Sexual development from theoretical perspectives
According to Delamater and Friedrich (2008), human beings are sexual entities throughout their lives. In certain moments of life sexuality manifests itself in different forms. Each stage of life brings with it pressures by key points in changes and sexual development, which must be achieved if you seek to achieve or maintain sexual health. The stages of sexual development are a process of human development that involve biological and behavioral components (psychological, social), economic, political, cultural, ethical, legal, historical, religious, spiritual. It includes: sex, sexuality, sexual identities, gender roles, sexual orientation, the establishment of relationships (whether stable or unstable), love, commitment, passion, eroticism, pleasure,intimacy, reproduction, as well as problems, conflicts, dysfunctions and sexually transmitted infections.
Sexual development from theoretical perspectives:
Freud’s psychosexual theory:
The central approach is that the characteristics of adult behavior depend on the anxiety experienced by the child.
During the process of pursuing and satisfying his libido (sexual impulse), the child could experience failure (parental disapproval or society) and then he could associate this anxiety with an erogenous area given. To avoid anxiety, the child is fixed, concerned with the psychological themes related to the erogenous zone in question, which persists in adulthood and delineates the personality and psychopathology of man or woman.
Erikson’s psychosocial development theory:
For Erikson (1975), the young adult emerges from the search and insistence on identity, is vehement and wishes to merge their identity with that of others. Young adults are ready for intimacy, that is, for the ability to carry out, concretize, affiliations and partnership relationships. Doing this means having the ability to "face the fear of losing the ego in situations that demand self-based: in the solidarity of nearby affiliations, in sexual orgasms and unions, in nearby friendships and in physical combat".
Wilder Life Model:
Wilder (2003), in an approach supported by Christian Scriptures, makes a comparison between psychosocial development and brain development. In this comparison, it combines two stages of Erikson’s theory in one, joining Erikson’s teenager and Erikson’s young adult in an adult stage, which highlights that the resolution of the identity conflict vs. diffusion, is associated with theDevelopment of the right cerebral hemisphere, while the resolution of the intimacy conflict vs insulation is associated with the development of the left cerebral hemisphere.
Sexual development during early adulthood
The sexual development of the early adult is oriented to define their sexual lifestyle, under some of the following criteria:
- Type of sexual relationship
- Form of expression of your sexuality
- Choice of singleness, marriage or cohabitation
- Have children
- Maintain or not extramarital relationships
So in the sexual aspect, early adults have the following characteristics:
- Exists in it, greater capacity for intimacy
- They know their body and how they feel
- They talk about sexual relations without conflicts, they make agreements
- They understand the difference between fantasies and reality
- They are responsible for the care of your body
- Frequency of relations is very strong in the first years of what they will never have (20-22 years)
- It enjoys more than before for information, and the taboo is broken, it stops the safety of the methods.
- Personal growth is given and should occur at the sexual moment
- Extramarital sexual activity occurs because the novelty ends, and the exciting, and try to recover the most vital relationships
Search for sexual identity in young adults
The search for sexual identity is part of the search for personal identity. The young adult, to achieve and establish a new level in his individual identity, must integrate all these changes in his identity formed in his adolescence and explore alternatives and acquire commitments with his professional vocation, religion, politics, attitudes about gender rolesand sexual relations. Access and choice of work and having a partner constitute two of the most important aspects that establish personal identity and this stage.
In that sense, the search for sexual identity: its self-image, the role of gender, its definition in singleness or coexistence (including marriage or simple cohabitation), constitutes a key aspect in the sexual development of the early adult.
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