Social and Cultural Aspects
"We've gone though a 30 year period when sexuality was the solution; it has now become the problem. It's like a drug in our culture. Kids look upon it as a way of managing how they are feeling as opposed to of a way of expressing intimacy. We have such disturbed family systems that kids have impairments of their ability to regulate their affective lives;... naturally enough they look at these things as their solutions."
Adolescents who are better students initiate sexual activity later than those who are poor students. Despite their behaviors, 90% of adolescents "agree that most young people have sex before they are really ready".
With regards to oral sex, experts have noted that casual attitudes towards it have made it so common that "we're talking about a major social norm. It's part of kids' lives." Along those lines, adolescents with personal and perceived peer norms that encourage adolescents to refrain from sex are less likely to engage in it. Girls as young as junior high age "with pitiable self-esteem... give oral sex sex to boys while insisting that they are not sexually active - an astonishing redefinition of sexual activity shared by most of their generation."
Read more about this topic: Adolescent Sexuality In The United States
Famous quotes containing the words social and, social, cultural and/or aspects:
“And our sov’reign sole Creator
Lives eternal in the sky,
While we mortals yield to nature,
Bloom awhile, then fade and die.”
—Unknown. “Hail ye sighing sons of sorrow,” l. 13-16, Social and Campmeeting Songs (1828)
“As soon as you are in a social setting, you better take away the key to the lock of your heart and pocket it; those who leave the key in the lock are fools.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)
“Somehow we have been taught to believe that the experiences of girls and women are not important in the study and understanding of human behavior. If we know men, then we know all of humankind. These prevalent cultural attitudes totally deny the uniqueness of the female experience, limiting the development of girls and women and depriving a needy world of the gifts, talents, and resources our daughters have to offer.”
—Jeanne Elium (20th century)
“That anger can be expressed through words and non-destructive activities; that promises are intended to be kept; that cleanliness and good eating habits are aspects of self-esteem; that compassion is an attribute to be prized—all these lessons are ones children can learn far more readily through the living example of their parents than they ever can through formal instruction.”
—Fred Rogers (20th century)