What leads to sex? Adolescent preferred partners and reasons for sex.

83 African-American and White male and female adolescents, ages 16-20 years old, were asked to list preferred partner qualities and reasons to have or not have sex as measures of their perceptions of antecedents of sex. High frequency items were placed on cards and sorted separately by an additional four gender and racial subsamples (n = 79). Data were analyzed using multidimensional scaling and cluster analysis. Health-related antecedents to sex were not predominant in responses. Both African-American female and male adolescents mentioned "nice body" as criteria for evaluating partner attractiveness and associated this with good looks, whereas White adolescents did not mention "nice body". African-American male adolescents associated love relationships with marriage and parenthood whereas others did not. African-American and White male adolescents indicated sexual arousal as a reason for sex, whereas African-American and White female adolescents did not, with African-American male adolescents associating sexual arousal with an attractive partner and White male adolescents associating sexual arousal with drinking. Implications for sexually transmitted disease prevention are considered.

The gamesmanship of sex: a model based on African American adolescent accounts.

This article examines adolescent understanding of the social context of sexual behavior. Using grounded theory to interpret interviews with 39 African American male and female adolescents, the article builds a model of sex-related behavior as a set of interrelated games. A courtship game involves communication of sexual or romantic interest and, over time, formation of a romantic relationship. A duplicity game draws on conventions of a courtship game to trick a partner into having sex. A disclosure game spreads stories about one's own and other's sex-related activities to peers in a gossip network. Finally, a prestige game builds social reputation in the eyes of peers, typically based on gender-specific standards. The article concludes by examining the meanings that sex-related behavior may have for adolescents and the potential use of social knowledge for facilitating adolescent health.

Fidelity Management: African-American Adolescents' Attempts to Control the Sexual Behavior of their Partners.

This qualitative study examined how adolescents conceptualize sexual behavior. Open-ended interviews about sex were conducted with a sample of 21 male and 18 female African- American adolescents. Topics related to health risk virtually never emerged in their responses. The topic of partner infidelity and concerns about control of infidelity, on the other hand, were mentioned extensively. Informants described a cycle in which commitment to a partner often leads to suspicion of infidelity and jealousy. The jealous partner then performs acts of surveillance which can lead either to reassurance or to discovery of infidelity. The article concludes by discussing the degree of uniqueness of fidelity management to African- American adolescents and possible relevance to design of AIDS risk-reduction interventions.

Adolescent sexual strategies.

PURPOSE: The aim of this study has been to survey adolescents' strategies to promote sexual encounters and to compare those used by males and females. We examined the predictions that sexual strategies of young adolescents are fewer and less adult-like and that those of male adolescents are more coercive. We also examined the predictions from evolutionary psychology that suggest in sexual strategies, males communicate emotional involvement, long-term interest, and resource investment, whereas females communicate sexual availability and fertility. METHODS: The sample consisted of 153 African-American, white, Chinese-American, and Mexican-American adolescents. A strategy inventory was developed and mention of strategies by males and females were compared. RESULTS: Significant gender differences in mention of strategies were found. Males mentioned a higher percentage of coercive strategies such as pressuring and raping as well as a higher percentage of strategies such as lying and getting a partner drunk or high. Males and females both mentioned a higher percentage of strategies communicating commitment and investment. Females mentioned more strategies which signaled sexual availability. Adolescent strategies were fewer than those reported by adults and less focused on appearance enhancement and the intricacies of dating. CONCLUSIONS: Findings suggest the need for special targeting of coercive situations, use of sexual strategies as a prompt for counterstrategies aimed at abstinence, use of sexual strategies as a context for condom use promotion, and reinforcement of female preparatory strategies.

PIP: 153 sexually active 11th and 12th graders attending two inner-city high schools in San Francisco participated in a study of strategies adolescents use to secure sexual intercourse with a partner. The study sample comprised 20 male and 16 female African-Americans, 21 male and 22 female Caucasians, 17 male and 18 female Chinese-Americans, and 19 male and 20 female Mexican-Americans aged 14-19 years (mean age, 16.96 years). Non-English-speaking and special education students were excluded from study. Relative to females, males reported using a higher degree of pressure, rape, lying, and getting a partner drunk or high to encourage sexual involvement. Both sexes reported suggesting interest in developing commitment and a relationship with the intended sex partner to achieve the goal of intercourse. Females mentioned more strategies than males which signaled sexual availability. Relative to adults, the study participants reported fewer strategies and were less focused upon appearance enhancement and the intricacies of dating.

The vernacular term interview: eliciting social knowledge related to sex among adolescents.

This article demonstrates a method for collecting data on adolescents' social knowledge related to sex by conducting an interview which elicits the meanings of vernacular terms. The purpose of the interview is to determine how behavior related to sex is planned and interpreted. Short answer questions at the outset of each interview are used to elicit vernacular terms. The interviewer starts by identifying a term and asking its meaning. The interviewer then seeks to determine how the term is used in colloquial speech. As the interview progresses, the interviewers develops a provisional model of concepts and assumptions which underlie the term. Techniques such as paraphrasing and eliciting criteria and exceptions are used to test hypotheses related to the model. A key dimension of the inquiry has to do with the identification of models of persons and behaviors encompassed by the meaning of the term. The interview is capable of determining expectancies and values linked to a target behavior. Interviews with an African-American male and a White female, both focused on the vernacular term "clean", are used to illustrate the method.

Anticipatory guidance regarding sex: views of virginal female adolescents.

PURPOSE: To explore virginal female adolescents' perceptions of potential discussions with physicians regarding sexuality. METHODS: Twenty-seven virginal female adolescents from an urban high school completed a semistructured interview that explored perceptions of: (1) physicians as resources for discussions about sexuality; (2) content of potential sexuality discussions with physicians; and (3) risks and benefits of sexuality discussions with physicians. The relative emphasis of responses across the sample are described by mean proportional scores (MPS). RESULTS: Health care professionals were spontaneously identified by 33% of participants as potential resources for discussions about sexuality issues. Participants' perceptions of the potential content of sexuality discussions with physicians emphasized prevention of pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections (STIs) (MPS = .37), and physician counseling (MPS = .22). These topics included alternatives to sex and sex refusal skills. The perceived benefits of such discussions were gaining information or assistance regarding pregnancy and STI prevention (MPS = .32), talking with an expert (MPS = .19), and having a supportive relationship with a caring adult (MPS = .16). Lack of confidentiality was perceived as the major risk of adolescent-physician sexuality discussions (MPS = .29). CONCLUSION: Virginal female adolescents perceive a range of topics regarding sexuality as appropriate for discussions with physicians. This should be considered when providing anticipatory guidance counseling to virginal patients regarding sex. Concerns about confidentiality need to be addressed.

Types of adolescent sexual relationships and associated perceptions about condom use.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to describe the various types of adolescent sexual relationships and to examine the association between the type of sexual relationship and adolescents' perceptions about the consistency with which other adolescents use condoms. METHODS: Adolescents attending a university-based adolescent medicine clinic completed a self-administered questionnaire. Subjects were asked to rate the importance of six qualities (caring about each other, length of time of relationship, ability to talk about anything, ability to talk about sex and condoms, doing things together, and attraction to partner's looks) for each of four different types of sexual relationships (steady, casual, friends, and "one-night stands"). Subjects were also asked to estimate the frequency with which adolescents use condoms with each type of sexual partner. RESULTS: Questionnaires were completed by 75 sexually experienced adolescents. The mean age of the sample was 16.6 years, and 41.3% were male. All qualities, except attraction to partner's looks, were rated more important for steady partners compared with the other partner types, and more important for sexual relationships with casual partners and friends than for "one-night stands" (p < .001). Sexually experienced subjects believed that condoms are used less frequently with steady partners and more frequently with "one-night stands" (p < .001). CONCLUSIONS: Interventions designed to increase the consistency with which adolescents use condoms should take into account the different types of sexual relationships, each with distinct expectancies about the consistency of condom use.

The psychodynamics of opiate addiction.

Opiate addicts and polydrug, but nonopiate, substance abusers were assessed for depression on the Raskin rating scale for a clinical interview and several self-report measures of depression including the Hamilton, SCL-90, and the recently developed Depressive Experiences Questionnaire (DEQ), which differentially assesses depression focused around neediness from a depression focused around self-criticism (guilt and shame). Opiate addicts were consistently more depressed than polydrug drug abusers on all the measures. On the DEQ, opiate addicts were significantly (p less than .001) more depressed than normals and even somewhat more depressed than psychiatric patients. This depression, however, was focused primarily around issues of self-criticism, guilt, and shame rather than issues of dependency, abandonment, rejection, and neglect. Even further, depression focused around self-criticism, as measured on the DEQ, was significantly correlated (p less than .001) with the extent to which the polydrug, non-opiate-addicted substance abusers had begun to experiment with opiates. These data suggest that intense depression, particularly depression focused around issues of self-criticism, has an important role in opiate addiction.

History of childhood hyperactivity in a clinic population of opiate addicts.

Although childhood hyperactivity has been shown to be related to a variety of adult psychiatric disorders, no previous study has specifically explored its relation to adult opiate addiction. In this study, 22 per cent of a population of 157 opiate addicts seeking treatment reported childhood histories of hyperactivity. Demographic and developmental features such as high male to female sex ratio, normal intelligence quotient but lower level of educational and occupational achievement, and earlier arrest record supported the retrospective diagnosis. In addition, the subgroup with a history of childhood hyperactivity differed in symptom and personality measures from those without such a history in a way suggesting that those with a history of hyperactivity in childhood were manifesting adult sequelae of the disorder.