The Dynamics of Eros: Teenagers and Socialization to Sexuality in Italian Atypical Families

Abstract

This paper aims at analysing the ways in which parents / adults and natural and adopted children, within nuclear and atypical families communicate and operate modes, dynamics, and experiences related to teenagers' intimate sphere. To this aim, our analysis identifies the different variables at play and their interrelation in defining the various modalities employed in different family types. The transition from the patriarchal to the “emotional” family has caused important changes related not only to the family's internal dynamics, but also to the autonomy of its individual members, particularly with regard to the sexual sphere. The starting point is a specific reflection on the sexuality of adolescents who, as we try to prove through the literature review, in this era is open to new forms of empowerment and emancipation that cause parents'/adults' educational strategies and models to be rethought. We pay particular attention to the rules by which the children's sexuality is managed in atypical families – particularly disrupted and / or recombined ones – in which it is possible to observe, as shown by in-depth interviews to parents, specific mode that escape any efforts of categorisation and cast new light on the dynamics underlying the socialisation of gender and sexuality in contemporary families.