Sexual Self

THE SEXUAL SELF
SEXUALITY IN
ADOLESCENCE
• Physical changes: Puberty
– Increased sex drive (motivation)
– Maturation of sex organs (reproduction)
– Secondary sex characteristics
• Cognitive changes:
– Introspective reflection
• Self-consciousness
• Social changes
– Significance of sexual relations
– Curiosity becomes sexual motivation
– Connection with adult roles
DEVELOPMENTAL
CHALLENGES
• Comfort with maturing body (changes)
• Accepting feelings of sexual arousal
• Engaging in voluntary sexual activities
• Understanding and practicing safe sex

Social Scripts
• Expectations for how males and females

behave in romantic relationships
• Shaped by relationships at home
• Shaped by the mass media
Dating Scripts
• Proactive Script • Reactive Script

• Males tend to follow this type of • Females tend to follow this type of
script script
• Includes: • Focuses on:

– initiating the date – Private domain (grooming & dress)
– deciding where they will go – Responding to the male’s gestures in
– controlling the public domain the public domain
(driving the car) – Responding to his sexual initiatives
– initiating sexual contact
FALLING IN LOVE
• Consensual validation
– People like to find in others an agreement, or consensus, with their
own characteristics
– Finding this consensus supports, or validates, their own way of looking
at the world
• People of all ages tend to have romantic relationships with people who are
similar to them in characteristics such as:
– Intelligence
– Social class
– Ethnic background
– Religious beliefs
– Physical attractiveness
CULTURAL BELIEFS AND
ADOLESCENT SEXUALITY
• Restrictive cultures:
– Place strong prohibitions on adolescent sexual activity before marriage
– Strict separation of boys and girls in early childhood through adolescence
– Some countries will even include the threat of physical punishment and
public shaming for premarital sex
– Usually more restrictive for girls than boys
• Semi-restrictive cultures:
– Have prohibitions but they are not strongly enforced and are easily
evaded
– If pregnancy results from premarital sex, the adolescents are often forced
to marry
• Permissive cultures:
– Encourage and expect adolescent sexuality
– Sexual behavior is encouraged even in childhood and the sexuality of
adolescence is simply a continuation of the sex play in childhood
WHAT INFLUENCES SEXUAL
ACTIVITY?
• Hormones are especially important for boys
• Context is especially important for girls
– The most important predictor of girls’ involvement in sexual
intercourse is whether their friends are doing it or have
sexually permissive attitudes
The Neural Basis of Sex
Hormones on sexual arousal
▪ Testosterone: plays a role in desire and arousal.
▪ Estrogens: no apparent direct role in arousal.
However, loss of estrogens impairs physiological
arousal response in females.
▪ Prolactin: high or low levels inhibit sexual
response.
Hormones Continued
▪ Pheromones: volatile signaling substances

secreted from glands. Thought to be sensed in the
Vomeronasal organ. May have role in female
reproductive cycle synchrony. May also facilitate
sexual behavior.
Sex and Supraspinal Areas
▪ Hypothalamus
▪ Medial Preoptic Area: involved in mate selection and
recognition.
The Rewards of
“Healthy” Drug
Addiction
Dopamine and Love
▪ -When a person feels in love, they activate their pleasure
centers in the brain which are rich in dopamine
▪ -Dopamine causes a person’s heart to race, pupils to dilate
and a slight perspire.
▪ --Also a hormone involved with addictive behavior
▪ -It is the hormone that makes a person feel an “erotic high”
when they see their lover, eventually the person will become
addicted to feeling that “erotic high”
Oxytocin, the “cuddling
chemical”
▪ -
▪ “Produced by the brain, it sensitized nerves and stimulates muscle
contraction. Scientists speculate that oxytocin might encourage
cuddling between adult women and men.”
▪ -Released during sexual experiences as well as when lovers touch
because it activates cell-surface proteins in the nucleus accumbens,
which causes release of dopamine---> Euphoric high
b-Phenylethylamine (PEA) or the
"love chemical"
▪ -Falling in love involves the enhanced secretion of PEA in
the first 2-4 years of the relationship
▪ -This natural drug creates a euphoric high and helps
obscure the failings and shortcomings of the potential
mate.
▪ -High levels of PEA increases sex drive and is thought to
be the hormone of libido.
▪ -The body as becomes tolerant of PEA like dopamine once
the body has been exposed to it for long periods of time.
Is love a continuous state over
time?
No.
PARENTS AND
SEXUAL ACTIVITY
• Parent-child communication
• Most effective
– for females (rather than males)
– with mothers (rather than fathers)
– if communication of values/attitudes
– for preventing risky sexual behaviors
STERNBERG’S THEORY
LOVE TRIANGLE
C I
P
COMPONENTS OF
RELATIONSHIPS
1. INTIMACY = feelings of closeness
and connection. Use of higher levels of
communication.
2. PASSION = physical attraction and
sexual attraction. The drives that lead
to romance.
Involves a high degree of physical
arousal and an intense desire to be with
the loved one.
Passion develops rapidly and then slows
down
COMPONENTS OF
RELATIONSHIPS (cont.)
3. COMMITMENT = a decision that

one cares for another and wishes to
maintain a relationship.
8 POSSIBLE LOVE
RELATIONSHIPS
Intimacy, passion and commitment are
the warm, hot and cold vertices of
Sternberg’s love triangle.
Alone and in combination they give rise

to 8 possible kinds of love
relationships.
1. Nonlove:
The absence of all
three components.
Example:
a large majority of
our relationships
Casual interactions
2. Liking:
▪ Feelings
experienced in true
friendship.
▪ Liking includes such I
things as closeness
and warmth but not
the intense
feelings of passion
Example:
very best friends
3. Infatuation:
LOVE AT FIRST
SIGHT.
It involves a high
degree of
physiological
arousal.
Example:
P 10th grader in love
with a beautiful
12th grade girl but
won’t ask her out.
4. Empty love:
Commitment without
intimacy or passion.
They used to be
C passionate but it
died out.
Example:
30 year old marriage
They stay together
because...
5. Romantic love:
Intimacy and passion.
More than infatuation
I
it’s liking with the
added excitement of
physical attraction
but without
P commitment
Example:
Summer affair
6. Fatuous love:
Commitment plus passion
C This type of love rarely
works. The emotional
core is missing which is
necessary to sustain
P the intimacy.
Example:
Whirlwind marriage
7. Companionate love:
Intimacy plus commitment
C I
It’s a long-term friendship.
Example:
80 year old couples
8. Consummate love:
Also known as complete love.
C I When all three elements of
the triangle come together
in a relationship. This is
difficult but not impossible
P to achieve.
Example:
Only very special relationships
get here
ROBERT STERNBERG’S
THEORY OF LOVE
Passion Intimacy Commitment
Forms of
Love Physical attraction
and sexual desire
Closeness and
emotional attachment
Pledge to love over the
long run
Liking No Yes No
Infatuation Yes No No
Empty Love No No Yes
Romantic Love Yes Yes No
Companionate No Yes Yes
Love
Fatuous/Foolish Yes No Yes
Consummate Love Yes Yes Yes
Applying Sternberg to
Adolescence
• In most adolescent love relationships, commitment is either
missing or highly tentative
• The absence of long term commitment in adolescence
means that there are two principal types of adolescent love:
infatuation and romantic love
Keep in Mind …..

In industrialized countries people are not likely to get married until they are
in at least their mid- to late twenties
Under these circumstances it is understandable that adolescents’ love
relationship would not involve commitment as much as passion or intimacy

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THE SEXUAL SELF

• Accepting feelings of sexual arousal

• Engaging in voluntary sexual activities

• Understanding and practicing safe sex

• Expectations for how males and females

• Proactive Script • Reactive Script

• Includes: • Focuses on:

▪ Pheromones: volatile signaling substances

3. COMMITMENT = a decision that

Alone and in combination they give rise

It’s a long-term friendship.

Keep in Mind …..

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