Attitude of People in Their Emerging Adulthood Towards Selected Moral Norms Related to Sexual Activity

Abstract

Nowadays, we witness a principal change in the normative order referring to human sexuality, and a change of the role of individual factors of sexual socialisation. This paper presents selected findings of the research on sexual morals of people at their emerging adulthood, aged 18-25, carried out in Poland on a representative sample in 2017. The research focused on the respondents' attitude to the social norms related to sexual activity. Two thirds of the respondents had established sexual relations. There is a clear trend among women to stabilise the intimate relations, and the respondents tend to postpone their matrimonial and procreative plans. The respondents support the norms which may be defined as components of the "golden mean" sexual ethics. Greater liberalism of young men shows in their attitude to the norms related with risky sexual behaviour, widening the repertoire of the forms of sexual intercourse, and sexual activity on the internet. Women significantly more often support the norms which refer to functioning in a relationship. The views of the people who had their sexual initiation are the expression of support for permissive ethics. Religious people and those who regularly practice religion more often present views characteristic of restrictive ethics. It was not proved that the respondents who had attended school family planning

Exploration of Emerging Adult Virgins’ Difficulties

“…Thus, “the old rule about remaining a virgin until marriage is passé, but it is unclear exactly what the new rules are” ( Arnett, 2014 , p. 94). According to Izdebski and Wąż (2020) , premarital sex, masturbation, oral sex, use of sex toys, discussing sex with people you meet on the internet and use of contraception during emerging adulthood are the “new rules.” Emerging adults usually expect to have several romantic partners during their late teens and early twenties before settling down with one person for marriage in order to explore their options, falling in and out of love with different people, and gaining sexual experience ( Arnett, 2014 ). Those who do not comply with these norms may experience stigma ( Fleming & Davis, 2018 ; Fuller et al, 2019 ; Gesselman et al, 2016 ).…”