The Impact of Family Structure and Social Change on Adolescent Sexual Behavior

Abstract

This paper applies a biopsychosocial perspective to adolescent sexual feelings and behavior. In particular, it explores sexual attraction, desire, and mate selection as evolutionary adaptations just as necessary to species survival as sweating to cope with summer heat or shivering in response to winter cold. Sex differences in mating strategies are described as part of this evolutionary adaptation, and recent research findings are summarized that demonstrate how these strategies explain contemporary sexual and reproductive behavior in Western societies today, as they do sexual behavior in the past or across diverse cultures. The implications of these findings are discussed for their significance to intervention efforts to postpone sexual initiation and avert births outside marriage. The author urges greater emphasis on the early pubertal years; increased attention to teaching adolescents more about their own sexual development; a less absolutist focus on sexual abstinence, which may be appropriate and feasible for 12-year-olds but not for 16-year-olds; better and more widespread sex education at earlier ages and throughout the school curriculum; frank discussion of all the options available for those who experience an unwanted pregnancy; and as much attention to adolescent boys as to adolescent girls.