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Are Deaf Dating Scripts Really Different from Those of Their Hearing Peers?

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Abstract

An initial study found that Deaf participants have a different definition of a date than the Traditional Sex Script (TSS). In the TSS, the man is viewed as the initiator who pushes for sex and the woman is expected to limit sex if they do not want to have intercourse; neither of these ideas were included in Deaf participants’ responses when asked what happens on a typical date. These findings may relate to early experiences in childhood. At an early age, hearing children are exposed to the TSS through popular culture. Deaf children are not exposed to these cues at the same level because of their lack of communication access. Here we compare Deaf college students to hearing college students to further investigate these issues using a more quantitative design.

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Acknowledgements

Special thanks to the Gallaudet Research Institute for providing a Small Grant to support this work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, Lamar University, Beaumont, TX, 77710, USA

    M. Diane Clark, Mandane Sweeten & Stephanie DeMeyer

  2. Department of Psychology, Gallaudet University, 800 Florida Avenue, NE, Washington, DC, 20002, USA

    Caroline Kobek Pezzarossi

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  1. M. Diane Clark
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  2. Mandane Sweeten
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  3. Stephanie DeMeyer
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  4. Caroline Kobek Pezzarossi
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Correspondence to M. Diane Clark.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Clark, M.D., Sweeten, M., DeMeyer, S. et al. Are Deaf Dating Scripts Really Different from Those of Their Hearing Peers?. Sexuality & Culture 22, 577–592 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-017-9484-0

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