17.2 Sexual Activity

As already mentioned, the sexual-reproductive system is at its most efficient during emerging adulthood. Conception is quicker; miscarriage is less common; serious birth complications are unusual; orgasms are more frequent; and testosterone (the hormone associated with sexual desire) is higher for both sexes at age 20 than at age 40. Whether this is a blessing or a curse depends on context.

Then and Now

Historically, most babies were born to women under 25 years old, and peak newborn survival occurred when mothers were aged 18 to 25. Women married in late adolescence, partly so that couples could proudly bear many children.

Not Married But… Postponing parenthood does not mean postponing contact, although each culture does it differently. Amanda Hawn and Nate Larsen (left) have just moved in to their California apartment, and two emerging adults in Beijing (right) keep their balloon from falling during “Singles Day,” a new Chinese custom celebrated on November 11^th.

PETER DASILVA/THE NEW YORK TIMES/REDUX
LI MUYI/CHINAFOTOPRESS/GETTY IMAGES

However, these physiological assets are liabilities for today’s emerging adults because their hormones want sex but their minds know they are not ready for parenthood. For many, the solution is reliable birth control.

Because of improvements in the past twenty years, long-acting contraception (implant, IUD, Depo-Provera) almost never fails (about 1 failure in 400 women per year), whereas shorter-acting measures (pill, patch, or ring) fail for 1 in 20 (Winner et al., 2012). Condoms, correctly used, are good—a failure rate of 1 in 50—but they often are used incorrectly and that results in a higher failure rate.

Compare these to rates for emerging adults with unprotected intercourse: For them, pregnancy occurs within three months, on average. That would mean 4 pregnancies per women per year—but obviously, once a woman is pregnant, she does not ovulate until after the birth. In former centuries, some couples were happy to have a baby every year or two. No longer.

Now early motherhood and large families are considered burdens more than blessings, which has dramatically reduced family size. Between 1960 and 2010 the birth rate fell from 4.9 to 2.45 worldwide (United Nations, 2011). In the United States, the 2010 birth rate for every major ethnic group was only half that in the 1960s. Emerging adults are the reason for this shift. In the United States as well as worldwide, women over age 30 are having more children than they did 20 years earlier, while emerging adults are having far fewer (United Nations, 2012).

Most nations do not keep accurate records on abortions, but in the United States women aged 20 to 24 have the highest rate of abortions of any age group. Worldwide, fewer babies are born to teenagers and more to women in their late 20s and older than was the case even a decade ago, including in the two most populous nations, China and India.

Another set of statistics again shows that emerging adults are postponing the traditional sequence of marriage and then parenthood. Most new mothers younger than age 30 in the United States are not married (National Center for Health Statistics, 2013).

Opinions and Problems

Attitudes toward premarital sex and single motherhood are changing, with most adults over age 65 believing that premarital sex and extramarital childbirth are wrong (in 2007 their disapproval rates were 60 percent and 75 percent, respectively). Only about one-fourth of emerging adults disapproved of premarital sex (Pew Research Center, 2007).

There is no controversy, however, about another consequence of sexual freedom: the rise of sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Half of all new cases worldwide occur in people younger than 26 (Gewirtzman et al., 2011).

The single best way to prevent STIs is lifelong monogamy, because most STIs, including HIV/AIDS, are transmitted primarily via sex with more than one partner. STIs would also be limited if sexually active people, after the end of a monogamous relationship, were celibate for six months and then tested, treated, and cured for any STI before having a new partner (Mah & Halperin, 2010). However, current practice is far from that ideal. Most emerging adults practice serial monogamy, beginning a new relationship soon after one ends. At times a new sexual liaison overlaps an existing one, and sometimes a steady relationship is interspersed with a fling with someone else. Rapid transmission of STIs occurs.

In addition, globalization fuels the spread of every contagious disease (Herring & Swedlund, 2010). With international travel, an STI caught from an infected sex worker in one place quickly arrives in another nation. HIV, for instance, has several variants, each of which is prevalent in a specific part of the world—but all variants are found in every nation. Primarily because of the sexual activities of young adults, AIDS has become a worldwide epidemic, with more heterosexual females than gay males testing positive for HIV (Davis & Squire, 2010). Emerging adults are prime STI vectors (those who spread disease) as well as the most common victims.

Another possible problem caused by the sexual patterns among emerging adults is increased anxiety and depression. New relationships tend to make people happy, but breakups are depressing.

Remember that contemporary emerging adults have more sexual partners than do somewhat older adults. Human physiological responses affect neurological patterns as well as vice versa, which means that sexual relationships trigger the brain system for attachment (as well as for romantic love), leading to “complex, unanticipated emotional entanglement” (H. E. Fisher, 2006, p. 12).

“Unanticipated emotional entanglement” produces unanticipated stress because people disagree about sex and reproduction. Generally speaking, attitudes about the purpose of sex fall into one of three categories (Laumann & Michael, 2001):

1. Reproduction. About one-fourth of all people in the United States (more women than men; more older adults than younger ones) believe that the primary purpose of sex is reproduction. Emerging adults with this perspective are likely to marry young, pressured not only by their parents but also by their values and sexual desires.
2. Relationship. Half of the people in the United States (more women than men) believe that the main purpose of sex is to strengthen pair bonding. This is the dominant belief among emerging adults. Their preferred sequence is dating, falling in love, deciding to be faithful, having sex, perhaps living together, and finally (if both are “ready”), marriage and parenthood.
3. Recreation. About one-fourth of all adults (more men than women, especially young men) believe that sex is “a fundamental human drive and a highly pleasurable physical and mental experience” (Cockerham, 2006, p. 25), sought primarily for enjoyment. Ideally, both partners achieve orgasm, without commitment. As already explained, this attitude is difficult to sustain because sex usually leads to attachment.

Assumptions about the purpose of sex are most often mutual when partners share a religion and culture. In that case, both partners share attitudes about fidelity, pregnancy, love, and abortion, and no debate is necessary. Currently, however, many emerging adults leave their childhood community and “have a number of love partners in their late teens and early twenties before settling on someone to marry” (Arnett, 2004, p. 73). Each partner may hold a worldview that the other does not understand.

Partners may feel misused and misled because “choices about sex are not the disassociated, disembodied, hedonistic and sensuous affairs of the fantasy world; they are linked, and rather tightly linked by their social embeddedness, to other domains of our lives” (Laumann & Michael, 2001, p. 22). An unplanned pregnancy may make one partner assume that marriage is the solution and the other partner expect an abortion. Each might be shocked at their lover’s reaction. Further, whenever a close relationship dissolves, at least one of the partners feels rejected.

An added complication is gender identity (discussed in Chapter 16). Whereas former generations identified as either male or female, either heterosexual or homosexual, some emerging adults refuse to categorize themselves, saying they fall under all, or none, of these categories (Savin-Williams, 2005). Obviously, this complicates bonding.

If partners hold differing assumptions about the purpose of sex or the nature of gender, emotional pain and frustration are likely to follow. One might accuse the other of betrayal, an accusation the other considers patently unfair. Romantic breakups often result from such disagreements and may lead to depression, especially among adolescents and emerging adults (Davila, 2008). The more partners a person has from ages 18 to 25, the more breakups occur—each stressful. This may contribute to the rise of psychopathology in emerging adulthood, our next topic.