Sexuality of 15/16-year-old girls and boys with and without modest disabilities

• Girls and boys with disabilities, 15-16 years of age, report a significantly higher rate of sexual debut than adolescents with no disabilities. In a society where a young person with a disability often is considered to have an essentially asexual status, there can be several fronts for adolescents to fight. The survey Life and Health - Young People 2005 was completed by  3,084 adolescents attending mainstream schools in Sweden. In this study the sexual debut in girls and boys with and without disabilities is related to mental health, school exposure and substance use. Our findings might be explained by a mechanism of identity construction from the adolescents' ideas of normality and by a battle for acceptance and confirmation of life. The ideas of normality can be erroneous but still influence the adolescents' sexual activity. Multivariate analyses also showed that the relationship between sex and substance use is strong among all adolescents.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Sociologi -- Socialt arbete (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Sociology -- Social Work (hsv//eng)

MEDICIN OCH HÄLSOVETENSKAP  -- Hälsovetenskap -- Folkhälsovetenskap, global hälsa, socialmedicin och epidemiologi (hsv//swe)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES  -- Health Sciences -- Public Health, Global Health, Social Medicine and Epidemiology (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

disability; adolescents; gender; sexual debut; substance use; Sweden

Social work

Socialt arbete

Disability research

Handikappsforskning

Youth research

Ungdomsforskning

Community medicine

Samhällsmedicin

Social Work

Socialt arbete

Gender Studies

Genusvetenskap

Handikappvetenskap

Disability Science

Sweden

Substance use

Sexual debut

Gender

Disability

Adolescents

Publikations- och innehållstyp

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