Gender differences in adolescents' sexual behaviour

Abstract

Adolescence is a time of discovery and awakening, a time when intellectual and emotional maturation combine with physical development to create increasing freedom and excitement. Sexuality is a crucial part of the development process of adolescence because it involves development of young people's sexual attitudes and behaviour. This study looked into the sexual attitudes and behaviours of adolescents and to compare gender differences. It was hypothesized that the sexual attitudes of adolescent males might differ from those of adolescent females. Selected data was derived from a national survey on sexual health behaviour among school-age children conducted in 2000 by the Health Promotion Department (Bugeja, 2002). It was interesting to find out that there is a great similarity in the responses of adolescent males and females. This supports arguments questioning whether social stereotyping is, to some effect, the responsible factor in depicting gender differences to be larger than they are in actual fact.