Sexuality and AIDS: attitudes and behaviors of adolescents in East and West Berlin

Abstract

The study which was conducted in 1990 in Berlin, Germany, compares two samples of 542 adolescents from West Berlin and 340 from East Berlin. The present investigation shows that the general trend toward sexual liberality among adolescents is continuing and that necessary processes of adolescent sexual development appear not to be influenced by the threat of AIDS. Though the level of knowledge about the threat of AIDS is, on the whole, satisfactory, this does not in itself guarantee determined and consistent AIDS-preventive behavior. Fewer than one-third of sexually-active adolescents, and even fewer than one-fourth of those in the most sexually-active group, can be described as consistent users of condoms. The attitudes of adolescents in regard to contraceptive characteristics only partly suggest a preference for condoms. When adolescents are asked directly about condoms, they additionally emphasize their effect of reducing feeling and pleasure. Adolescents with experience of sexual intercourse rate condoms more negatively than do those without such experience. However, AIDS-education efforts can make use of the fact that consistent condom-users expressed clearly more positive attitudes to condoms than did others. Although the comparison between East and West Berlin adolescents yielded differences in certain details, these differences are not of significance to AIDS-education programs which seek to increase AIDS-preventive behavior.