The Janus Report on Sexual Behavior [Paperback]

Samuel S. Janus (Author), Cynthia L. Janus (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0471016144 | ISBN-13: 978-0471016144 | Publication Date: March 1994

Explicit, detailed and authoritative, it challenges sexual myths by presenting revealing details about aspects of American sex, separating facts from fiction and anxiety. Nine years of research, interviews and mass questionnaire results document how the influence of education, age, sex, religion, politics, marital status, income and regions of the country affect sexual practices and attitudes.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Stuffed with formidable tables but leavened by first-person confessions, this dryly written, informative and often startling survey is an impressive contribution to understanding human sexuality and Americans' wide spectrum of erotic behavior in the age of AIDS. The Januses (he is a psychology professor at New York Medical College; she is a physician) analyzed 2765 questionnaires and follow-up interviews nationwide. This husband-wife team found that young people are commencing intercourse much earlier than in any previous era and that nearly half of the elderly respondents had an active sex life. One-third of those who consider themselves "very religious" have had extramarital sex at least once. Political ultraconservatives rated sadomasochism an acceptable practice far more often than did either independents or ultraliberals. The authors' claim that Americans are enjoying a "Second Sexual Revolution," with more freedom than ever to explore their sexual selves, is not substantiated by the evidence. First serial to Redbook and Playboy; author tour.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Purported to be the first national study on sex life since Masters and Johnson, this volume's suspect methodology undermines the authors' claims that their findings are applicable to the entire United States. Based on nearly 3000 responses to anonymous questionnaires and 125 in-depth interviews (excerpted throughout the text) from 1983 to 1992, the wordy narrative serves more to reiterate than to analyze the results presented in the statistical tables. Filled with subjective misinformation, specious reasoning, inconsistencies, and redundancy, this poorly organized title is not a necessary purchase. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 9/1/92.
- James E. Van Buskirk, San Francisco P.L.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 430 pages
• Publisher: Wiley (March 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471016144
• ISBN-13: 978-0471016144
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #787,573 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars Useful for general reference on a variety of sexual behaviors, September 25, 2010

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M. Adrian - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Janus Report on Sexual Behavior (Paperback)

The Janus Report is a book of tables and rather dry discussion about them, for the most part. It's subtitle informs us it's "the first broad-scale scientific national survey since Kinsey", and it is, without a doubt--but where it may be broad it's often not very deep.

One can easily ascertain this by considering the amount of material within the book devoted to particular topics, like BDSM, for instance. The book attempts to discuss all sexual deviance fairly early at chapter four, and spans a total of thirty-two pages, with such "significant findings" as "35% of the men and 23% of the women agreed that making love is the best way to make up after an argument, but 51% of the men and 65% of the women disagreed". Now don't get me wrong--I find that information interesting, but I'm not exactly sure that's the sort of information one has in mind when researching "sexual deviance".

After some brief and dry blurbs about all the major and tremendously fascinating subjects of sexual deviance that could fill up books on their own, we're given some survey tables and move right on to swingers in chapter five.

Throughout the book we're given survey tables that break various sexual subjects down into the following ratings:

Very normal
All right
Unusual
Kinky
Never heard of it

On the subject of pedophilia, for instance, I think most might find the category of "kinky" doesn't stand in very well for the most negative feelings such a subject can illicit. In fact, it's downright odd to find "kinky" among one of the qualifiers for that particular subject, especially if you don't include "alarming" as the next option. I say this not to proselytize, but to provide an example about how limited these tables are in what we can glean from them. I think taking account of the strongly negative (and positive) emotions humans have on certain subjects is tremendously valid to include, but all we get is such arbitrary terms as "normal" or "never heard of it". For me, the information provided in this book was just too general in most areas to be highly useful.

If you're looking for a somewhat detached and basic scientific reference to human sexuality, this book is for you. If you're looking for detailed behavioral analysis, commentary and critical psychological explorations, the survey-based nature of books like The Janus Report will come up somewhat short.