Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. Correspondence: boislard-pepin. Youth sexuality has been primarily studied with a focus on its potential public health issues, such as sexually transmitted infections and unwanted pregnancies, and its comorbidity with other risky behaviors.
More recently, it has been studied as a normative step in romantic partnerships, either pre- or post-marital, as well as outside the context of romantic involvement. In this paper, we review the extensive literature on sexuality in adolescence and early adulthood both within and outside romantic relationships i. Furthermore, the recent recognition of youth sexuality as a developmental task has led to a renewed interest from scholars in youth who abstain from sexual encounters , whether deliberately or not.
A brief overview of the literature on cultural differences in sexuality, and sexual-minority youth sexual development is also provided. This paper concludes by suggesting future directions to bring the field of youth sexuality and romantic relationships forward. Keywords: adolescence, early adulthood, sexuality, sexual behavior, development, normative, sexual minorities, casual sexual relationships and experiences CSREs , literature review.
Research on the psychosexual development of adolescents is generally characterized by two main streams. First, adolescent or premarital sexual activity has been investigated as potentially risky and harmful, and examined from a public health perspective for a long time [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 ].
This traditional line of research is of critical importance, considering the high prevalence rates of sexually transmitted infections STIs and unwanted teenage pregnancies in countries such as Great Britain and the United States [ 5 , 6 , 7 ]. Youth risky sexual behaviors, commonly operationalized as precocious sexual onset i.
