a firstborn child influences the father\u2019s sexual health and behavior.\u00a0The survey provides information about whether or not fathers pay for sex, use condoms, have\u00a0extramarital sexual partners, and report having genital ulcers or genital discharge, which may be signs of an STI. Through fixed effects models that control for differences\u00a0between countries, Weitzman finds that fathers with firstborn sons are significantly more likely\u00a0than those with firstborn daughters to pay for sex, and they are also less likely to use condoms. Fathers of firstborn sons also have a higher probability of reporting genital\u00a0ulcers or genital discharge. Additionally, fathers with firstborn sons reported having slightly\u00a0higher opposition to women\u2019s sexual autonomy. In short,\u00a0fathers with firstborn children who are male are\u00a0associated with higher rates of promiscuity.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, these differences among fathers tend to emerge when their firstborn child reaches\u00a0adolescence, suggesting that family gender dynamics shift as children reach puberty and young\u00a0adulthood. Though the data cannot fully explain why firstborn adolescent sons are associated\u00a0with more promiscuous behavior among fathers, Weitzman speculates that perhaps fathers of\u00a0firstborn adolescent males are more likely to engage in sexual promiscuity as a means to\u00a0maintain, reinforce, and teach masculine behavior and identity. Weitzman’s study may have just\u00a0scratched the surface of an important set of new questions about how fatherhood, gender\u00a0identity, and sexual behavior around the world intertwine with family.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Abigail Weitzman, “Do Fathers\u2019 Sexual Behaviors Vary with the Sex of Firstborns? Evidence from 37 Countries,” Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 2015 Parents undoubtedly play a role in their children\u2019s understanding of gender and sexual health.\u00a0But can children have any effect on their parents? In a study investigating how becoming a father influences men’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1957,"featured_media":8504,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55,33],"tags":[70,37335,37334,1948],"class_list":["post-8501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gender","category-health","tag-family","tag-gender","tag-health","tag-sexual-health"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/files\/2016\/08\/3148127790_1156c7071e_z.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1957"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8501"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8501\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8507,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8501\/revisions\/8507"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/discoveries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}