Sexuality

• Sexuality


  An adolescent issue
• Adolescence


  • Important time for sexual development
  • Sexuality is not necessarily a new issue
• Children


  Curious about sex organs and can experience pleasure from them at an early age
• Puberty


  • Substantial increase in sex drive associated with hormonal changes
  • Marks period when adolescents become capable of sexual reproduction
  • Secondary sex characteristics develop
  • Basis for sexual attraction
• Cognitive and social changes

  • Impact way sexual desires are handled
  • Sex motivated by love and developing a deeper connection
  • Means to increase social status
• Sexual behavior


  Precocious sex<|>Promiscuous sex<|>Unwanted sex<|>Unsafe sex
• Sexual behavior


  • Most research has focused on sexual intercourse
  • Individuals appear to progress through stages of increasing intimacy, gradually, rather than engaging directly in intercourse
  • View intercourse as a long progression, rather than as an isolated activity
• Stages of sexual activity

  1. Autoerotic behavior

  2. Holding hands

  3. Kissing

  4. "making out"

  5. Feeling breasts (clothed)

  6. Feeling breasts (unclothed)

  7. Feeling penis (clothed)

  8. Feeling penis (unclothed)

  9. Feeling vagina (clothed)

  10. Feeling vagina (unclothed)

  11. Intercourse
• Timing of sex


  Adolescents tend to lose their virginity at specific times during the year: June and December ("holiday effect")
• Substance use


  May reduce inhibitions, impair judgement and lead to loss of control, promoting risky behavior, including sex
• Sexually active youth


  • Sexual activity during adolescence is NOT associated with psychological disturbances
• Risky sex


  Unprotected sex, multiple partners
• Exposure to pornography isn't linked with risky sex
• Early sexual activity (prior to age 16)


  • Linked with a more permissive attitudinal and behavioral profile that is linked with experimentation with drugs or alcohol, minor delinquency, lower interest in academics and a stronger orientation towards independence
• Adolescents who mature early

  • More likely to have sex earlier (both risky sex and safe sex)
• Testosterone


  Increase sex drives and change physical appearance, making sex more likely for boys
• Androgens and estrogens


  Responsible for increasing sex drive and breast development in girls
• Context


  • Plays a strong role for girls' sexual activity
• Authoritative parenting


  • Linked with lower rates of risky sex
• Parent-adolescent communication


  May not reduce sexual activity, but it may reduce risky sex
• Peer influences


  • More likely to engage in sex if their peers are sexually active or they think their peers are sexually active
• Virginity pledges


  Effective for young adolescents, not effective for HS students<|>Making a promise to oneself is more effective in reducing the likelihood of sexual activity than making a public pledge
• Boys' sexual experiences


  • First sexual experience is masturbation
  • Sexual socialization occurs outside of an interpersonal context
  • More likely to keep sex and intimacy separate
  • First sexual experience is often more casual
  • More likely to report sexual arousal as the reason for having sex
• Girls' sexual experiences


  • Masturbation is less prevalent
  • Involves the integration of sex into an existing capacity for intimacy and emotional attachment
  • More likely to engage in sex in order to enhance an emotional connection
  • Consequences of sex (pregnancy) are more serious
  • More closely monitored and more sexually cautious
  • More likely to have first sexual experience with someone they have feelings for
  • More likely to be met with mixed feedback from peers
• Sexual orientation


  Continuum<|>Males are more likely to have had same sex relations before identifying as gay or bisexual<|>Females who have same sex contact during adolescence pursue same sex contact later in life, whereas only about 60% of males do
• Antecedents of sexual orientation

  • Shaped by a complex interaction between biological and social influences
• Sexual harassment


  Common in American public schools<|>Link between perpetration and being victim of sexual harassment<|>Between 7 and 18% of adolescents report engaging in involuntary sex before 18
• Risky sex and prevention

  • 40% of youth report that they did not use a condom the last time they had sex
  • Nearly 60% of students rely on the withdrawal method
  • Use of long acting-reversible contraceptives (e.g., IUD) has helped reduce teenage pregnancies in recent years
• Reasons for not using condoms

  Lack of planning<|>Lack of access<|>Lack of knowledge
• Improving use of contraceptives

  • Adults can help by making them accessible, providing sex ed before youth become sexually active, being open and responsive about communicating about sex, helping elucidate the consequences of unsafe sex, and planning for the future
• STDs


  Bacterial: Gonorrhea, Chlamydia<|>Viral: Herpes, HPV<|>Parasite: Trichomoniasis<|>HPV is the most prevalent<|>Increased risk of cancer and infertility
• AIDS


  Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome<|>HIV is the virus that causes AIDS<|>Transmitted through bodily fluid<|>AIDS has no symptoms, but HIV attacks body's immune system so that it cannot defend itself against life threatening diseases<|>Long manifestation period- many go undiagnosed and inadvertently transmitting the disease to their partners
• Teen pregnancy


  • 600,000 between 15 and 19 years old
  • Highest rate of teen pregnancy in the industrialized world
  • 90% of these pregnancies are unplanned
  • Increases odds of difficulties parenting
  • In the US more than 50% of pregnancies result in birth, 25% aborted, 15% miscarriage
• Adolescent parenthood


  • Rates are lower now than they used to be, although greater than other industrialized countries
  • Poverty is often a confounding variable with adolescent parenthood