There is no clear line between adolescence and adulthood. Almost all cultures allow marriage and other adult privileges in late adolescence, though there still may be certain restrictions (such as needing parental permission to marry). Late adolescence was, until recently, the stage during which people in Western cultures were expected to begin their search for […]

who are in school together, or they may be preoccupied with concerns related to sur­vival, something from which most adolescents are shielded. The pattern for young adolescents who have identified their homosexual feelings may be quite different from that of their heterosexual counterparts. Often, gay and lesbian adolescents feel that they don’t really fit into […]

In early adolescence, preteens begin to shift their role from child to adolescent, trying to forge an identity separate from their family by establishing stronger relationships with peers. Perhaps you remember developing a close friendship at this age—another adoles­cent with whom you became extremely close (and from whom you may have moved apart later on). […]

Puberty is, by far, the most psychologically and socially difficult of the life cycle changes. There are a number of tasks that adolescents struggle with: achieving comfort with their bodies, developing an identity separate from their parents’, trying to prove their capac­ity to establish meaningful intimate and sexual relationships, beginning to think ab­stractly and futuristically, […]

Male puberty is different from female puberty in many ways. Unlike ovulation, which occurs late in female puberty, spermatogenesis and ejaculation occur early in male pu­berty; ejaculation may even precede secondary sexual characteristics such as body hair and voice changes. Some boys become capable of impregnating a female even while ap­pearing sexually immature (Lancaster, 1986). […]

As we discussed earlier, for most girls, the first signs of puberty are the beginnings of breast buds, the appearance of pubic hair, the widening of the hips, and the general rounding of the physique. Increased estrogen levels stimulate the growth of the breasts, labia, and clitoris; the enlargement of the uterus; widening of the […]

Puberty is one of the three major stages of physiological sexual development, along with prenatal sexual differentiation and menopause. Puberty marks the transition from sexual immaturity to maturity and the start of reproductive ability. In Chapters 4 and 5, we discussed the physiological and hormonal changes that accompany puberty, so here we will review only […]

Adolescence begins after the onset of puberty and is, in part, our emotional and cog­nitive reactions to puberty. Adolescence ends when the person achieves “adulthood,” signified by a sense of individual identity and an ability to cope independently with internal and external problems (Lovejoy & Estridge, 1987). People reach adulthood at different times; adolescence can […]

As children age and try to determine how they will fare in the world outside the fam­ily, their peer groups increase in importance. Learning acceptable peer-group sexual standards (acceptable attitudes and moral values) is as important as learning all the other attitudes and behaviors. Children learn acceptable attitudes and behaviors for common games, sports, and […]

Parents and children often have very different views about how open the parents are to discussions of sexuality and how often the topic is discussed (Jaccard et al., 1998; King & Lorusso, 1997). Parents also have conflicting ideas about sexuality in their children. In a study of parental attitudes toward masturbation, for example, Gagnon (1985) […]