Jessie Bernard Reader by Jessie Bernard Michael S. Kimmel Yasemin Besen

Author:Jessie Bernard, Michael S. Kimmel, Yasemin Besen [Jessie Bernard, Michael S. Kimmel, Yasemin Besen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Sociology, General
ISBN: 9781317257226
Google: 1iDvCgAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2015-11-17T05:04:41+00:00

Sexual initiation changes an adolescent’s relationship not only with herself and her peers, but also with her mother. The one and, in many cases, only ground for superior status or claim for authority of a mother vis-à-vis her daughter is sexual experience. She has been initiated; the daughter, according to the mores so far, has not. But sexual experience is a great equalizer. Once the daughter has been initiated, once she, too, shares the adult secret, a major support for the mother’s authority is gone. Even “sex education” short of actual experience may add a trump card to the daughter’s hand.

Sexual initiation changes the perception of self among teenagers. “They view their bodies differently. They react to their sexual partners, to their families, and to society in a different way because they perceive themselves differently” (Sorensen, 1973, p. 203).

In view of the significance of this turning point, it is of interest to learn that the age at which it occurs among young women as of 1971–72 is just over 20 years. Among the teenagers who have had intercourse, the modal age at first intercourse is 15, the median between 15 and 16.5

A comparison between girls 13 to 15 years of age and girls 16 to 19 years of age suggests that there may be a movement toward even earlier age at first intercourse since it was 16 among the older girls but only 15 among the younger ones (Sorensen, 1973, Table 405).

The crisis nature of pregnancy among teenagers, especially among unmarried young women, needs no elaboration for this audience. Inside or outside of marriage, early pregnancy—the earlier the first child is borne the larger the total number of babies borne will be—is not only “demographically disastrous,” but also almost determinative of a restricted life history for the mother thereafter. This fact is of interest to educators and social workers who try to head off the dysfunctional results of such early pregnancies, as well as to demographers and policy makers. The recommendations of the President’s Commission on Population Growth and the American Future (1972, p. 168) on the subject were that: “(1) States eliminate existing legal inhibitions and restrictions on access to contraceptive information, procedures, and supplies; and (2) States develop statutes affirming the desirability that all persons have ready and practicable access to contraceptive information, procedures, and supplies.” But, as we saw earlier, socialization of girls—let alone boys—for the use of such information, procedures, and supplies even when available is quite another matter; a matter that we are not now expert in dealing with. In Kantner and Zelnik’s sample (1973), among white young women, 10 percent of the sexually experienced had had a pregnancy, and among black young women, more than 40 percent had (p. 31). In the Sorensen sample, more than a fourth (28 percent) of the nonvirgin teenagers 16 to 19 years old had experienced a pregnancy (Sorensen, 1973, Table 479, p. 450).

The age at sexual initiation is related to the age at menarche, which has been declining for over a century and seems now to have leveled off at the age of 12.

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