Between Sexual Desire and Reality

The Evolution of Sex in Finland

The FINSEX study is the product of a long process that started in the 1970s with the first comparable study conducted in the field of sex research in Finland. It is the fourth of its kind, and Research Professor Osmo Kontula of the Population Research Institute of Väestöliitto has now been involved in three of them. Through this research process, Prof. Kontula has been indispensable in placing Finland as well as Väestöliitto on the map of international sex research.

Although the FINSEX study has increased our level of knowledge about sexuality and its nature, knowledge can be painful. This study tells us a bleak truth about the frequency of unmet sexual needs, longing for tenderness, and lack of sexual skill in contemporary Finland. Väestöliitto and the book’s author hereby offer a glimpse into what Nordic sexuality currently entails as well as a look at the methods and practices that people have found useful and necessary in their everyday sex lives.

The main finding of this book is that in the course of the last ten years there has occurred a renaissance of romanticism. Finnish respondents’ attitudes toward infidelity, parallel relationships, and the early sexual initiation of young people are now markedly less accommodating. It remains to be seen how permanent the change is, and it will be important to continue to study the new developments that take place in sex and sexuality.