Girls who experience menarche earlier than their peers have been found to engage in sexual intercourse sooner than their on-time and late maturing peers (Morris, Mallin, & Udry, 1982; Zabin, Smith, Hirsch, &
Hardy, 1986). However, the impact of sex hormones on the sexual behavior of girls seems to depend on their social context. Specifically, although in creased androgens are associated with increased interest in sex in adoles cent girls, they are only associated with greater degrees of sexual behavior in girls with permissive attitudes and more sexually active friends (Udry & Billy, 1987). In addition, a variety of social factors are known to influence girls’ pubertal development and, thus, hormone levels. For example, girls who are emotionally closer to their parents prior to puberty experience menarche later than those who do not have as close an emotional bond with their parents (Steinberg, 1988). Girls in father-absent homes also tend to physically mature earlier than girls in two-parent families (Surbey, 1990). Thus, the complex and recursive interaction between biology and environ ment clearly plays a role in understanding girls’ sexuality and merits further study. From a normative perspective, physical maturation should be more broadly conceptualized than menarche, or hormone levels. The way that girls understand the changes in their bodies, what feelings they have re garding these changes, and the meanings that they attribute to these changes are all important aspects of puberty that merit further study. Evi dence from existing research suggests that an adolescent girl experiences puberty in a context of family and peer relationships. These relationships influence the meaning of puberty to the individual adolescent girl. The processes by which this influence occurs are still largely unknown.