Abstract
This study correlates the national means of self-reports of sexual relations in stable couples and the mean percentage of people with extramarital affairs with the climatic, socio-economic and cultural (religion and Hofstede's dimensions) characteristics of the 25 countries to which the samples belongs. Low uncertainty avoidance, low Catholicism and Protestantism, dominance of Buddhism and high power distance were associated with less sexual permissiveness. Sexual permissiveness was associated more with the religious aspects of culture. Higher mean sexual frequency was associated with social development, individualism, low power distance and low dominance of Animism and Buddhism, to Catholicism and uncertainty avoidance, and cultural femininity. Results confirm the important role of socioeconomic development, raise questions on the negative view of Christianism and the positive view of oriental religions.
