This thesis is about influences on young people's sexual risk taking. It is situated within a complex context of young people's sustained structural/self-sexualisation, significant sexual activity, unwanted outcomes such as sexually transmitted infections (STIs), intended benefits such as pleasure, and recurrent interventionists' promotion of abstinence-until-marriage sexual norm to young people. The above conceptualization is tested with a mixed-methodology that recruited fifty-six students with a snowball sampling technique. McCracken's long-interview and Stones' empirical research brackets for structuration theory facilitated narrative data collection, which were subjected to structural-hermeneutic analysis. Respondents identified four broad influences on their dominantly heterosexual behaviour. They include external influences (mass media), internal influences (positive pre-dispositions to premarital sex), agency (purposeful sexual action), and (un)intended outcome (STI and pleasure). Respondents emphasize that influences are non-hierarchical, differentially combine, and are dependent on individuals, contexts and seasons. They also infer the Nigerian context concurrently constrain and enable their sexual conducts via three normative sexual behaviour options. These are (1) the dominant Nigerian culture promoted abstinence-until-marriage. (2) Modernity sanctioned safer-sex with contraceptives. (3) Collective/individuated preference for unprotected premarital sex, periodic abstinence and contraceptive use. Respondents admit they practise the latter, which is a hybridization of option (1) and (2) and is illustrative of the co-influence of structure and agency on action. The conclusion is drawn that sexual risk taking is influenced by young people's concurrent structural/self sexualisation and their pursuit of contextual, personal and collectively meaningfial goals. Consequently, dominant linear conceptualizations of sexual risk taking, e.g. problem behaviour, will continue to be limited in effectiveness because they neglect these complex, recursive and interrelated influences. Thus, pragmatic efforts to manage risk-prone sexualities must concurrently engage their complex structural and agential sources, governed by safer-sex promotion, a recognition of multiple influences and individuated/collective value that both society and young people attach to sex.

Background This report examined the association and relationship between Migration, Gender and STIs among young adults in Lesotho. To achieve this, the first objective was to understand the historical trans-boundary relationship between Lesotho and South Africa and how it contributed to STIs among young adults in Lesotho. The report then described the relationship between migration and having had any STIs among young adults in Lesotho. After multivariate analysis the association, between gender and having had any STIs among young adults in Lesotho was explored for understanding. Methodology For data analysis, secondary data from the 2009 Lesotho Demographic Health Survey (LDHS) were used. The LDHS is a cross-sectional study, designed to provide estimates of health and demographic indicators at the national level, for urban-rural areas and for each of the ten districts in Lesotho. The sample size used for this report was N=6,270. The statistical methods employed for data analysis were descriptive analysis, to establish the distribution of young adult migrant groups, according to STIs, demographic, socioeconomic and sexual practices. A Chi-square test was done to test for association. And a multivariate analysis was done using the forward selection process, to examine the relationships between STIs, migration, gender and significant variables. Results Migration status was found to have an insignificant (p=0.237) association with STIs. On the other hand, after considering migration status and gender at multivariate level, migration status, specifically urban-non migrants, were found to have a significant (p<0.05) relationship with having had any STIs. Gender was found to have an insignificant (p=0.587) association with having had any STIs and an insignificant (p=0.365) relationship with having had any STIs. However at multivariate level being female was found to be 16% protective against having had any STIs. Conclusion The report found that the relationships between migration status and having had any STIs were closely linked to factors related to gender and social and cultural norms pertaining to sexual behaviour. These influences were reflected in the literature and empirical evidence of this research report.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-01-13T13:27:30Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2015-08-28. Added 1 bitstream(s) on 2016-01-13T13:32:56Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 000856038.pdf: 1151605 bytes, checksum: a325817ec3b307e2d4973d0290a611d1 (MD5) / Na atualidade destaca-se o modo com que as pessoas vivenciam suas relações amorosas, entre elas o ficar, que é caracterizado pela curta duração de tempo, a falta de compromisso, e o envolvimento com vários parceiros. Nesse contexto, esta pesquisa teve por objetivo investigar o ficar por meio do habitus e da trajetória de vida dos jovens. A metodologia é qualitativa, cuja técnica principal de coleta de dados foi a entrevista semiestruturada; para tanto, foram entrevistados jovens entre 18 e 30 anos de idade, de ambos os gêneros, graduandos do curso de Pedagogia de uma Universidade Pública no interior do Estado de São Paulo. Ademais, o referencial teórico de Pierre Bourdieu deu luz à interpretação dos dados obtidos. Quanto aos resultados da pesquisa, esses revelam certa regularidade na trajetória dos jovens quando o assunto abordado é sexualidade e educação sexual, pois os mesmos admitiram receber instruções pontuais sobre esses assuntos nas agências de socialização: família e escola. No âmbito do ficar, os resultados mostram que para os jovens esta é uma relação de curto prazo, sem vínculos e compromisso, sendo representado desde o ato de beijar até um estado pré-namoro. Como conclusão, verifica-se que não faz parte do habitus da família e da escola discorrer sobre a sexualidade e a educação sexual, pois ainda é um processo difícil e custoso para os agentes envolvidos. Sobre o ficar, os jovens entrevistados descrevem que faz parte do seu habitus, a vivência dessa relação e a das pessoas que integram seu convívio social / Nowadays stands out the way in which people experience their love relationships, including the hook up, which has as main characteristics the short time, the lack of commitment, and the engagement with several partners. In this context, this research aimed to investigate the hook up, through the habitus and the trajectory of life of young people. The methodology is qualitative whose main technique for data collection was semi-structured interview. Therefore, young people were interviewed from 18 and 30 years old, both genders, graduate of the pedagogy course at a public university in the state of São Paulo. Furthermore, the theoretical reference of Pierre Bourdieu gave birth to interpretation of data obtained. About the results of the research, these reveal some regularity in the trajectory of young people when the subject is sexuality and sexual education, because young people admitted receiving specific instructions on these subjects in the socialization agents (family and school). In the framework hook up, the results show that for young people this is a short relationship, without ties and commitment, it has been represented since the act of kissing to a pre-dating status. In conclusion, it is found that it isn't part of the family and school habitus to discuss about sexuality and sexual education, because it is a difficult and costly process for those involved. About hook up, the young people interviewed describe that it is part of their habitus the experience of this relationship and the people in your social life

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships between religiosity, marital satisfaction, sexual behaviors, and sexual satisfaction of married persons who attended a church affiliated university. Data were collected from 56 married individuals who attended a conservative, church-affiliated university located in the south-central United States. The sample was mostly caucasian, heterosexual, upper-middle income, college educated, divided equally by gender, and ranged. in age from 27 to 83 (M=age 46). Participants had been married between 4 and 54 years (M=22 years), and most (90%) participants were in their first and only marriage. Religiosity was operationalized by Rohrbaugh and Jessor's (1975) religiosity scale. Marital satisfaction was operationalized using the Kansas Marital Satisfaction Scale (Hatch, James, & Schumm, 1986). Sexual satisfaction was operationalized from global sexual satisfaction questions (Darling & Davidson, 1987). / Ph. D.

The purpose of this study was to better understand sexual development during the transition to adulthood. Previous research was extended by testing models that examined direct effects of romantic attachment and social support on emerging adults’ sexual outcomes, as well as models that examined the mediating role of sexual motivations in those associations. Undergraduate students (n = 290, 66% female) completed questionnaires that assessed romantic attachment, social support, sexual motives, risky sexual behaviors, and health-promoting sexual beliefs. Results indicated romantic attachment strongly predicted sexual functioning, such that higher levels of attachment insecurity were associated with fewer health-promoting sexual beliefs and more risky sexual behaviors. Attachment anxiety was most closely associated with sexual outcomes for females, while attachment avoidance was a stronger predictor of sexual outcomes for males. Furthermore, coping but not intimacy motivations were found to partially mediate the link between attachment anxiety and health-promoting sexual beliefs for females. Although overall relationships between social support and sexual outcomes were not significant as hypothesized, links between specific support sources and sexual outcomes emerged during further analysis. Conclusions underscore the usefulness of attachment theory as a framework for understanding sexual behavior and provide further support for the importance of considering gender differences when examining the interplay between the attachment and sexual systems. Practical implications for sexual health prevention and intervention efforts are discussed.

What is missing from academia and society at large is a more holistic picture of youth sexting. Not adequately understanding youth sexting has stunted previous attempts to effectively educate young people on its potential consequences. As such, the social and legal consequences of sexting gone viral have negatively impacted countless individuals. This study offers a preliminary glimpse of the sexting phenomenon by highlighting the experiences of 20 young people. I explore emergent themes regarding the nature of youth sexting as well as the interrelations amongst privacy, relationships, and sexting. Two distinct forms of sexting emerged from participant narratives, opening the door for more open-minded discussions and social policies cognizant of both the positive and negative outcomes of electronic forms of sexual communication. In general, participant discourse on youth sexting demonstrates a need for more research on the topic as well as updated forms of sexting education in schools and amongst families.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Sexual behaviors in adolescence establish the initial resources an individual carries into sexual relationships in adulthood. Current definitions of sexual resilience in adolescence are defined from a negative, risk-based lens. Resilience theory, more generally defined, considers both internal and external factors that promote adaptation to challenging situations. A direct, capital-based approach to studying adolescent sexual resilience has not been found in the extant literature and I propose that a new, more inclusive definition of sexual resilience in adolescence will be more strongly correlated with sexual health in young adults than the risk-based definition. This study creates mutually exclusive risk-based and capital-based measures of adolescent sexual resilience and examines their associations with sexual health outcomes in young adulthood. The data did not produce significant findings, yet descriptive results provide direction for future research. Research in this area is of critical importance as adolescence and young adulthood are unique life stages that involve significant development in areas that influence health, both short and long term. This research, through a proper resilience lens, will better guide adolescent sexual education to develop internal resources as well as provide adequate external resources for adolescents that promote better sexual health and agency outcomes in adulthood.