ABSTRACT

Societal ambivalence about sexuality in general has made it more difficult to clarify issues of adolescent sexuality, and to address those issues effectively. In the past, adult decisions about sexual involvement were often expected to result from mature judgement and commitment to a relationship. Even then, however, discrepancies were sometimes evident between a person's verbal agreement with the norm and what he or she actually did. The "sexual revolution" may have added to such conflicts inadvertently by reframing sexual involvement as an expression of freedom and individuality (Hite, 1987). The AIDS crisis and extremely high venereal disease rates have made this point of view less tenable today, yet adult patterns of sexuality that developed since the revolution have not changed substantially (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1987).