Sex and Sexuality: What do elementary school teenagers have to say?

Abstract

Adolescent sexuality was addressed for a long time only from a biological and reproductive aspect. Currently, however, we cannot ignore the expression of different genders in the formation of identity and in individual behavior. The aim of this study is to identify ideas and values, explicit and implicit, of teenage students about identity and sexual initiation from the use of binary gender as an analytical category. Data were obtained from a semi-structured questionnaire applied to 110 elementary school students from public schools in the city of Itabaiana, SE. The questionnaire contains topics related to sociodemography and uses the technique of free word association. The social representations of the participants emphasized a different profile between boys and girls, with sex, virginity, masturbation and pregnancy being the themes that present a significant difference between genders (p <0.01). Correspondence analysis revealed different patterns of association on themes related to sexuality and corroborates the idea that discrepancies between genders are due to distinct sexual identity and behavior, imposed by culture. Our data also provide relevant information on sexuality and gender in school spaces and contribute as a baseline for understanding the social representations of sexuality among adolescents in Northeast Brazil.