A Prospective Study of Young Females’ Sexual Subjectivity: Associations with Age, Sexual Behavior, and Dating

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Zimmer-Gembeck, Melanie J
Ducat, Wendy H
Boislard-Pepin, Marie-Aude
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2011
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Sexual self-perceptions are important aspectsof sexuality, which can undergo significant change during adolescence and early adulthood. The purpose of this study was to describe these changes among girls (N=251; ages 16-25) over one year, and to examine associations of sexual self-perceptions (sexual subjectivity) with age, sexual behavior, and romantic status.Sexual body-esteem, perceptions of entitlement to desire and pleasure, sexual efficacy, and sexual self-reflection were investigated as elements of sexual subjectivity. All sexual subjectivity elements were higher among girls who had more sexual experience and/or had steady romantic partners during the study. Perception of entitlement to desire and pleasure increased over time, whereas sexual body-esteem showed the most stability and had minimal associations with sexual or romantic experiences. The greatest increases in sexual subjectivity were found among girls who began the study with the least sociosexual experience and self-reflection also increased for girls who had first coitus after the start of the study. Overall, girls who had sexual intercourse the earliest (before age 16) had the highest sexual subjectivity, but sexual subjectivity increased the most among girls without coital experience or who had more recent first coitus.

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Archives of Sexual Behavior

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40

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© 2011 Springer Netherlands. This is an electronic version of an article published in Archives of Sexual Behavior, October 2011, Volume 40, Issue 5, pp 927-938. Archives of Sexual Behavior is available online at: http://www.springerlink.com/ with the open URL of your article.

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Other human society

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