Putting a big thing into a little hole: Teenage girls’ accounts of sexual initiation
The Journal of Sex ResearchPublished 1 August 1990
Sharon Thompson
Citations177
SJR quartileQ1
SJR score1.07
SNIP1.57
Generate an AI Snapshot to get a quick, structured summary of this paper.
Study Snapshot
ObjectiveStudy objective
MethodsResearch methodology
PopulationPopulation studied
Sample sizeSample sizes
OutcomesStudy outcomes here
ResultsStudy results comes here
LimitationsResearch study limitations comes here
A concise AI-generated summary of the paper will appear here once you click Generate AI Snapshot.
Abstract
The rise in adolescent coitus in the late 1970s and early 1980s provoked many studies of teenage contraceptive practice. Drawing on 400 in‐depth interviews with teenage girls, this article considers the quality of teenage girls' sexual initiations, comparing the family and sexual histories of girls who describe sexual initiation as painful, boring, or disappointing with those of girls who emphasize sexual curiosity, desire, and pleasure. In conclusion, the article draws several recommendations for sexual education.
Keywords
Social SciencesHealth Professions
Human Sexual Response
2,755 Citations1966William H. Masters, Virginia E. Johnson
The Bonds of Love: Psychoanalysis, Feminism, and the Problem of Domination
1,663 Citations1988Jessica Benjamin
Contemporary Sociology A Journal of ReviewsSexual Conduct: The Social Sources of Human Sexuality.
1,570 Citations1975Judith Long Laws, John H. Gagnon +1 more
Harvard Educational ReviewSexuality, Schooling, and Adolescent Females: The Missing Discourse of Desire
1,241 Citations1988Michelle Fine
Family Planning PerspectivesSexual Activity, Contraceptive Use and Pregnancy Among Metropolitan-Area Teenagers: 1971-1979
611 Citations1980Melvin Zelnik, John F. Kantner
Results of a 1979 national survey concerning attitudes and practices of 15-19 year old women living in metropolitan areas are presented and compared with survey findings for 1971 and 1976.
Family Planning PerspectivesFirst Intercourse Among Young Americans
239 Citations1983Melvin Zelnik, Farida Shah
In 1979, 50 percent of women aged 15-19 and 70 percent of men aged 17-21 living in metropolitan areas of the United States reported that they had ever had sexual intercourse, and young men were more than twice as likely as young women to have had first intercourse with someone they had only recently met.
PopuliFamily planning perspectives.
233 Citations1982Sikes Oj
The ideas presented here are not necessarily new but neither are they sufficiently widespread in family planning circles to have had much impact in overcoming the problems of administration.
Journal of Social IssuesPatterns and Outcomes of Mother‐Daughter Communication About Sexuality
183 Citations1980Greer Litton Fox, Judith K. Inazu
American Sociological ReviewThe Sexual Behaviour of Young People.
179 Citations1966Ira L. Reiss, Michael Schofield
The UNDP/UNFPA/WHO/World Bank Special Program of Research, Development, and Research Training in Human Reproduction (HRP) completed 9 studies in 1996 on adolescent reproductive health, and 18 are still underway.
Family Planning PerspectivesNonvoluntary Sexual Activity Among Adolescents
160 Citations1989Kristin Anderson Moore, Christine Winquist Nord +1 more
Data from the 1987 round of the National Survey of Children indicate that seven percent of Americans aged 18-22 have experienced at least one episode of nonvoluntary sexual intercourse, and women were more likely than men to report having had such an experience.
Family Planning PerspectivesWhy They Delay: A Study of Teenage Family Planning Clinic Patients
134 Citations1981Laurie Schwab Zabin, S.D. Clark
Shorter delays found among users of nonmedical methods suggest that initiative to expand and improve such usage may help teenagers prevent pregnancies during the early part of their sexual careers and also accelerate their adoption of more effective methods.
Family Planning PerspectivesTeenage Pregnancy in the United States
129 Citations1988James Trussell
There is a political impasse that guarantees a continuing large number of adolescent pregnancies and high demand for pregnancy prevention among young women and men in this hard-core, high-risk group will be extremely hard to achieve without a fundamental restructuring of society.
Family Planning PerspectivesFamily Communication and Teenagers' Contraceptive Use
98 Citations1984Frank F. Furstenberg, Roberta Herceg-Baron +2 more
Interviewing 290 adolescents at family planning clinics in southeastern Pennsylvania about their communication with their families and their use of contraceptives found that the mothers thought that they were much more communicative about sex and birth control than their daughters perceived them to be.
Family RelationsMother-Daughter Communication about Sex
93 Citations1980Greer Litton Fox, Judith K. Inazu
Family Planning PerspectivesAdolescent Sexual Attitudes and Behavior: Are They Consistent?
88 Citations1984Laurie Schwab Zabin, Marilyn B. Hirsch +2 more
Relationships between sexual attitudes and behavior among adolescents were studied in data collected by self-administered questionnaires from approximately 3,500 junior and senior high school students attending four inner-city schools during 1981-1982.
Family Planning PerspectivesThe Role of Sexual Self-Concept in the Use of Contraceptives
70 Citations1988Laraine Winter
It is suggested that younger teenagers may be poorer users of contraceptives because of a lower sexual self-concept, and counselling and sex education that address social and psychological issues may help improve adolescent contraceptive practice by addressing teenagers' views of their own sexuality.
The Journal of Sex ResearchMasturbation practices of males and females
65 Citations1974Ibtihaj Arafat, Wayne L. Cotton
The findings indicate that while there are differences in many of the variables examined, there are others which show striking similarities which open to question a number of assumptions held regarding differences in sexual needs and responses of males and females.
Journal of Marriage and the FamilyTalking about Sex: Notes on First Coitus and the Double Sexual Standard
59 Citations1973Donald E. Carns
Journal of Youth and AdolescenceContraceptive behavior in adolescence: A decision-making perspective
39 Citations1980Mary J. Rogel, Martha E. Zuehlke +3 more
A peer-led intervention program is developing based on the survey findings that will focus on the teenagers' lack of accurate and complete knowledge about birth control and conception, their limited sense of options concerningBirth control and pregnancy outcomes, and their poor understanding of and lack of insight into what motivates their behavior.
The Journal of Sex ResearchThe relationship of the frequency of masturbation to several aspects of personality and behavior∗
33 Citations1973Paul R. Abramson
The need for a psychological approach to masturbation is inherent throughout the literature and it is concluded that masturbation is, to a degree, an escape from reality, and that its effect upon the ultimate personality of the individual is something that needs consideration.
Journal of Youth and AdolescenceTalking about sex revisited
16 Citations1982David J. Kallen, Judith J. Stephenson
Analyzing the reporting of first intercourse by a group of college students studied in 1976 with that for a group studied in 1967 suggests that males and females now share a single script and a single standard of behavior for first intercourse.
Archives of Sexual BehaviorThe experience of pain during women's first sexual intercourse: Cultural mythology about female sexual initiation
15 Citations1985David L. Weis
Masturbation in Women
4 Citations1980Virginia L. Clower
This paper attempts to delineate the role of masturbation in female sexual development and function, which has been obscure and myth-ridden.