Virtually all American couples, married or cohabiting, expect sexual exclusivity of one another. This article asks why some people are sexually exclusive while others have sex with someone besides their mate. Previous research has linked personal values, sexual opportunities, and quality of the marital relationship to extramartial sex. This paper integrates these findings in a multivariate model that incorporates factors informing sexual decision making as well as demographic “risk factors.” Nationally representative survey data show higher likelihood of sexual infidelity among those with stronger sexual interests, more permissive sexual values, lower subjective satisfaction with their union, weaker network ties to partner, and greater sexual opportunities. With these factors controlled, gender differences are substantially reduced or eliminated, although racial effects persist.

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Data from the 1972–98 General Social Surveys document changes in attitudes toward premarital, extramarital, homosexual, and teenage sex. This analysis demonstrates the liberalizing effect of cohort succession but also finds intracohort change in attitudes as the birth cohorts age. Intracohort change dominated recent dramatic declines in disapproval of homosexuality. As theories of individualism and postmaterialism suggest, higher education, secularism, and relative income are associated with greater tolerance of homosexuality. Although the young and those who do not attend religious services frequently led the 1988–98 declines in disapproval of same-sex relations, the diffusion of permissive values from higher to lower education groups is also evident.