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Normative Sexuality Development in Adolescence: A Decade in Review,
2000–2009
Deborah L. Tolman
Hunter College
Sara I. McClelland
University of Michigan
This review details a key innovation across the field of adolescent sexuality research over the last decadeFconceptualizing
sexuality as a normative aspect of adolescent development. Anchored in a growing articulation of adolescent sexuality as
having positive qualities and consequences, we provide an organizing framework for understanding sexuality as nor-
mative and developmentally expected. Using this framework, we report on 3 specific areas of research that have developed
‘‘critical mass’’ over the past decade: new views on sexual behavior, sexual selfhood, and sexual socialization in the 21st
century. We conclude by suggesting that the next step in the field of adolescent sexuality development is the explicit
integration of ‘‘positive’’ dimensions of sexuality with risk management dimensions. Rather than navigating a binary
between positive and risky, we propose characterizing the ‘‘both/and’’ quality of adolescent sexuality development as
normative. This framework, we argue, encourages empirical research that assumes a wide range of strategies through
which adolescents learn about themselves, their bodies, intimate partners, and relationships within contexts where they
are required to both manage risks and develop positive patterns for adulthood sexuality. We conclude with considerations
for future research and public policy.
A KEY INNOVATION
This review details a key innovation across the field
of adolescent sexuality research over the last
decadeFthat is, the conceptualization of sexuality as
a normative aspect of adolescent development. Ad-
olescent sexuality has long been equated with dan-
ger (Moran, 2000), and researchers have often
reflected this sentiment with their choice of research
questions by pursuing studies of pregnancy, sexually
transmitted infection (STI) risk, condom use, and,
increasingly, sexual violence in the lives of adoles-
cents. While risks associated with adolescent sexu-
ality are essential to understand, this first decade of
the 21st century witnessed the emergence of a critical
mass of empirical studies reflecting an assumption
that adolescent sexuality is a normal and expected
aspect of adolescent development. We argue that this
emerging body of research signals a sea change in
how researchers (and the public) conceptualize ad-
olescent sexuality, as well as its predictors, outcomes,
and salient characteristics.
Over the last 30 years, researchers have advocated
for unlinking adolescent sexuality from automati-
cally assumed dangerous outcomes and pathology
(Bauman & Udry, 1981; Ehrhardt, 1996; Fine, 1988;
Thompson, 1995). However, it has been over the last
decade that, rather than the occasional lone voice in a
chorus of concern, investigators produced a set of
empirical studies which have developed earlier ob-
servations about the limitations and costs of defining
adolescent sexuality exclusively as a dangerous and
risky set of behaviors and outcomes. Since 2000, this
perspective has been both more fully articulated and
utilized to guide a significant body of research.
At the start of the decade, Welsh, Rostosky, and
Kawaguchi (2000) noted that sexuality was slowly
becoming understood as integral to adolescent
identity formation and that ‘‘[s]igns of a shift toward
a more normative perspective ha[d] begun to ap-
pear’’ (p. 119). In 2004, researchers from various
disciplines gathered together in San Francisco, CA,
for the ‘‘Cutting the Edge of Research in Adolescent
Sexuality: Considering Normative Development’’
conference. That same year, The Sexuality Informa-
tion and Education Council of the United States
(SIECUS, 2004) published guidelines for compre-
hensive sexuality educationFwidely approved by
mainstream professional organizationsFwhich pre-
sented six key concepts, including that ‘‘sexuality is a
central part of being human’’ (p. 15) and emphasized
developmentally appropriate sexuality education
throughout a child and adolescent’s life in order to
ensure that ‘‘[y]oung people explore their sexuality
r2011 The Authors
Journal of Research on Adolescence r2011 Society for Research on Adolescence
DOI: 10.1111/j.1532-7795.2010.00726.x
We wish to thank Christin Bowman, Amy Baker, and Jessica
Lake for their extensive assistance with research, coding, and
manuscript preparation.
Requests for reprints should be sent to Deborah L. Tolman,
School of Social Work, Hunter College, CUNY Graduate Center,
129 East 79th Street, New York, NY 10075. E-mail: dtolman@
hunter.cuny.edu
JOURNAL OF RESEARCH ON ADOLESCENCE, 21(1), 242– 255
as a natural process in achieving sexual maturity’’
(p. 20). In 2005 – 2006, two separate special issues in
sexuality and developmental journals were pub-
lished which argued for conceptualizing and defin-
ing characteristics of ‘‘positive’’ adolescent sexuality
development while also recognizing the challenges
of making such a claim (Diamond, 2006; Russell,
2005a, 2005b). In one of these articles, Russell ex-
plained that, ‘‘[t]he intense social regulation of both
adolescence and sexuality makes this field a rich
venue for academic interrogation, as well as a risky
area of academic inquiry,’’ (2005a, p. 10).
Indeed, there has been both political and aca-
demic anxiety concerning the most beneficial way to
define adolescent sexuality over the past 10 years,
especially given the context of abstinence-only sex
education policies and the controversies over the
science associated with them (see Fine & McClelland,
2006; McClelland & Fine, 2008b). However, there
has also been tremendous progress in developing
innovative research that addresses the development
of healthy sexual attitudes, behaviors, relationships,
and importantly, recognition that adult sexual out-
comes are rooted in adolescence. Ten years after
Welsh and colleagues’ observation about normative
adolescent sexuality development, we find that a
body of research has emerged and shows signs of
growth.
NORMATIVE ADOLESCENT SEXUALITY
DEVELOPMENT
We use the term ‘‘normative’’ as an organizing frame
for studying adolescent sexuality development, be-
cause it allows for integration of the ‘‘positive’’ sex-
uality frame called for by other researchers
(Diamond, 2006; Russell, 2005a), but also draws at-
tention to the developmental nature of sexuality
development (i.e., what it means to become a healthy
sexual adult). Normative has been defined as, ‘‘per-
taining to the average or expected behavior patterns
of a group or community’’ (Barker, 1995). By em-
phasizing sexuality as expected and normative, we
aim to discern the types of research generated within
this set of assumptions. We forward the idea that the
normative quality of adolescent sexuality signals
that sexuality is a developmental phenomenon; this
does not mean, however, that we are advocating for
normative timelines or benchmarks, such as the ideal
time to begin sexual activity. Instead, we use this
term to highlight the qualities of sexuality develop-
ment, which are necessarily rooted in the adolescent
years and thereby important for researchers to un-
derstand. While use of terms such as ‘‘normal’’ and
‘‘normative’’ are complex and contested, we have
chosen to use the concept of normativity as a way of
signaling this major shift in the last decade. We be-
lieve this key advance has significantly challenged,
and thus altered, the basic assumptions within the
field and that this perspective of normative sexuality
development is evident not only in the questions
researchers ask but in their methods and presenta-
tion of findings as well.
In addition to normative, the emergence of the
term ‘‘sexuality development’’ (as opposed to ‘‘sex-
ual development’’) reflects the theoretical and em-
pirical developments of the last decade. Originally
used to document the development of physiological
stages, more recent research in this field has ad-
dressed the intertwining physiological and psycho-
logical processes involved in developing as a sexual
person at various developmental moments over the
course of an adolescent’s life. Early in the decade,
Tolman (2002) argued for the importance of con-
ceptually expanding what has been called sexual
development into the broader, more comprehensive
construct of ‘‘sexuality development.’’ This shift has
been made possible, in part, by an expanded ap-
proach to sexuality itself.
In this review, we report on new arenas of
knowledge about adolescent sexuality that have
emerged from the growing application of this inno-
vative lens. The current discussion is a focused re-
view that grew out of a larger comprehensive review
of research done in the field of adolescent sexuality
from 2000 to 2009. We generated a list of 31 English
language journals that regularly published articles
from 2000 to 2009 on issues related to adolescent
sexuality across a range of disciplines including
psychology, public health, sociology, adolescence,
women’s studies, and sexuality studies. From this set
of journals, 710 abstracts were identified, retrieved,
and coded. We developed codes based on the themes
that emerged from the abstracts rather than bringing
a set of theoretically derived codes to the data. From
the initial set of 25 codes, we constructed themes for
more careful analysis by grouping the codes based
on similarity, relevance, and theoretical relation-
ships. From this body of literature, we identified the
growing trend for researchers to assume that ado-
lescent sexuality is normative rather than distinctly
pathological or problematic.
Within this more specific body of research, we
identified three domains: new perspectives on sexual
behaviors, sexual selfhood, and sexual socialization
in the 21st century. Taken in turn, each represents an
important aspect of recent empirical research: sexual
behaviors emphasizes the behavioral aspects of
ADOLESCENT SEXUALITY 243
sexuality, sexual selfhood represents the internal de-
velopment of the individual, and finally, sexual so-
cialization represents the social contexts in which
adolescents develop sexual knowledge and experi-
ences. While these three areas overlap conceptually
and each works necessarily in tandem with the other
two, we highlight these areas as distinct in order to
illustrate how different levels of analysis are impor-
tant within this field as it continues to develop.
Lastly, we discuss the role of the National Longi-
tudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) as
a major domain of adolescent sexuality research over
the past decade. The impact of this U.S.-based, fed-
erally funded, nationally representative, longitudinal
study has been immense, and no discussion of ado-
lescent sexuality research in the last decade would be
complete without inclusion of research from this
data set. One of the only studies that has collected
data on adolescents and their peers, romantic part-
ners, families, schools, and neighborhoods, Add
Health has provided an unparalleled ability to ex-
amine sexual relationships, behaviors, and risk
management in the lives of adolescents as they age
from 12 onwards. Toward the end of our discussion,
we review how this study mirrors both the trends we
have identified in the larger body of literature re-
garding normative sexuality development and ten-
sions that continue to exist within the field of
adolescent sexuality.
While far from representing the entirety of re-
search on adolescent sexuality, this major sea
change of normativity warrants a focused review.
Thus, this review of the research on adolescent
sexuality is purposefully not a comprehensive dis-
cussion of the enormous literature on the topic of
adolescent sexuality, which still is constituted pri-
marily by a focus on preventing sexual risk taking
(i.e., having unprotected intercourse) and negative
sexual outcomes (i.e., adolescent pregnancy, STIs).
There are a number of excellent reviews available
that cover important aspects of research on ado-
lescent sexuality: for reviews of adolescent sexual
behaviors and development, see Diamond and
Savin-Williams (2009); contraception and condom
use by adolescents, see Santelli, Morrow, Anderson,
and Lindberg (2006); sexual risk taking and alcohol,
see Halpern-Felsher, Millstein, and Ellen (1996);
religiosity and sexual behavior, see Rostosky, Wil-
cox, Wright, and Randall (2004); abstinence policies
and sex education in schools, see Lindberg, Santelli,
and Singh (2006); Santelli et al. (2006); abstinence
education evaluation, see Kirby (2002, 2007);
Smith, Steen, Spaulding-Givens, and Schwendinger
(2003); adolescent relationships, see Collins,
Welsh, and Furman (2009); Giordano (2003). We
conclude this discussion by suggesting an integra-
tive approach to adolescent sexuality development
and research.
THREE AREAS OF RESEARCH
Empirical research that has explored the idea of
normative adolescent sexuality development is or-
ganized into three main areas in this review. First, we
report on research reflecting new views on sexual
behavior, including research on adolescent sexual
repertoires, nonprocreative sexual behavior, and
virginity as a ‘‘new’’ sexual behavior. Second, we
cover the empirical developments in sexual selfhood,
which includes aspects of sexual subjectivity, iden-
tity, and gender as well as the development of a self
who imagines him/herself (in the present or the fu-
ture) as having intimate relationships and/or expe-
riencing sexual pleasure. Third, we discuss the
empirical research on sexual socialization in the 21st
century, presenting research that has examined the
social contexts in which adolescents learn about sex
and about how to be sexual individuals. This work
stands in contrast to studies that seek to identify
negative social influencesFa major interest in the
last 10 years, especially with the advent of new
technologies. We discuss the various ways that re-
searchers have approached this question of social-
ization within families and peers as well as relational
and nonrelational contexts of sexuality.
NEW PERSPECTIVES ON SEXUAL BEHAVIORS
What constitutes a sexual behavior? The last decade
saw this question driving research in adolescent
sexuality, pressing for interrogation of what ‘‘counts’’
as sex by teens and in research settings (Sanders
et al., 2010). Research in the last decade reflects a
growing recognition that sexual behaviors include
a range of possible activities, leading to the in-
creased need to be precise when referring to sexual
behaviors. For example, ‘‘penile-vaginal intercourse’’
(PVI) has emerged as a specific term as other forms of
intercourse (oral and anal) are recognized with their
own unique questions and concerns. While much of
this review covers heterosexual intercourse behaviors,
in part, because of a continuing heterosexist bias in
behavioral research on adolescent sexuality, studies
that focus exclusively on same-sex sexual behavior
are reviewed elsewhere in this issue (Saewyc, 2011).
What unites this body of research on sexual behav-
iors is a growing interest in documenting the psy-
chological and developmental dimensions of sexual
244 TOLMAN AND McCLELLAND
behaviors rather than assuming that adolescent sex-
ual behavior is a route to psychological and physical
damage.
In the last decade, oral sex has been acknowl-
edged as part of what Fortenberry and colleagues
have called adolescents’ ‘‘sexual repertoires’’ (e.g.,
Hensel, Fortenberry, & Orr, 2008), that is, the range of
behaviors about which they develop knowledge and
make choicesFan idea first suggested by Smith and
Udry in 1985 but elaborated only in the last decade.
There has been an emerging body of knowledge
about oral sex, picking up where Newcomer and
UATUdry (1985) left off in their long-standing study
published over 20 years ago. Adolescents’ perceptions
of oral sex, especially whether they consider it sex,
have been a focus of study (McKay, 2004; Prinstein,
Meade, & Cohen, 2003). Halpern-Felsher, Cornell,
Kropp, and Tschann (2005) found that relative to
vaginal intercourse, young people perceived oral sex
to be less risky, more acceptable, less of a threat to
their beliefs, more likely for them, and that a greater
number of their peers have had it than vaginal
sex. Brady and Halpern-Felsher (2007) found in a
longitudinal study of early adolescents that those
engaging in oral sex only versus both oral and vag-
inal intercourse were less likely to become pregnant
or have an STI, feel guilty or used, have their rela-
tionship become worse or get in trouble with their
parents about sex.
At the beginning of the decade, concern that girls
may be providing oral sex to boys as a way to ‘‘stay
abstinent,’’ that is, to avoid PVI, may have been
driving the emergent study of oral sex (e.g., Remez,
2000). However, this pattern has not been found.
Hensel et al. (2008) tracked sexual behaviors among
primarily African American adolescents using sex-
ual diaries to identify sexual trajectories and how
oral sex fit into them. They found that oral sex oc-
curred before, simultaneously, or concurrent with
intercourse rather than as a substitute. What has
been shown as a new trend among adolescents in
regards to oral sex seems to be about expectations.
For example, some research indicates that oral sex is
less of a ‘‘choice’’ behavior and more of an expected
behavior, especially fellatio. For example, Kaestle
(2009) found that in Wave 3 of the Add Health study,
a greater proportion of young women versus men
had engaged repeatedly in sexual activities they
disliked (12% vs. 3%) and were more likely than men
to report repeated participation in these activities
(odds ratio, 3.7), primarily fellatio and anal sex.
Other studies have found differential associations
for oral sex versus vaginal sex among adolescents,
including parental communication and behavior-
specific normative beliefs (Bersamin, Walker, Fisher,
& Grube, 2006). Bay-Cheng, Robinson, and Zucker
(2009) found in retrospective reports by college wo-
men on heterosexual experiences in adolescence that
compared with intercourse, erotic touching, manual
stimulation, and fellatio were less predictive of
young women’s subjective perceptions of desire,
wanting, and pleasure.
More recently, research has examined the role and
expectations surrounding anal sex. Lescano et al.
(2009) found that among 1,348 ‘‘at-risk’’ 15–21-year-
olds in three cities, 16% reported recent anal sex. For
males only, sexual orientation related to recent het-
erosexual anal sex; for females, variables associated
with power imbalances in sexual encounters and
relationships were identified. In a study of African
American young women, DiClemente et al. (2009)
found that those who reported anal intercourse
(10%) had elevated overall sexual risk behavior.
A new ‘‘sexual behavior’’ that emerged for study
in the last decade was virginity; that is, the active
choice to not engage in sexual behavior. While im-
plicitly assumed a positive moment in sexuality
development, research about virginity has shown
that it can lead to a variety of consequences. This is
evident in studies of sexual trajectories of ‘‘pledgers’’
(Thomas, 2009) versus those who ‘‘left’’ abstinence
(Blinn-Pike, Berger, Hewett, & Oleson, 2004) and
characteristics of those who postponed sexual initia-
tion (Gray et al., 2008) or retracted pledges (Rose-
nbaum, 2006). Studies of ‘‘primary’’ and ‘‘secondary’’
abstinence or being a ‘‘reborn virgin’’ identified what
differentiates these groups. For instance, Loewenson,
Ireland, and Resnick (2004) found that among males,
‘‘secondary’’ virgins were more likely to have caused
a pregnancy.
Adolescents themselves do not consider absti-
nence and sexual activity to be opposing constructs,
such that positive abstinence attitudes and intentions
may not have robust effects in preventing sexual
activity (Masters, Beadnell, Morrison, Hoppe, &
Gillmore, 2008). Woody, Russel, D’Souza, and
Woody (2000), in study of 18 – 21-year-olds, found
that noncoital sex was common among both virgins
and nonvirgins, with ‘‘total abstainers’’ having had
fewer opportunities for sexual activity, and half
of those who reported having ‘‘c[o]me close to
intercourse [pvi]’’ also reported proceeding with
noncoital sex. Among the ‘‘intercourse’’ group, sig-
nificantly more females than males reported less
positive emotional reaction, poorer outcomes, and a
lower evaluation of their decision than did males.
Framing abstinence as an important behavioral
strategy, Santelli et al. (2006) argued that abstinence
ADOLESCENT SEXUALITY 245
as the ‘‘sole option’’ for healthy sexual behavior in
adolescence is ethically as well as scientifically
problematic.
SEXUAL SELFHOOD
In the last decade, a body of knowledge about the
sexual motivations and sexual desire of adolescent
girls and women has emerged and quickly grown.
This interest in young female sexuality has roots in
the larger feminist project of reclaiming female sex-
uality (Fine, 1988; Vance, 1984). This body of work
largely constituted the early roots in describing ad-
olescent sexuality as a normative process that is af-
fected by sociopolitical and biological changes
(Tolman & Diamond, 2001).
Tolman’s (2002) research on adolescent girls’ ex-
periences of sexual desire identified a complicated
landscape of social, material, and personal dilemmas
that characterized girls’ diverse experiences negoti-
ating their sexuality. This research laid the ground-
work for new questions about female adolescent
sexuality that were explored quantitatively as well as
qualitatively and using mixed methods. An innova-
tive direction in the past decade has been a new body
of research on the development of a sexual self-con-
cept (O’Sullivan, Meyer-Bahlburg, & McKeague,
2006) and sexual subjectivity (Horne & Zimmer-
Gembeck, 2005, 2006). Researchers working with
these concepts have investigated the relationships
between sexual identity formation, sexual decision
making, and sexual behaviors and outcomes. For ex-
ample, O’Sullivan et al. (2006) found associations
between sexual self-concept and early adolescent
girls’ intentions to engage in intercourse and orien-
tation to engage in sex in the near future. Others have
investigated how sexual subjectivityFdefined as
having a sense of entitlement to sexual pleasure and
sexual safetyFinteracted with intraindividual and
psychological well-being (e.g., Impett & Tolman, 2006;
Phillips, 2000). The development of the Female Sexual
Subjectivity Inventory enabled Horne and Zimmer-
Gembeck (2006) to find that among adolescent girls,
sexual subjectivity was associated with self-esteem
and resistance to sexual double standards.
In the field of sexuality development, and sexual
identity more specifically, one of the major shifts
over the past decade has been the reconsideration of
sexual orientation development for the cohort born
in the 1990s. Savin-Williams (2005) and Diamond
(2008) have articulated the shifting and often unsta-
ble nature of sexual identification for adolescents.
Both have studied self-identification processes in
young people, how these identities relate to same-
and different-sex sexual behaviors, and how they
change over time. Other researchers have taken up
these same questions and replicated Savin-Williams
and Diamond’s critical stance on assuming a linear
process (e.g., Friedman et al., 2004). The past decade
has seen a paradigmatic shift from conceptualizing a
‘‘gay teen’’ to a more nuanced discussion of ‘‘sexual
minority youth,’’ an extremely diverse group who
may at times adopt a gay, lesbian, bisexual, or no
specific sexual identity, may be actively questioning
their identity, may engage in same-sex sexual activ-
ities, and/or may report same-sex attractions (Cohler
& Hammack, 2006). Alternatively, Russell, Clarke,
and Clary (2009) found that the labels of gay, lesbian,
and bisexual remained relevant for contemporary
adolescents and that this cohort was not in fact
‘‘postgay’’ as some had speculated. Still others have
found that difficulties in developing an ‘‘integrated
LGB identity’’ led to poor psychological adjustment
and sexual risk taking (Rosario, Scrimshaw, &
Hunter, 2009). These questions about identity have
not been solely rooted in questions of sexual or
psychological risk due to an LGBT identity but in the
larger question of how young people become
gendered and develop sexual identities.
One of the most important shifts seen in the
previous decade has been around conceptualizing
psychological motives for sexual activity and rela-
tionships among adolescents. Defining adolescents
as capable of positively motivated sexuality has
contributed to an upsurge of research on adolescents
as a whole, beyond a particular focus on girls and
young women. Across all adolescents, there has been
interest in active decision making about having sex,
having sex early (usually considered before age 16),
and having sex for the first time (L’Engle, Brown, &
Kenneavy, 2006; Woody, D’Souza, & Russel, 2003) as
part of a more expansive developmental process.
Each of these areas of research places sexual decision
making in the hands of young people rather than
identifying and evaluating negative influences on
them and sets out to understand this process from
the perspective of young people themselves (e.g.,
Michels, Kropp, Eyre, & Halpern-Felsher, 2005). This
body of research has developed a new image of the
young person who is making dynamic decisions re-
garding his or her sexuality.
In a study done by Dawson, Shih, de Moor, &
Shrier (2008), the authors used daily diary methods
to assess the range of reasons why adolescents had
sex and found a number of associations between
psychological well-being and the reasons stated by
the young people; for example, female youth with
higher impulsivity ratings reported that their moti-
246 TOLMAN AND McCLELLAND
vations were less driven by intimacy/desire reasons.
Similarly, Robinson, Holmbeck, and Paikoff, (2007)
found that among their sample of African American
adolescents, males were more likely to report self-
esteem enhancement as a reason for having sex, and
for those who sought self-esteem through sex, there
was also less consistent condom use. There is cur-
rently a dearth of research on these decision pro-
cesses for LGBT adolescents, who are not often
framed as motivated toward sexual activity by any-
thing other than their sexual identity (see Saewyc,
2011). Another example is a study by Impett and
Tolman (2006), in which they assessed late adoles-
cent girls’ motives for engaging in sex and their level
of sexual satisfaction with their most recent sexual
experience. Using sexual self-concept to operation-
alize sexual subjectivity, the authors found that those
young women (ages 16 – 19) who reported higher
rates of sexual self-concept and greater approach
(positive) versus avoidance (negative) motives also
reported greater sexual satisfaction.
SEXUAL SOCIALIZATION IN THE 21st
CENTURY
The contexts which impact adolescent sexual risk
have been operationalized in various ways, including
the role of neighborhoods (Averett, Rees, & Argys,
2002), parental communication (Miller & Whitaker,
2000), religion (Manlove, Logan, Moore, & Ikramul-
lah, 2008), and the overall developing recognition of
the role of culture as a shaping factor. Understanding
adolescent sexuality experiences and processes in
context is consistent with the emergence of the per-
spective across the study of adolescence in the last
decade that development is a highly social pro-
cessFeven biological processes do not occur in a
vacuum (Collins, 2003; Russell, 2005a)Fopening the
larger question of what helps to create an optimal
result, not only what ruins a life or stops bad things
from happening.
Peers and Sexual Socialization
The role of peers in socializing young people in
sexual norms, attitudes, and behaviors is considered
an effect of an assumed normative developmental
process of adolescents’ shift away from families and
toward peers, but the types and range of the role of
peers are not yet well understood. Peer networks
have, over the last decade, been examined as a
complex method of socialization shaping sexuality
development through a number of mediating
mechanisms. A line of research that has persisted
into this decade is how perceived peer sexual
experience has been found to be influential in
adolescents’ sexual decision making (e.g., Santelli
et al., 2004). Bearman, Moody, and Stovel (2004)
examined the structure of adolescent romantic and
sexual networks in a sample of more than 800 ad-
olescents from the Add Health study to identify the
micromechanisms of social networks (i.e., the rela-
tionships and number of links between individuals
in a group), leading to new models of STD trans-
mission, sexual behavior influence, and communi-
cation of social and sexual norms. They found that
prior models of disease diffusion did not suffi-
ciently account for temporal changes or the ante-
cedents that preceded partner choice. They
explained that the implications of their findings are
that adolescents exist within networks that differ
from adults’, and, as a result, their intimate and
sexual choices hinge on ‘‘collective assessment of
their personal choices’’ (Bearman, Moody, & Stovel,
2004, p. 79). By considering the characteristics of
adolescent sexual relationshipsasdeeplyinformed
by social norms and peer scrutiny, the researchers
were able to more accurately model the impact of
peer partnerships and consider interventions that
assume sexual networks for all adolescents rather
than focusing on those who are considered ‘‘high
risk.’’
In a significant study much discussed and often
erroneously represented in public at the time of its
publication, Bearman and Bru
¨ckner (2001) examined
the effect of social networks to track the impact of
virginity pledges. Evaluating the effect of these
pledges on the likelihood to transition to first sexual
intercourse, they found that, initially, those who
pledged abstinence were more likely to delay first
intercourse. However, when they took the specifics
of social group contexts into account, they found that
pledging delayed intercourse only in contexts where
there were some, but not too many, pledgers. Their
interpretation was that the pledge worked in con-
texts where group membership constituted an
identity in the particular school context. Thus, to be
effective, pledging had to be pervasive enough to
constitute group membership, but not so pervasive
that it was no longer a distinguishing characteristic
(Bearman & Bru
¨ckner, 2001). In a subsequent study
they found that ‘‘promise-breakers,’’ pledgers who
did not in fact wait until marriage for sex, were less
likely than their peers to use contraception at first
intercourse and just as likely, over time, to contract
an STI (Bru
¨ckner & Bearman, 2005). Together, these
examinations of social networks mirrored a per-
spective of adolescent sexuality that is not merely
ADOLESCENT SEXUALITY 247
contaminated by peers but in process and consti-
tuted by interactions, which both help and hinder its
healthy development.
Hooking Up
Increasingly, people are wondering whether teens are
hooking up (i.e., having sex outside of relational con-
texts). This question holds an implicit acknowledge-
ment that there is a social contract about what is an
expected or appropriate context in which adolescents
might express sexuality: ‘‘monogamous-enough’’ re-
lationships. A new concern, especially for girls, is
expressing sexuality without a relational ‘‘net’’ (i.e.,
Shalit, 2007). Yet despite the public discourse sug-
gesting a widespread phenomenon among adoles-
cents, the small body of research on the topic
challenges this public impression and demonstrates
that the term ‘‘hooking up’’ as used by adolescents of
varying ages is itself a moving target.
Manning, Giordano, and Longmore (2006) found
that while half of sexually active teens had sexual
partners they were not dating, those having sex out-
side of relationships were partnering with friends or
‘‘exes.’’ One third of these hook ups were associated
with hopes or expectations that a relationship would
ultimately ensue. The authors concluded that rather
than painting sex outside relationships as bad or
negative, a more nuanced set of questions is required
about the function of ‘‘hooking up.’’ Kaestle and
Halpern (2005) compared sexual activity among
adolescents in romantic relationships with friends,
acquaintances, or strangers. Knowing a ‘‘hook up’’
partner as friend versus an acquaintance was protec-
tive against sexual intercourse for males and females;
for females, sexually active relationships with partners
they had not known romantically were less likely to
include discussions of STIs or contraception and less
likely to use consistent birth control, while prero-
mantic social ties did not play a statistically significant
role for outcomes with males (see also McCarthy &
Casey, 2008). Korobov (2006), in a study of nonrela-
tional male sexuality, found that it was a resource for
boys in constructing masculine identities.
Romantic Relationships and Sexuality
Before the last decade, adolescent romantic rela-
tionships were recognized only implicitly as sites for
risky or dangerous (heterosexual) behaviorFmostly
theorized as a predictor of negative sexual outcomes
(Nathanson, 1991). While research on adolescent
romantic relationships as a normative dimension of
adolescent development has emerged (e.g., Furman,
Brown, & Feiring, 1999), this field has only recently
addressed questions of sex and sexuality within the
contexts of adolescent romantic relationships (Bou-
chey & Furman, 2003; Collins et al., 2009; Florsheim,
2003). There were several investigations of romantic
relationships as a potentially positive, protective, and
expected feature of adolescent sexuality in the last
decade (Risman & Schwartz, 2002; Rostosky, Galliher,
Welsh, & Kawaguchi, 2000). For example, Welsh,
Haugen, Widman, Darling, and Grello (2005) fol-
lowed 21 male/female couples (14–21 years old) who
were dating for a minimum of 4 weeks. They found
that kissing and desiring a romantic partner corre-
lated positively to relationship satisfaction and com-
mitment, as well as variations in associations between
sexual intercourse and relationship qualities by age,
whereby being younger was negatively associated
with frequency of intercourse and relationship qual-
ity. Gender did not moderate the link between sexual
behavior and relationship quality.
One study addressed intimacy in adolescent ro-
mantic relationships and evaluated it as a possible
‘‘positive motivation’’ for sexual behavior. Ott, Mil-
stein, Ofner, and Halpern-Felsher (2006) evaluated
adolescents’ goals for intimacy, sexual pleasure, and
social status within a romantic relationship, as well as
their expectations that sex would lead to these goals.
Among ninth graders, they found that intimacy was
valued the most, then status, then pleasure. Girls
valued intimacy significantly more and pleasure sig-
nificantly less than boys, while those with more sex-
ual experience valued both intimacy and pleasure
more than those who were sexually inexperienced.
Sexually experienced girls (but not boys) valued so-
cial status less than those with no sexual experience.
Girls and sexually inexperienced adolescents had
lower expectations that sex would meet their goals
than did males and sexually experienced adolescents.
Media and Sexual Socialization
The media has long been a potent source of sexuality
information for young people and feared as a quasi- or
even replacement for parental influence. Before the last
decade, ‘‘media’’ had been operationalized primarily
as music and music videos, television, and movies. As
media formats changed over the last decade, newer
interactive forums available on the Internet, including
social networking sites and chat rooms, have been
studied (i.e., Wolak, Finkelhor, Mitchell, & Ybarra,
2008). The influence of violent imagery in a range of
media (movies, video games), and in the last decade
especially, media culture’s increasing sexualization of
248 TOLMAN AND McCLELLAND
young girls have been primary questions for adoles-
cent sexuality development.
Like all media impact research, studies evaluating
the effects of seeing sexual media are plagued by a
‘‘chicken or egg’’ challengeFare adolescents who
watch sexual media more ‘‘sexual’’ to begin with and
thus drawn to it, or are they curious or uninten-
tionally exposed and thus imposed upon by it
(Brown, 2002)? Consonant with the overall move in
developmental research to apprehend young people
not as ‘‘empty vessels’’ but as active, agentic con-
sumers and producers of culture, research on media
as sexual socializer expanded beyond studying iso-
lated effects in the last decade. For instance, Brown
(2002) developed the concept of the sexual media
diet as part of a media ‘‘identity toolkit’’ that ado-
lescents utilized to explore the self; she suggests that
media can serve as a kind of sexual ‘‘super peer.’’
The presence of parents is one of the few moderating
factors in associations between viewing sexual me-
dia and sexual attitudes and to some extent behavior;
however, as children become adolescents, they are
much less likely to consume media with their par-
ents (Schooler, Kim, & Sorsoli, 2006).
This decade witnessed an increasingly fine-
grained analysis of the roles of gender, race, and
class when assessing various media and sexual so-
cialization (Ward, 2003; Ward, Hansbrough, &
Walker, 2005). Researchers have found that media
which convey traditional gender roles are associated
with endorsement of more traditional perspectives
regarding male and female sexuality (Kim et al.,
2007; Rivadeneyra & Lebo, 2008; Ward et al., 2005).
The research has found associations between non-
behavioral negative sexual outcomes (endorsement
of coercion in heterosexual relationships, negative
attitudes about sex, and the potential for mutuality
in sexual relationships) and media images reflecting
scripts in traditional gendered relational practices.
With increasing availability of pornography on the
Internet, the question of whether porn inflates or
creates vulnerability to engaging in or experiencing
unwanted sex has been considered. In one study of
adolescents aged 14 – 19, ‘‘active’’ and ‘‘passive’’
sexual violence and unwanted sex and porn were
correlated with reading porn more strongly linked to
active sexual violence, while being a boy was found
to be protective against passive sexual violence, and
some effects of viewing porn on passive unwanted
sex were also found among girls (Bonino, Ciairano,
Rabaglietti, & Cattelino, 2006).
Media researchers in this last decade also exam-
ined how media can support young people’s sexu-
ality development (Bay-Cheng, 2001; Bay-Cheng,
et al., 2009; Ward & Friedman, 2006). Analyses of on-
line environments documented processes adoles-
cents use to search out peers, ask questions about
sexual topics, and construct sexual identities (Suzuki
& Calzo, 2004). For example, in their analysis of teen
chat rooms, Subrahmanyam, Greenfield, and Tynes
(2004) found that online spaces provided safer en-
vironments than the teenage participants found
elsewhere in their lives in which they learned to
exchange information with peers and to explore their
emerging sexuality.
THE NATIONAL LONGITUDINAL STUDY OF
ADOLESCENT HEALTH
One of the most important resources for research in
this area since 2000, the National Longitudinal Study
of Adolescent Health (Add Health) has provided un-
paralleled data on the lives of U.S. adolescents.
In addition, this study provides evidence of the
shift from an exclusive focus on sexual risk and an
emerging conception of sexuality development as
normative that we have been discussing. Funded by
NIH in 1994, Add Health (Harris, 2009) has been the
source of hundreds of studies on adolescent sexuality.
Because of its longitudinal and nationally representa-
tive design, it is the largest study of its kind. Currently
in its fourth wave of data collection, the study includes
a series of detailed questions concerning sexual be-
haviors and outcomes; thus, it offers the opportunity
to test models that have high explanatory power, even
for subsamples that are overlooked or hard to evaluate
in smaller studies. Here we consider the intersection of
Add Health and this emergent perspective on ado-
lescent sexuality development.
Primarily, the design of Add Health has made
possible more robust study of sexual risk (i.e., preg-
nancy and STD risk: Ryan, Franzetta, Manlove, &
Schelar, 2008; condom use: Santelli, Lindberg, Abma,
McNeely, & Resnick, 2000; and intimate partner
violence: Whitaker, Haileyesus, Swahn, & Saltzman,
2007). Yet some questions about sexuality that were
not solely grounded in a risk perspective have been
investigated, for example, the relationship between
love and sexual activities (Kaestle & Halpern, 2007).
Some researchers using Add Health data have been
able to demonstrate that associations between de-
mographic characteristics and negative sexual out-
comes are not uniformly causal and have identified,
instead, possible trajectories of adolescent sexuality
development. For example, Spriggs and Halpern
(2008) examined three waves of data from Add
Health, observing the relationship between age of
sexual debut and depression. While they found that
ADOLESCENT SEXUALITY 249
depressive symptoms were associated with earlier
sexual debut among female adolescents, this rela-
tionship did not hold for either males or for females
as the sample aged into emerging adulthood. Simi-
larly, McGee and Williams (2000) examined whether
low self-esteem predicted ‘‘health compromising’’
behaviors in a sample of 9 – 13-year-olds but found
no relationship between self-esteem and early sexual
activity.
In an extensive study using Add health data
(O’Sullivan, Cheng, Harris, & Brooks-Gunn, 2007),
researchers compared trajectories of social, romantic,
and sexual events within adolescent relationships
among White, Asian, Hispanic, and Black 12 – 21-
year-olds. They found that social and romantic
events were far more common than, and preceded,
sexual events; Asians and Hispanics provided lower
rates of sexual events compared with Whites and
Blacks. Santelli, Lowry, Brener, and Robin (2000) of-
fered an important new approach to the study of
these ‘‘key determinants’’ by demonstrating that
factors other than socioeconomic status and race/
ethnicity have more potent predictive power when
examined within the full spectrum of possible pre-
dictors using Add Health.
The ability as well as the interest on the part of
investigators to use the Add Health data to examine
sexual outcomes apart from risk-based assessments
has, unfortunately, been limited. Because of ideologi-
cal and political ‘‘squeamishness about . . . adolescent
romance and sexual behaviors’’ (Collins, 2003, p. 3),
there is a paucity of information in the Add Health
data set for posing research questions about norma-
tive adolescent sexuality framed to include potentially
positive processes rather than exclusively as averting
negative ones. Yet there has been a small body of re-
search examining sexuality development questions
and what researchers have referred to as ‘‘positive’’
sexual outcomes. In 2005, Dennison and Russell ar-
gued that the Add Health data can and should be
used to increase our understanding of positive sex-
ual[ity] development; that is, adolescent sexuality
must not only be framed in terms of risk and danger
but must include qualities of sexual well-being, in-
cluding entitlement to pleasure, efficacy in achieving
pleasure, and subjective experiences of enjoyment
(Diamond, 2006; Russell, 2005a, 2005b; Wight et al.,
2008). Kaestle and Halpern (2007), for example, ex-
amined the role of emotional commitment in the types
of sexual behaviors engaged in and found the degree
of love (e.g., ‘‘a lot’’) was associated with specific
sexual behaviors (e.g., increased rates of anal sex).
In sum, this large study of adolescents as they age
from the seventh grade into adulthood has produced
tremendous insight into the sexuality development
of young people, challenged long-held beliefs about
the negative consequences of sexual experience, en-
abled researchers to develop contextual models
which allow for greater understanding of how ado-
lescents are influenced by and influence one another,
and ultimately highlight the areas of knowledge that
deserve greater understanding, such as how young
people evaluate the quality of their sexual experi-
ences and how these appraisals and early experi-
ences influence adulthood sexual and romantic
relationships with partners.
CONCLUSION
For this review, we identified the emergence of
normative adolescent sexuality as a conceptual
framework in the empirical research on adolescence.
We characterized this development as the significant
departure and new direction of the last decade. We
predicated the focus of this review on the growing
articulation of the importance of understanding ad-
olescent sexuality not only in terms of sexual risks
and how to avert them but also of querying what
enables and challenges the expected development of
healthy sexuality in adulthood, previously posi-
tioned as ‘‘positive sexual development.’’ We have
suggested that the development of a normative
framework for addressing adolescent sexuality de-
velopment has produced research questions and
methods with an eye toward recognizing the role of
emergent sexuality as having potentially positive
consequences and ultimately to increasing support
for young people as they find their way as devel-
oping sexual beings. While research on youth has
continued to focus primarily on sexual behaviors,
even behavioral questions expand within a norma-
tive framing of sexuality and its development in
adolescence. This view joins an emerging discourse
of adult sexual health that incorporates aspects of
sexuality beyond reproductive health and sexual
function that continues to develop for adult men and
women, reflected in a plethora of questions about
sexuality beyond behavior and risk that are ex-
panding into the study of adolescents (see Diamond
& Savin-Williams, 2009).
We suggest pushing the calls for ‘‘positive’’ ado-
lescent sexuality one step further. Calls for consider-
ation of positive sexual development have constituted
a move away from the pervasive problematizing of
sexuality in terms of risk; however, this history has
yielded an implicit binary of sexual risk and sexual
possibility. While studies framing adolescent sexuality
as ‘‘positive’’ diligently note, but do not necessarily
250 TOLMAN AND McCLELLAND
investigate, the risks associated with adolescent sex-
uality, researchers continue to straddle this binary. We
suggest a more explicit integration of these two di-
mensions that incorporates both positive aspects and
risk management and how they develop in tandem or
dialectically at the individual, relational, and cultural
levels into the overarching concept of sexuality de-
velopment in adolescence. This ‘‘final’’ step will pro-
vide a more comprehensive framework from which
researchers can and should work without having to
navigate the either/or binary of risky and positive
outcomes. While we acknowledge the limits of
‘‘normative’’ due its potentially moralistic tones and
implications of nonnormative, we believe its associa-
tion with ‘‘expected’’Flinked with the increasing
acknowledgement of diversity in so many realms of
sexualityFsignals that part of adolescence is the very
broad task of navigating how to become a healthy
sexual adult.
We have fronted a relatively small body of the last
decade’s research on adolescent sexuality; it remains
the case that a great deal of research in this area is
organized around assumptions that adolescent sex-
ual risk should be the focus of inquiry and inter-
vention. Researchers are not immune to social,
funding, and professional pressures and are still of-
ten asked by peer reviewers (and even sometimes
required) to limit their research questions to those
involving sexual risk assessment (Collins, 2003;
Gardner & Wilcox, 1993). We are hopeful that iden-
tifying that there is a critical mass of research on
normative adolescent sexuality development will
encourage researchers to ask the questions that
emerge from this perspective. These might include
questions about the intersections between sexual
experience, the relational contexts in which those
occur, and the individual biopsychosocial charac-
teristics that make possible or challenge trajectories
toward healthy sexuality in adulthood; about what
boys’ experiences of sexuality and relationships are
across adolescence; about how the sexualization of
girls impacts adolescent sexuality development for
both girls and boys; about how diverse adolescents
balance positive possibilities and consequences with
management of various forms of risk; and, at the
cutting edge, about what newer notions about ado-
lescent sexuality such as ‘‘entitlement’’ and ‘‘agency’’
are required as social contexts change more rapidly
than ever before (Lamb, 2010).
We also argue that this integrative framework is
necessary as adolescent sexuality research continues
to influence public policy and public discourse, in
which managing risky sexuality has trumped the
basic human right to experience sexuality free from
harms. In order to create social change that enables
young people to develop into sexually healthy
adults, it is necessary for our research questions and
designs to incorporate the social contexts in which
sexuality develops and recognize those conditions
that enable sexuality as a positive dimension of our
humanity (Correa & Petchesky, 1994).
In 2006, Fine and McClelland elaborated a set of
enabling conditions for the development of adoles-
cent sexuality and introduced the term ‘‘thick desire’’
as a way to capture the political, social, and em-
bodied aspects of sexuality development. They ex-
plained, ‘‘[a] framework of thick desire locates sexual
well-being within structural contexts . . . in which
[young people] are able to imagine themselves as
sexual beings capable of pleasure and cautious about
danger’’ (McClelland & Fine, 2008a, p. 244). Thick-
ening the body of knowledge that provides the nu-
anced information about how sexuality develops in
adolescence will provide the fuel to expand public
discourse and public policies aimed at managing
adolescent sexuality development. It will be vital to
amplify a normative perspective to challenge the
sense of a dangerous ‘‘outside’’ world that has yiel-
ded, in young people’s lives and in research about
them, an increasing role of monitoring and surveil-
lance on the part of parents, schools, and public
policies. When theorizing and studying only danger
and sexual risk, researchers implicitly convey the
notion that no one is paying attention and that with
increased attention, young people would be safer
(and less sexual). Thus, the normative paradigm that
has taken root can provide not only important new
information but a new stance toward young people
in public discourse and policy making.
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