Does Adolescents’ Sexual Behaviour Affect their Sexual Attitudes?

Abstract

The longitudinal study reported here examines the relationship between adolescents’ sexual experience and their orientations towards sexual issues (e.g., attitudes towards sexual permissiveness, their preferred courtship styles, inter alia). The hypothesis under examination was whether sexual experience influences orientations towards sexual issues. To this end we utilised a random sample of 244 adolescents stratified by area and interviewed twice within an interval of one year. This sample was divided into three naturally occurring groups of adolescents which were: (a) sexually experienced at both interview times; (b) sexually inexperienced adolescents at both interview times, and (c) adolescents who were sexually inexperienced at the first interview but had sexual experience before the second interview. Contrary to suggestions in the literature, the results do not support the hypothesis that the transition to a sexually experienced state influences sexual orientations. Rather, the results suggest that the transition to first intercourse is more likely to be due to changes in sexual orientations preceding sexual intercourse. © 1995, Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. All rights reserved.