AIDS, Sexual Behavior, and Intravenous Drug Use (1989) / Chapter Skim
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Sexuality Across the Life Course in the United States
Sexuality Across the Life Course in the United States
Pages 500-536
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From page 500... ...
Thus not only does the patterning of sexuality even across such a relatively narrow life stage as adolescence differ in an advanced industrial society with a predominantly Jucleo-Christian religious tradition like the United States and in developing societies with differing religious traditions, but also important cliiTerences can be found in the sexual lives of adolescents in the United States and those in other Western inclustrial societies (Jones et al., 1986~. Similarly, differences in the sexual life of adolescents can be found across relatively short time spans in the history of the United States; one need only contrast the 1920s with the 1950s or either of these decades with the 1980s.
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From page 501... ...
For example, the biological changes associated with puberty interact with the social and cultural contexts that provide the framework for interpreting one's changing bodily characteristics and reproductive capacities (Gagnon and Simon, 1973~. In the same fashion, the social and cultural expectations about the appropriate levels of sexual activity for the elderly often shape the sexual declines associated with aging (Verwoercit et al., 1969; Brecher et al., 1984)
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From page 502... ...
Going to college or going to work creates new social ant] sexual networks that exclude former potential sexual partners and open slots for new ones.
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From page 503... ...
by, and represented in, the mass media) , as well as the experience of actual violence by women, must have effects on their sexual lives.
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From page 504... ...
Many individuals participated clandestinely and fearfully in the limited institutions of the "homosexual community," whereas others lived in sexual relationships open to limited friendship circles ant! social groups (Warren, 1974~.
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From page 505... ...
The relation of the gay male and lesbian communities to the larger society has come to Took more like that of other minority communities based on ethnicity, religion, and race, which prized both their cultural singularity and their relation to the larger culture, polity, and economy (Paul et al., 1982; D'Emilio, 1983~. Some gay men and lesbians live their entire lives within their own communities, spending the majority of their lives working ant!
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From page 506... ...
It is not meant to be prescriptive or normative, although it may be treated by some as such, but rather descriptive and indicative of sexual patterns in one culture and at one point in time. In addition it should be emphasized that both the life course and the patterns of sexual conduct are changing in relatively unpredictable directions as a result of the influence of much larger social forces.
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From page 507... ...
Thus gender-linked differences in the behavior of small children, such as assertiveness, often wash out in the context of the demands of adult work lives (Epstein, 1981~. In most Western societies and particularly in the United States, this earliest portion of the life course is linked to sexuality as expressed by most postpubertal individuals primarily through cumulative gender role and nonsexual learning, which serve as a frame for the future acquisition and practice of both heterosexual and homosexual conduct in adolescence (Money and Ehrhardt, 1972; Kessler and McKenna, 1974; Gagnon, 1979~.
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From page 508... ...
It is characteristic of the majority of families to avoid references to sexual matters and protect children from sexual information. Nearly all retrospective studies of adolescents and adults on sources and timing of sexual learning indicate the limited role that parents play in these matters.
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From page 509... ...
Indeed, perhaps the most important training that children receive about the social context of their sexual futures comes from the mass media, largely television, but also from the cinema shown on television. Thus, the importance of physical attractiveness, success with the opposite gender, falling in love, being a member of a couple, and high consumption standards are the staples of adult television that children watch (Brown et al., 1988)
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From page 510... ...
However, there is evidence that some older chiTciren, who live in environments in which the sexual conduct of-adults is more observable and acceptable or who are targets for the sexual interest of postpubertal youth, may be involved in sexual experimentation which in techniques and motives is more like that of adults. Much of this evidence comes from studies of child sexual abuse (FinkeThor, 1984~.
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From page 511... ...
These levels of sexual activity at various ages differ subs stantially according to ethnicity and socioeconomic status. In some inner-city populations, sexual intercourse may begin at ages 13 and
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From page 512... ...
It is unclear how much of the overt sexual activity of adolescence is motivated by sexual desire and how much results from the desire for peer acceptance and other nonsexual motives. This is particularly true among younger adolescents whose motivations for sexual activity still differ between girls and boys (Newcomer and U]
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From page 513... ...
In contrast, a great clear of unsystematic clinical and literary evidence produced even into the 1970s suggested that self-identification as "homosexual" and the expression of emotional and sexual desires for the same gender were often guilt producing and conflict laden (White, 1983~. The sexual developmental pattern was often one in which adolescent sexual experience with persons of the same gender was intermittent and a fuller participation in a homosexual life-style occurred only in the very late teens or early 20s after some years of emotional difficulties.
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From page 514... ...
Cross-sectional data on students in West Germany gathered in 1966 and 1981 suggest that there may have been a greater convergence in the masturbatory patterns of young people in the last two decades, but comparable recent data for the United States do not appear to be available (Clement et al., 1984~. In the past, male masturbatory patterns were more often associated with explicit fantasies of unconventional sexual behavior than were those of women, but again few data on this matter exist for more recent periods.
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From page 515... ...
During adolescence, overt sexual experimentation by relatively untutored young people is as common as experimentation with drugs, alcohol, and ([riving. Overt sexual activity is usually insulated from adult notice so that only the negative consequences of such conduct are identified pregnancy, sexually transmitted disease (STD)
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From page 516... ...
Involvement in this cycle of coupling and recoupling also increases the numbers of both primary (relations of significant duration anal emotional commitment) and secondary sexual partners that young persons have before the end of their teens (see Chapter 2 of this volume, and ZeInik et al., 1981~.
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From page 517... ...
High rates of risk taking in terms of both pregnancy and STD are common, as are relatively weak sources of support when relationships are in emotional or sexual difficulty (Ooms, 1981; McClusky et al., 1983; O 'Reilly and Aral, 1985~. Although sex among adolescents is understood to be widespread, it remains covert and largely supported by peer groups and the youth culture of the school or of the mass media.
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From page 518... ...
The sexual lives of nearly all young people who are sexually and emotionally interested in the other gender will continue in the cycle of finding new sexual partners with relationships of differential durability (Hofferth and Upchurch, 1988; Tanfer and Schoorl, no... Some young people will already have completed this cycle, married, and started families; others will continue the pattern begun in high school of having a mix of transient and more permanent sexual relationships, a pattern that often concludes in cohabitation or marriage; still others may have sexual lives that involve many transient sexual relationships; others remain virgins until marriage.
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From page 519... ...
There is also the possibility of migration from small towns anal cities to environments that are more tolerant of gay and lesbian life-styles. Prior to the AIDS epidemic, this period often involved high levels of sexual activity and large numbers of sexual partners as young men entered the gay mate community in which their own sexual interests could be expressed (Bell and Weinberg, 1978; Goode and Troiden, 1980~.
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From page 520... ...
Cohabitation, Marriage, ant} Family Formation Although the average age at first marriage is no longer such a precise measure of a change in sexual life-style, it remains at least a rough marker of when most heterosexuals have settled down into a relatively durable and (what is expected to be) permanent relationship.
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From page 521... ...
Recent increases in the rate of nonmarital contacts on the part of women are thought to be associated with increased participation in the labor force. For some couples this sexual activity will be a signal of the impending termination of the relationship, whereas for others the sexual relations outside the couple will have little eject on the duration of the relationship; this, however, varies by culture (Reiss, 1986~.
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From page 522... ...
First breakups of cohabiting and married couples are followed by a period of looking for new partners and, in most cases, by new sexual relationships, some of which eventuate in new cohabitations or marriages (Michael and Willis, 1988~. In these periods between coupled status, there is an increased likelihood of additional sexual partners for both men and women (Tanfer anct SchoorT, In...
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From page 523... ...
. There is some evidence that, more recently, lesbians have more sexual partners and less stable relationships, whereas because of the AIDS epidemic many gay men have fewer sexual partners and are concentrating somewhat more on coupled relationships (Wolf, 1979; Levine, 1988~.
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From page 524... ...
There are increases in nonmarital or noncoupled sexual experiences by both men and women, although not necessarily as a response to the technical qualities of coupled sexuality. The erotic and romantic desires in nearly all coupled relationships conflict with increases in occupational commitments, a child-centered family life, and the demands of maturing children (Atwater, 1982~.
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From page 525... ...
There is a continuing decline in the rate and significance of sexual activity in marriages and in other stable coupled relations. This is often a period of difficult sexual adjustment as some men and women experience increases in anxiety about their failed sexual aspirations, which are often accentuated by invidious comparisons with the youthfulness constantly emphasized by the media.
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From page 526... ...
This is a period of continuing, reduction in sexual relations in marriage, and some marriages may be almost entirely asexual. It is also a period when sexual relationships outside the couple decline in number ant]
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From page 527... ...
There is some evidence that in the past there was a substantial reduction in sexual relations among most older couples and that the majority of couples may have been entirely asexual by age 70 (Kinsey et al., 194S, 1953; Christensen and Gagnon, 1965~. There is, however, some more recent longitudinal data suggesting that stable, Tow rates of sexual activity do occur among some couples and that asexuality is not a necessary accompaniment of aging (George and Weiler, 1981~.
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From page 528... ...
This decline follows the national cultural prejudice that finds sexual learning and sexual conduct among the young far more interesting than the changes in the sexual life of their elders. This may be due to the fact that the sexual activities of the young seem to generate more passion as well as more social problems.
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From page 529... ...
(1984) Changes in sex differences in sexual behavior: A replication of a study on West German students (1966-1981~.
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From page 530... ...
(1981) The family's role in adolescent sexual behavior.
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From page 531... ...
(1973) Sexual Conduct: The Social Sources of Human Sexuality.
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From page 532... ...
(1953) Sexual Behavior in the Human Female.
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From page 533... ...
McCluskey (eds.) , Life Span Developmental Psychology, Nonnormative Life Events.
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From page 534... ...
, Changing Boundaries: Gender Roles and Sexual Behavior. Palo Alto, Calif.: Mayfield.
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From page 535... ...
(1969) Sexual behavior in senescence: Patterns of sexual activity and interest.
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From page 536... ...
(1987) Sexual behavior ',n healthy married elderly men.
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