ABSTRACT
The underlying social organization of adolescent sexuality remained recognizably the same as the one that existed in the 1950s. People have seen that twentieth century adolescents have typically struggled with the rapid changes coming into their physical and social lives after puberty. Even though having a boyfriend or girlfriend seemed like a heterosexual rite of passage, the arrangements on the individual level remained fluid and could seem ambiguous. Yet in the final decades of the twentieth century, gay and lesbian youth began to shape their own version of the new sexual orthodoxy, one in which their own desires and sexual pleasure became fundamental to their lives. Studies in the 1980s and 1990s showed gay youth at increased risk for homelessness, drug abuse, suicide, sexually transmitted infections (STIs), and even pregnancy. The final decades of the century seemed to provide opportunities for adolescent sexuality to be treated with honesty by adolescents as well as adults.
