Chapter 9: Love & Sexuality
Samuel R. Mathews, Ph.D.
Department of Psychology
The University of West Florida
Love
• Changes across the adolescent years
– Stage 1—The Search
• Same sex groups seek out opportunities for interactions
with other sex groups (e.g. malls, parks, sporting
events)
– Stage 2—The Adults Step In
• Adult-organized events that serve as mixers (e.g.
dances, birthday parties, awards banquets) for mixed
sex interactions
Love
• Changes across the adolescent years
– Step 3—The Herds Merge
• Mixed sex groups arrange on their own to share
common activities (e.g. sporting events, movies,
concerts)
– Step 4—Parents’ Worst Nightmare or Coupling
and Pairing
• Individuals begin dyadic relationships and activities
(e.g. dinner, movies, concerts, long walks on the beach)
• Changes tend to be age graded and not based
on physical maturation
Love
• Progression of preferences:
– Functional aspects
• Early and middle adolescents
1. Recreation
2. Intimacy
3. Status
• College students
1. Intimacy
2. Companionship
3. Recreation
Love
• Progression of preferences:
– Mate selection
• Middle adolescence
– Males—physical attraction
– Females—interpersonal qualities
• Late adolescence
– Females and males—interpersonal qualities
Dating Scripts
• Cultural Scripts for Historical Dating
• Male Script (Proactive) Includes:
–
–
–
–
initiating the date
deciding where to go
controlling the public domain (driving the car)
initiating sexual contact
• Female Script (Reactive) Includes:
– private domain (grooming & dress)
– responding to the male’s gestures in the public domain
– responding to his sexual initiatives
Love
• Sternberg’s Love triangle
– Passion: physical attraction and sexual intimacy
– Intimacy: closeness and emotional attachment
– Commitment: long-term and sustaining promise
of affiliation and fidelity
Love: Sternberg
Love: Sternberg
• Sternberg’s Theory: Adolescent Perspective
– In most adolescent love relationships,
commitment is either missing or highly tentative
– The absence of long-term commitment in
adolescence means that there are two principal
types of adolescent love: infatuation and
romantic love
– Lack of commitment in Western Industrialized
cultures likely due to delayed marriage
Love: Brown’s (1999) View:
•
Brown’s model contains four phases that
recognizes the important role played by peers and
friends :
1. Initiation phase
• First tentative explorations of love; usually superficial,
brief and often fraught with anxiety, fear, and
excitement
2. Status phase
• Begin to gain confidence in their interaction skills with
potential romantic partners
• Remain acutely aware of the evaluations of their
friends and peers
Love: Brown’s (1999) View:
3. Affection phase
• Adolescents come to know each other better and
express deeper feelings for each other
• Beginning to engage in more extensive sexual activity
4. Bonding phase (usually occurs in emerging adulthood vs.
adolescence)
• The romantic relationship becomes more enduring
and serious – partners begin to discuss the possibility
of a lifelong commitment
Get Over It! Breaking Up
• How might typical adolescent love (passion and
intimacy) contribute to break-ups?
• Outcomes of break-up:
– Sadness, bitterness, depression
– Likely due to adolescent egocentrism—personal fable
– Generally short-lived
Get Over It! Breaking Up
• Emerging Adulthood and Breaking Up
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Relationship characteristics linked to breaking up:
Lower levels of intimacy and love
Fewer common characteristics
Greater commitment on the part of one partner than the
other
Reasons for breaking up:
Boredom
Females more likely to end the relationship than males
Males’ impacted by the break-up for longer periods of
time
Post-Break-up Harassment
• Romantic Harassment:
– Persistent use of psychological or physical abuse
to maintain the relationship once one partner has
ended it.
– Goal is to maintain the relationship
– Most frequently males harass females
• What forms might this take?
Cohabitation
• Highest rates of cohabitation in North America
and Northern Europe
• Myth:
– Cohabitation reduces the likelihood of divorce
once marriage occurs
• Reality:
– Higher rates of couples who cohabitated ended
marriage with divorce
Cohabitation
• Failure of post-cohabitation marriage likely
due to two factors:
– Those who cohabitate develop habits that impede
transition to marriage
– Those who cohabitate are likely different from
those who do not in value of marriage
– Cohabitating couples may not be compatible for
marriage commitment
Sexuality
• The following slides reflect data from the 2007
administration of the National Youth Risk
Behavior Survey by the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention and
Percentage of High School Students Who
Ever Had Sexual Intercourse, by Sex* and
Race/Ethnicity,** 2007
100
80
Percent
66.5
60
47.8
45.9
52.0
49.8
43.7
40
20
0
Total
Female
Male
White
Black
Hispanic
The Good News
• 61.5% of adolescents reporting intercourse,
reported that either they or their partner had
used a condom during last sexual intercourse.
• Overall, the prevalence of having used a
condom during last sexual intercourse was
higher among male than female students, and
higher among black than white students.
• Now, the bad news
Percentage of High School Students Who
Were Tested for HIV*, by Sex** and
Race/Ethnicity,*** 2007
100
Percent
80
60
40
22.4
20
12.9
14.8
Total
Female
11.1
10.7
Male
White
12.7
0
* Does not include tests conducted when donating blood.
** F > M
*** B > W, H
National Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 2007
Black
Hispanic
Sexuality
• Patterns of adolescent sexual exploration:
– Masturbation
– Necking/Petting
– Sexual Intercourse
– Oral Sex
• Initial sexual exploration does not necessarily
lead to continued sexual activity
• Rates of sexual activity vary by sex and
ethnicity
Sexuality: Pornography
• Changes over time:
– Historically, print media and “adult” films were the
dominant media and more limited with at least
some limitations for age
– Internet has made age limits weaker and access
more private and less open to parental
monitoring.
– Parental monitoring of access to internet in the
home is one preventative step
Sexuality
• Cultural Variations and Adolescent Sexuality
– Restrictive Cultures:
• Limited access to potential sexual partners
• Punishment for violation of sexual prohibitions
• Double standard for males (more permissive) than
females (more restrictive)
– Semirestrictive Cultures:
• Generally, adolescent sexual behavior before marriage
is prohibited
• If discreet, adolescent sexual behavior is ignored
• Should pregnancy occur, marriage is highly encouraged
Sexuality
• Cultural Variations and Adolescent Sexuality
– Permissive Cultures
• Adolescent sexual behavior allowed
• Adolescents frequently receive instruction from older
members of the culture
• Most western cultures range from
semirestrictive to somewhat permissive
Sexuality
• Gender & Sexual Scripts:
• Cognitive frameworks for understanding how a
sexual experience is supposed to proceed and how
sexual experiences are to be interpreted
• Learned through cultural interactions
– In our culture:
• Males initiate sexual encounters
• Females set the limits on how far the sexual episode is
allowed to progress
– Sociobiologists see this as grounded in
evolutionary perspectives
Sexually Active Adolescents
• Similar to their non-sexually active peers in
– Self esteem
– Life satisfaction
• Differences include
– May have lower academic achievement
– Earlier maturing
Sexually Active Adolescents
• When sexual activity is initiated early (>15
yrs):
– Higher likelihood of alcohol/drug involvement
– Single parent home (low parent monitoring)
– Higher rates of poverty (presence of peers
engaging in risky behavior)
Sexual Harassment
• Unwelcome sexual advances, requests for
sexual favors, and other verbal or physical
conduct of a sexual nature constitute sexual
harassment when this conduct explicitly or
implicitly affects an individual's employment,
unreasonably interferes with an individual's
work performance, or creates an intimidating,
hostile, or offensive work environment.
• U.S. EEOC
Sexual Harassment
• Can begin as early as elementary school
• Includes but is not limited to:
– Teasing with sexually oriented taunts
– Touching
– Body contact
– Sexual comments re: dress
– Sexual advances or requests for sexual behaviors
• Definitions extend to the classroom
(elementary through university)
Date/Acquaintance Rape
• Use of force or coercion to gain sexual
relations
• 15% of adolescent and 25% of emerging adult
females report experiencing date or
acquaintance rape
• Younger females typically experience date or
acquaintance rape as their first sexual
experience
Date/Acquaintance Rape
• 2008-2009 academic year at UWF had a
higher than average incidence of
date/acquaintance assault
• Frequently alcohol is involved
• Having sex with one who is incapacitated or
legally under the influence of alcohol or drugs
is rape
Gay, Lesbian, & Bisexual Adolescents
• Sexual Orientationone’s attraction to others
(gay/lesbian, straight, bisexual)
• Sexual experiencesone’s sexual behaviors
• Sexual experiences do not equal sexual
orientation
Gay, Lesbian, & Bisexual Adolescents
• Recognition of one’s sexual orientation
frequently in early adolescence
• Coming out (revealing one’s sexual
orientation) to one’s friends, family or others
begins in mid-adolescence (approx 16 yrs)
• Sexual orientation linked to a complex
interplay of nature and nurture
Gay, Lesbian, & Bisexual Adolescents
• Homophobia and cultural heterosexism can
lead GLB adolescents to hide their identities
• GLB adolescents’ stress and anxiety linked to
the cultural responses to their sexual
orientation
Contraceptive Use
• Typically responsibility for birth control falls to
the female (sexual script)
• Across recent years, males’ condom use has
increased
• More available in western and industrialized
cultures
Contraceptive Use
• Contraceptive use based on accessibility and
planning
• Possession or use of contraception devices or
pills is an admission that sexual activity may
possibly occur
• Likely linked to cognitive development
(planning and monitoring one’s emotions and
actions)
Contraceptive Use
• Cultural boundaries within the USA create
mixed messages for adolescents
• USA highest among industrialized Western
nations in teen birth rate
• Access to sex education limited due to
comprehensive sex education being
prohibited in many schools and parents’ lack
of communication with adolescents
Pregnancy, Parenthood and Abortion
• Teen pregnancy is not always linked to
continued problems
• Subsequent problems linked to earlier
problems in teens’ families
• Both teen mothers and fathers frequently
experience continued problems
• Babies born to teen mothers can experience
various complications (e.g. premature, low
birth weight)
Sexuality in Emerging Adulthood
• Sexual activity more accepted as adolescents
move into emerging adulthood
• Problems of date rape remain
• Alcohol frequently related to unprotected
sexual activities
• STD’s continue to be problems as use of
condoms may give way to oral contraceptives
Sexually Transmitted Diseases
• STD’s occur across racial, ethnic, income,
social, and educational boundaries
• Two key problems:
– Initial stages
• Asymptomatic
• Varying latency period between contact and symptoms
• Review text on various STD’s
Sex Education
10 characteristics of effective programs
1.
Focus narrowly on reducing one
or more sexual behaviors
6.
Model and provide practice in
negotiation and refusal skills
2.
Base the program on
theoretical approaches for
other risky behaviours
7.
Use a variety of teaching
methods
8.
Incorporate behavioral goals
specific to age, culture and
sexual experience
9.
Run the program over a
sufficient period of time
3.
4.
5.
Give a clear message about
sexual activity and
contraceptive use
Provide basic, accurate
information about risks and
methods
Include activities that teach
how to deal with social
pressures
10. Train teacher, youth workers
and peer leaders who believe in
the program
• Discussion Questions:
1. At what age should adolescents be able to
legally give consent to engage in sexual
behavior?
2. Justify your reason.