Human behavior, including sexual behavior, is an extremely complex and variable phenomenon with an almost infinite number of possible determinants and outcomes. While it is impossible to deny the biological components of our sexuality, it is apparent that most of the variety and flexibility of sexual activities are learned patterns of behavior that are culturally determined and transmitted.

We tend to take our own patterns of sexual behavior for granted. We behave sexually in certain ways with little thought about why we behave in those ways. If pressed, few, if any, of us could describe the variety of past experiences which shaped our present patterns of behavior. Moreover, we often tend to judge others in comparison to ourselves and to others like us in our culture; such egocentricity and ethnocentricity often inhibits us from understanding and accepting behaviors which are different from our own. A broader perspective should help us to understand our own sexual behavior patterns, in the light of those of other cultures, in a more realistic context. Thus, in this chapter, we will describe some of the diversity of sexual behaviors among other cultures.