Sexual Cultures and the Construction of Adolescent Identities

Overview

"Will we engage with adolescents in frank discussion about sexual options and ethics or will we enforce a moralistic silence that resonates with fear and shame? Can we talk with teenagers about what they want to know, or can we only tell them what we want them to know?"
--From the Editor's Introduction

This rich collection of essays presents a new vision of adolescent sexuality shaped by a variety of social factors: race and ethnicity, gender, sexual identity, physical ability, and cultural messages propagated in films, books, and within families. The contributors consider the full range of cultural influences that form a teenager's sexual identity and argue that education must include more than its current overriding message of denial hinged on warnings of HIV and AIDS infection and teenage pregnancy. Examining the sexual experiences, feelings, and development of Asians, Latinos, African Americans, gay man and lesbians, and disabled women, this book provides a new understanding of adolescent sexuality that goes beyond the biological approach all too often simplified as "surging hormones."

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Author Information

Bio of Janice M. Irvine

Janice M. Irvine is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Massachusetts and author of Disorders of Desire: Sex and Gender in Modern American Sexology (Temple).

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Additional Info

Imprint

Temple University Press

Filesize

1.84 MB

Number of Pages

336

eBook ISBN

9781439901625