Question

Describe the changes in sexuality from puberty through late adulthood. Describe how a person's definition and experience of sexuality and intimacy often fluctuates throughout his or her lifespan. What are some of the influences as it relates to "changes in sexuality from puberty to late adulthood"?

Answer 1

Puberty(9-12 years of age) is the time when the body matures in terms of secondary sexual characteristics and the development of primary sexual organs. Girls begin to grow breasts and public hair by nine or 10 years. In Boys, puberty is marked by development of testicles between 10 and 11. It is during puberty that the youth become more self-conscious about their bodies at this age and often feel uncomfortable undressing in front of others, even a same-sex parent.

Duringpubert, their curiosity about sexual parts of their own bodies and the pleasure associated with the sexual parts increases. Masturbation increases during these years. Preadolescent boys and girls do not usually have much sexual experience, but they are inquisitive about sexual intercourse, petting, oral sex, and anal sex, homosexuality, rape and incest, and they want to know more about all these things. The idea of actually having sexual intercourse, however, is inexplorabel and often unpleasant to most puberscent boys and girls.

Same-gender sexual behavior is common at this age and Boys and girls tend to play with friends of the same gender and are likely to explore sexuality with them.

—Once the puberscent youth have reached puberty ( 13 -19 years ), they experience increased interest in romantic and sexual relationships and often pursue in building interpersonal relations with others that lead to genital sex behaviors. During adolescence, the individuals experience strong emotional attachments to romantic partners and often express their feelings within sexual relationships. Thus, unlike the prepubertal phase where individuals are in the process of discovering their sexuality and their difficulty or comfort with the devloped sexual parts, adolescence involves a conglomeration of emotional and physical changes where the individuals are more focused on exploring and developing a sexual identity for themselves by exploring sexual relationships with others. Overall, most adolescents explore relationships with one another, fall in and out of love, and participate in sexual intercourse before the age of 20.