Sexuality, Adolescents' Development of

Healthy Development of Sexuality

The development of sexuality in adolescence is not only defined by the physical maturation associated with puberty. It also encompasses a young person's growing awareness of sexual feelings, exploration of sexual values, new experiences with sexual behavior, and negotiation of shifting social interactions, which in large part define the movement from childhood to young adulthood. These changes are at times compelling, exciting, and frightening, both for young people and for the adults who care about them. While sexuality development is a lifelong process, adolescence is a particularly important period for understanding sexuality development due to the physical, emotional, and social changes that take place during the teenage years, changes that are fundamental to human development. Next is a brief review of central issues in adolescent sexuality development and a description of recent advances in contemporary research, policy, and practice that are shifting the long-held focus from the problem outcomes associated with adolescent sexuality to the potential for healthy development.

For most people, adolescence is the period in which they first explore sexual expression, behavior, and identity. Sexual expression and behavior include not only masturbation, petting, oral sex, and heterosexual sexual intercourse (Katchadourian, 1990); in adolescence, most people also first learn about earlier stages of intimacy, including having a crush, going on a date, kissing, or holding hands with a boyfriend or girlfriend. Romantic relationships gain increasing significance over the course of adolescence; in fact, late adolescents perceive their relationships with romantic partners as among the most supportive and important in their lives (Furman & Buhrmeister, 1992). Adolescent romantic relationships are important developmental experiences that prepare young people for the roles of adulthood. In addition, adolescence is the period during which young people begin to understand and explore their sexual orientations and gender identities. Adolescence is a time when many lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered people come to understand their identities; during this period, many young people also develop an understanding of contemporary sexuality as an important component of social justice (Russell, 2002).

In Western countries, the development of sexuality takes place within the context of a growing disconnect between the age at which young people become sexually mature and the age at which they become viewed as socially mature and ready to take on the roles of adulthood. Pubertal maturation occurs at younger ages than was true in the past, while people get married at increasingly older ages (Brooks-Gunn & Paikoff, 1999). As a result, some young people experience as much as a 12-year period between the time that they are physically mature and the time that they are considered independent adults. For these adolescents, the experience of sexual feelings and desires does not simply wait for social maturity to take place. Thus, recent generations have been among the first cohorts to negotiate a significant proportion of young adulthood as sexually developed, but with cultural proscriptions against most sexual behavior.

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