SEX & SEXUALITY

Sexuality also is a strong component of psychosocial development during adolescence. It involves a person's sense of self as a man or woman, the ability to enter into and maintain an intimate relationship with a significant other, and the ability to relate to other people in general.

Sexuality is a complex concept that is composed of several factors:

• Biological: one's genetic make-up and how it is physically expressed (one's appearance)

• Familial: the role modeling provided by and the behaviors demonstrated by the closest adults to the adolescent, usually the parents

• Cultural: the roles assigned to men and women by the adolescent's culture and the ways in which men and women are supposed to interact

• Societal: the mix of cultural norms that make up a society. Each group's norms are modified when they encounter the norms of other groups
  
  Sexually transmitted diseases, such as Chlamydia, HIV infection, herpes, syphilis, gonorrhea, and hepatitis B, are passed easily from one person to another during sex.
  
  Sexually transmitted diseases may cause serious health problems. For example, HIV causes AIDS. Hepatitis B can cause liver damage, including liver cancer. Many STDs can harm a pregnancy and the health of the baby. Some, such as Chlamydia, can lead to infertility.

Statistics

• The United States has the highest rates of teen pregnancy and births in the western industrialized world. Teen pregnancy costs the United States at least $7 billion annually.
   

• Thirty-four percent of young women become pregnant at least once before they reach the age of 20 -- about 820,000 a year. Eight in ten of these pregnancies are unintended4 and 79 percent are to unmarried teens.
   

• The teen birth rate has declined slowly but steadily from 1991 to 2002 with an overall decline of 30 percent for those aged 15 to 19. These recent declines reverse the 23-percent rise in the teenage birth rate from 1986 to 1991. The largest decline since 1991 by race was for black women. The birth rate for black teens aged 15 to 19 fell 42 percent between 1991 to 2002. Hispanic teen birth rates declined 20 percent between 1991 and 2002. The rates of both Hispanics and blacks, however, remain higher than for other groups. Hispanic teens now have the highest teenage birth rates. Most teenagers giving birth before 1980 were married whereas most teens giving birth today are unmarried.
   

• The younger a teenaged girl is when she has sex for the first time, the more likely she is to have had unwanted or non-voluntary sex. Close to four in ten girls who had first intercourse at 13 or 14 report it was either non-voluntary or unwanted.