Sexual esteem in emerging adulthood: Associations with sexual behavior, contraception use, and romantic relationships.
Open Access
- Author:
- Maas, Megan Keely
- Graduate Program:
- Human Development and Family Studies
- Degree:
- Master of Science
- Document Type:
- Master Thesis
- Date of Defense:
- November 22, 2013
- Committee Members:
- Eva Sharon Lefkowitz, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor
Edward A Smith, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor
Steven Howard Zarit, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor - Keywords:
- sexual esteem
contraception use
oral sex
penetrative sex
kissing
romantic relationships
emerging adulthood - Abstract:
- The current analysis adds to the body of research that uses a normative framework for sexual development (Lefkowitz & Gillen, 2006; Tolman & McClelland, 2011) by examining the association of sexual esteem with sexual behavior, contraception use, and romantic relationship characteristics. Participants (N = 518, 56.0% female, with a mean age of 18.43 years, 26.8% identified as Hispanic/Latino [HL], 27.2% non-HL European American, 22.4% non-HL Asian American, 14.9% non-HL African American, and 8.7% non-HL multiracial) were from a larger longitudinal study at a large northeastern university. We used three regression analyses to test associations with sexual esteem in emerging adults, sexually active emerging adults and emerging adults in a romantic relationship. Having more frequent oral sex and recently having more oral and penetrative sex partners (particularly for male participants) as well as spending more college semesters in romantic relationships were associated with higher sexual esteem. Gender moderated the association between contraception use and sexual esteem. Sexually active male emerging adults who never used contraception during recent penetrative sex tended to have higher sexual esteem than those who used it, whereas female emerging adults who never used contraception tended to have lower sexual esteem than those who used it. Implications of these results for the development of a healthy sexual self-concept in emerging adulthood are discussed.