Sex for Life: From Virginity to Viagra, How Sexuality Changes Throughout Our Lives

3. Sexuality Development in Adolescence

70 | 3 Sexuality Development in Adolescence Stephen T. Russell, Kali S. Van Campen, and Joel A. Muraco “Abstinence” has been a focal point in policy and public debates about adolescent sexuality for over 30 years. As a candidate, President Barack Obama made news when he promised to end federal funding for “abstinence -only” sexuality education in public schools, programs that emphasize chastity until marriage and disallow education about contraception. Instead, the Obama administration has returned to an earlier framework for adolescent sexuality policy, focusing on teenage pregnancy prevention (for a history of such policies through the Reagan era, see Nathanson, 1991). Both policy frames reveal deeply held views of adolescent sexuality as something to be contained or something (inherently) risky to be prevented. Beyond policy debates, these tropes of containment or prevention feed concerns about a wide range of issues related to teens and sexuality, such as gay youth suicide, oral sex orgies, and “girls gone wild.” Yet many scholars argue for a holistic, developmental view, one that includes the possibility of a positive framework for understanding adolescent sexuality (Russell, 2005). Adolescence is a crucial stage of the life course for the development of sexuality. It is characterized by dramatic developmental changes entailing not only the physical changes of puberty but also the cognitive capacities that enable young people to understand and analyze interpersonal relations and social institutions, including cultural meanings of sexuality. Most societies view sexual activity prior to adolescence as either innocent childhood exploration or as pathologically precocious and deviant. As they approach puberty, children become markedly more interested in sexuality (Thigpen, 2009). However, little research has addressed childhood sexuality before puberty, so we know little about how children develop interest in sexuality or about what they do sexually (see Thigpen, this volume). Most researchers agree that the possibilities for developing a sexual self are chiefly constructed Sexuality Development in Adolescence | 71 and integrated into one’s identity beginning in adolescence. During this life stage, the ways that societies view sexuality in general—and adolescent sexuality in particular—enable and constrain young people’s sexual development (that is, their sexual identities, experiences, and agency). These opportunities and constraints are further contingent on social statuses, including gender, race, ethnicity, social class, and sexual orientation. Given the sexual trajectories available during this life stage, sexuality development in adolescence sets the stage for expressions of sexuality throughout the rest of the life course. This chapter frames its discussion of adolescent sexuality around the need to shift from a historical discourse of risk and restriction to the possibility for positive development of sexual agency. This shift will, in turn, promote opportunities for sexual health. Our focus is primarily on Western societies, for that is our location and the vantage point from which most research and theory has come. We briefly review the developmental changes of adolescent sexuality that have importance for sexuality trajectories at the individual, social, and cultural levels. Next, we turn to the roles that culture and sexual socialization play in individuals’ adoption or rejection of cultural-level sexual scripts. We link this discussion of social context to the current realities and possibilities for adolescents’ sexual agency, particularly with respect to gender , race and ethnicity, social class, and sexual identity statuses within U.S. society (and perhaps in other Western societies). Throughout, we argue for reconceptualizing adolescent sexuality development from a positive perspective . Doing so will maximize opportunities for adolescents to make healthy sexual choices and ensure their sexual well-being. Sexual Risk, Developmental Change, and Positive Sexuality For more than 100 years, the scientific study of adolescence has focused predominantly on the problems that teenagers may experience. Some theorists argue that this problem focus derives from the way adolescence itself has been historically conceptualized, as a period of life that needs to be tightly regulated by society, with sexual regulation at its core (Lehr, 2008). This strict regulation of adolescent sexuality has occurred in the context of a broader Western societal ambivalence regarding youth, sexuality, and youthful sexualities . Especially in the United States, we glamorize youthful sexuality even as we construct adolescent sexuality as a social problem and endorse public policy that largely restricts adolescent sexual activity (Russell, 2005). Because of this ambivalence, the field of adolescent sexuality research as a whole has been unable to shake the “problem and disease” framework. Research and 72 | Sexualities in Childhood and Adolescence health interventions largely focus on problems associated...