Cultural Scripts, Reasons for Having Sex, and Regret: A Study of Iranian Male and Female University Students

The present study aims to identify the relationship between the experience of the first sexual intercourse and its ensuing regret among Iranian male and female university students. The population studied includes 2566 students from five universities in Tehran and Tabriz, which was selected through a stratified convenience sampling method. We apply discriminant analysis (DA) and Chi square test to analyze the data. The findings reveal that men are more driven by pleasure, recreation, peer pressure and impulsivity into having sex. According to DA, females—either regretful, and unregretful—have emotional reasons for engaging in sexual intercourse, while males, either regretful or unregretful, do not have such reasons. On the other hand, both regretful males and regretful females engage in sexual intercourse impulsively. We discuss that, although cultural scripts discriminate between males’ and females’ reasons for having sex, sexual regret among university students is not affected by conformity to gender scripts, but by agency and actor’s intentionality.