Professional Documents
Culture Documents
SEXUALITY IN
ADOLESCENCE
• Physical changes: Puberty
– Increased sex drive (motivation)
– Maturation of sex organs (reproduction)
– Secondary sex characteristics
• Cognitive changes:
– Introspective reflection
• Self-consciousness
• Social changes
– Significance of sexual relations
– Curiosity becomes sexual motivation
– Connection with adult roles
DEVELOPMENTAL
CHALLENGES
• Comfort with maturing body (changes)
Liking No Yes No
Infatuation Yes No No
Empty Love No No Yes
Romantic Love Yes Yes No
Companionate No Yes Yes
Love
Fatuous/Foolish Yes No Yes
Consummate Love Yes Yes Yes
Applying Sternberg to
Adolescence
• In most adolescent love relationships, commitment is either
missing or highly tentative
• People of all ages tend to have romantic relationships with people who are
similar to them in characteristics such as:
– Intelligence
– Social class
– Ethnic background
– Religious beliefs
– Physical attractiveness
CULTURAL BELIEFS AND
ADOLESCENT SEXUALITY
• Restrictive cultures:
– Place strong prohibitions on adolescent sexual activity before marriage
– Strict separation of boys and girls in early childhood through adolescence
– Some countries will even include the threat of physical punishment and
public shaming for premarital sex
– Usually more restrictive for girls than boys
• Semi-restrictive cultures:
– Have prohibitions but they are not strongly enforced and are easily
evaded
– If pregnancy results from premarital sex, the adolescents are often forced
to marry
• Permissive cultures:
– Encourage and expect adolescent sexuality
– Sexual behavior is encouraged even in childhood and the sexuality of
adolescence is simply a continuation of the sex play in childhood
WHAT INFLUENCES SEXUAL
ACTIVITY?
• Hormones are especially important for boys
– Testosterone surge sparks initial interest in sex for boys and
girls (girls are also influenced by estrogens)
– Boys who are more popular with girls and mature earlier tend
to initiate sex earlier than unpopular boys
• Context is especially important for girls
– The most important predictor of girls’ involvement in sexual
intercourse is whether their friends are doing it or have
sexually permissive attitudes
PARENTS AND
SEXUAL ACTIVITY
• Parent-child communication
• Most effective
– for females (rather than males)
– with mothers (rather than fathers)
– if communication of values/attitudes
– for preventing risky sexual behaviors
SEXUALLY ACTIVE
ADOLESCENTS
• Characteristics of non-virgins
– Similar self-esteem as virgins
– Similar overall life satisfaction as virgins
– More likely to be early maturing
– Tend to have lower levels of academic performance and academic
aspirations
• Adolescents who have sex early (15 years old or younger)
– Early users of drugs and alcohol
– More likely to be from single parent households
– More likely to have grown up in poverty
Sexually transmitted diseases
• HIV/AIDS
– Strips the body of its ability to fend off infections
– The body is highly vulnerable to a wide variety of illnesses and diseases
– 90% of cases of HIV in the US result from intercourse between homosexual or
bisexual partners
– Outside the U.S. HIV/AIDS is spread mainly between heterosexual partners
– Has a long latency period (tend to by asymptomatic up to 5 years)
– AIDS is the leading cause of death worldwide among persons 25 to 44 years
old
– 10 of every 11 new HIV infections worldwide come from Africa
– The mortality rate for people who have AIDS remains extremely high
SEX EDUCATION