Prelims

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GENDER, SEX, AND SEXUALITY AMONG CONTEMPORARY YOUTH: GENERATION SEX

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SOCIOLOGICAL STUDIES OF CHILDREN AND YOUTH

Series Editor: David A. Kinney (from 1999)

Series Editors: David A. Kinney and Katherine Brown Rosier (2004–2010)

Series Editors: David A. Kinney and Loretta E. Bass (from 2011)

Series Editor: Loretta E. Bass (from 2012)

Recent Volumes:

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SOCIOLOGICAL STUDIES OF CHILDREN AND YOUTH VOLUME 23

GENDER, SEX, AND SEXUALITY AMONG CONTEMPORARY YOUTH: GENERATION SEX

EDITED BY

PATRICIA NEFF CLASTER

Edinboro University of Pennsylvania, Edinboro, PA, USA

SAMPSON LEE BLAIR

University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY, USA

SERIES EDITOR

LORETTA E. BASS

The University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, USA

United Kingdom – North America – Japan – India – Malaysia – China

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Emerald Publishing Limited

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First edition 2018

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ISBN: 978-1-78714-614-3 (Print)

ISBN: 978-1-78714-613-6 (Online)

ISBN: 978-1-78714-995-3 (Epub)

ISSN: 1537-4661 (Series)

List of Contributors

About the Authors

Sarah M. Corse, PhD, is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Virginia. She has a BA in Sociology from Yale and received her MA and PhD in Sociology from Stanford. Dr. Corse’s interests lie in the multiple ways that cultural expressions, such as books, paintings, or Chinese opera, acquire meaning and value. Her work has asked, for example, about the relationship between literature and the political process of nation-building, the involvement of particular narratives in the identity politics of race and gender, and the political role of opera. Her recent work has also looked at culture and cultural skills more broadly, investigating how classed and gendered cultural logics underlie processes such as social mobility and sexual assault. Cambridge University Press published her book Nationalism and Literature: The Politics of Culture in Canada and the United States. She has published in journals including Social Forces, Poetics, Feminist Theory and the American Journal of Cultural Sociology.

Georgiann Davis, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Her research and teaching is at the intersection of sociology of diagnosis and feminist theories. Among other scholarly contributions that appeared in the American Journal of Bioethics, Gender & Society, Psychology & Sexuality, and Feminist Formations, she is the author of Contesting Intersex: The Dubious Diagnosis (NYU Press, 2015). Outside the university, she is the current board president of interACT: Advocates for Intersex Youth (2017–present) and the former president of the AIS-DSD Support Group (2014–2015).

Jessica M. Fitzpatrick, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Social Work at Buffalo State College–SUNY, in Buffalo, NY. She has worked in the field of dating and domestic violence in various capacities, including providing prevention education to the community, assisting with policy advocacy, and providing crisis intervention. She founded a nonprofit organization, Youth Rights Agency of WNY, Inc., to help address gaps in prevention education and support for teens experiencing relationship abuse. She is a licensed social worker, an attorney, and has her PhD in Sociology. Her research interests include relationship violence and juvenile justice.

Sarah Flicker is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University. Her research and teaching focuses on health equity, ethics- and community-based participatory research.

Rebecca Harvey, PhD, is Associate Professor of Marriage and Family Therapy at Southern Connecticut State University. She joined the faculty at Southern in 2014 after having spent 10 years at Seton Hill University where she served as a core faculty member, clinic director, and program director. Her scholarship confirms her dedication to issues of social justice as she continues to contribute to the evolution of the MFT field’s theoretical development and clinical practices. She specializes in sexuality and gender issues and has published and presented widely on effective and affirmative clinical work with lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered people and their families. She is the co-author of the book Nurturing Queer Youth: Family Therapy Transformed, which was published in 2005. She holds a Master’s degree in Social Work and a PhD in Family Therapy, both from Syracuse University. She is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, an AAMFT Clinical Fellow, and an AAMFT Approved Supervisor.

Courtney Ann Irby (PhD, Loyola University Chicago, 2016) is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Illinois Wesleyan University. Her research examines how religion and culture shape the meaning and experiences of romantic relationships, especially in regard to constructions of gender and sexuality. Her other research projects include a study of gendered dating practices among young evangelicals and a comparative study of Catholic and evangelical Protestant marriage preparation programs. While at Loyola University Chicago, she was awarded the Peter Whalley Award for Outstanding Scholarship and Robert McNamara Award for Student Research in the Sociology of Religion. She has also received research support from the Association for the Sociology of Religion, Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, and the Women and Leadership Archives at Loyola University Chicago. Her published work includes articles in Sociology of Religion, Contexts, Sociology Compass, Critical Research on Religion, Religions, and the International Journal of the Sociology of the Family.

Paul Levatino is an LMFT core faculty and program director of Southern Connecticut State University’s Marriage and Family Therapy Program. In addition to his academic appointments, his curriculum vitae includes Clinical Faculty member at Yale University’s Child Study Center and Clinical Supervisor at Wheeler Clinic’s Multidimensional Family Therapy (MDFT) program. Paul received postgraduate training in Gottman Level 1 Couples Therapy, the Theraplay Institute’s Marschak Interaction Menthod (MIM), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), and the International OCD Foundation. He has presented at conferences including the American Family Therapy Academy (AFTA), True Colors, and Transcending Boundaries. His research and practice specializations include trans, gender, and queer theory, in addition to mindfulness practices that augment and support improved individual and systemic functioning.

Julie Liefeld, RN, LMFT, PhD, graduated in 2006 from the University of CT with a PhD in Human Development and Family Studies; she earned her Master’s from UCONN in 1999 in Marriage and Family Therapy. She is licensed and became an AAMFT approved supervisor in 2005. Her undergraduate degree is in nursing from Boston College. She is a registered nurse in CT and worked in pediatric oncology before pursuing her family and advanced degrees. She is a practicing family therapist, an associate professor, and director of the Southern Connecticut State University Marriage and Family Therapy Training Clinic. Before joining the core faculty at SCSU, she worked in Student Affairs as Counseling Center Directors at Mitchell College, where she became the Vice President of Student Affairs before she left to Direct the Counseling Center at SCSU. She developed a specialty on training faculty in issues of transition for millennial students and became a specialist in suicide prevention in postsecondary populations. She is also a registered yoga teacher and trainer of yoga teachers; she integrates the concepts of yoga and mindfulness in her clinical practice, research, and teaching. Clinically, she specializes in the impact of trauma, disability, and oppression on individual and couple life satisfaction. Julie feels passionate about applying her lifelong learning to create an integrative developmental approach to healing and change using mind body awareness, principles of human development, and a deep-seated belief that people can heal the past in the present through self-awareness and the practice of authenticity. Her research involves the investigation of the impact of mindfulness, creativity, and whole-brained activity on postsecondary students and applying nodal mapping to clinical assessment learning and teaching, and the impact of disability on transition and life satisfaction. She has presented nationally and internationally on these topics.

Mollie T. McQuillan is a doctoral candidate at Northwestern University in the Human Development and Social Policy Program. Her current research uses both qualitative and quantitative evidence to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the academic environment for gender-expansive youth and how their social environment influences their health. She has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Chicago and two master’s degrees, one in Teaching from the University of Saint Thomas and another in Human Development and Social Policy from Northwestern University.

Krysti N. Ryan is a doctoral candidate in Sociology at the University of California, Davis. Her work investigates the social forces that generate and maintain restrictive gender norms in US society. She focuses on identifying common but hard to detect barriers to and opportunities for advancing gender equality and tolerance for gender diversity.

Timothy Stablein, PhD, is Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at the Union College in Schenectady, NY. He received his PhD from the University of Connecticut and postdoctoral training at Dartmouth College. His areas of specialization include adolescence, deviance, health, and research methods. His research focuses on two overlapping areas. First, he is interested in how adolescent experiences shape deviant and delinquent behavior, identity, and health trajectories, particularly among homeless adolescents and others with homeless and street life experience. He also researches adolescent health-care experiences and the role technology plays in shaping views about health information privacy and health information exchanges. He was recently Principal Investigator for a study supported by the Department of Health and Human Services, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), which explored the role of electronic health records in pediatrician–adolescent patient interactions. His research has appeared in both applied and cross-disciplinary outlets such as the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, Emerging Adulthood, Health Sociology Review, IEEE: Security & Privacy, and the Journal of Health Organization and Management.

Yvonne Vissing, PhD, is the Founding Director of the Salem State University Center for Childhood & Youth Studies and is Professor of Healthcare Studies there. She is author of seven books in the Sociology of Children and Youth and many chapters and articles. Her new book on The Sociology of Children and Youth will be published next year by the University of California Press. She is a Child Rights Policy Chair for Hope for Children in Cyprus, and was invited to speak at the 25th anniversary conference of the UNCRC in the Netherlands, which resulted in her chapter in Liefaard and Sloth-Nielsen’s comprehensive book on the UNCRC. She also has chapters and articles on human rights education, child safety, child abuse, hunger, poverty, and homelessness. She is also an organizational consultant for strategic planning and research/evaluation. Trained as an expert in human rights education by the Equitas International Human Rights Training Program in Montreal, she has developed human rights training programs at Training 4 Excellence (www.training4excellence.com). She is a former National Institute of Mental Health Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Whiting Foundation Fellow, and is a member of the American Sociological Association’s Department Resources Group of consultants. A former member of the Board of the National Coalition for the Homeless, she is a gubernatorial-appointed member of the New Hampshire Juvenile Parole Board. She is also a trainer for the National Alliance on Mental Illness and a former mental health counselor and mediator. Her interest in the concept of sexual debut was introduced to her by child rights expert, Laura Lundy, of Queens University in Belfast, Ireland, who she thanks for the inspiration for this publication.

Chris Wakefield is a doctoral student in the department of sociology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Their research focuses on issues of medico-legal control of noncisgender identities and nonstraight sexualities. Specific areas of study include the medicalization of transgender experience through perceptions and values of medical providers of transition services and community-building among groups described by paraphilia diagnoses in clinical and forensic contexts. They have also published on administrative policy for LGBT persons in prison environments.

R. Stephen Warner (PhD, University of California at Berkeley, 1972) is Professor of Sociology, Emeritus, at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He has been President of the Association for the Sociology of Religion and the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion and Chair of the Sections on Sociology of Religion and Sociological Theory of the American Sociological Association. He has held Guggenheim and National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowships, has been a visiting member of the Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton, NJ), and his research has been supported by the Lilly Endowment and the Pew Charitable Trusts. Among his publications are New Wine in Old Wineskins: Evangelicals and Liberals in a Small-Town Church (University of California Press, 1988); “Work in Progress toward a New Paradigm for the Sociological Study of Religion in the United States” (American Journal of Sociology, 1993); Gatherings in Diaspora: Religious Communities and the New Immigration (Temple University Press, 1998; with Judith Wittner); Korean Americans and Their Religions: Pilgrims and Missionaries from a Different Shore (Penn State University Press, 2001; with Ho-Youn Kwon and Kwang Chung Kim); A Church of Our Own: Disestablishment and Diversity in American Religion (Rutgers University Press, 2005); “The Role of Families and Religious Institutions in Transmitting Religion among Christians, Muslims, and Hindus in the USA” (with Rhys H. Williams), pp. 159–165 in Religion and Youth, edited by Sylvia Collins-Mayo and Pink Dandelion (Ashgate, 2010); and “Race and Religion beyond Protestant, Catholic and Jewish Whites,” in The Oxford History of American Immigration and Ethnicity (Oxford University Press, 2016).

Rhys H. Williams (PhD, University of Massachusetts, 1988) is Professor of Sociology at Loyola University Chicago, where he is also Director of the McNamara Center for the Social Study of Religion. With R. Stephen Warner and Courtney Ann Irby, he is working on a book from the research reported here, tentatively titled, Slow Religion: Bringing Up American Youth as Protestant, Muslim, and Hindu. His other research focuses on religion, culture, politics, and social movements in the United States. His books include Cultural Wars in American Politics (Aldine, 1997), A Bridging of Faiths: Religion and Politics in a New England City (Princeton, 1992; w/ N.J. Demerath III), Religion & Progressive Activism (New York University Press, 2017; w/ T. N. Fuist and R. Braunstein), and The Urban Church Imagined: Religion, Race, and Authenticity in the City (New York University Press, 2017; w/ J. Barron). His articles have appeared in journals such as the American Sociological Review, Social Problems, Sociological Theory, Theory & Society, The Sociological Quarterly, Sociology of Religion, and the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. His work has won “Distinguished Article” awards from the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion and the American Sociological Association’s Section on Sociology of Religion. He has been President of the Association for the Sociology of Religion and of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, as well as Chair of the American Sociological Association’s Sections on Religion, Social Movements, and Political Sociology.

Ciann L. Wilson, PhD, is of Afro-, Indo- and Euro-Jamaican ancestry. She has over a decade of experience working within African, Caribbean, and Black communities across the Greater Toronto Area first as a youth programmer and now as a health researcher. She is Assistant Professor at Wilfrid Laurier University where her areas of interest build off her community-engaged work to include critical race theory, anti-/de-colonial theory, African diasporic and Indigenous community health, HIV/AIDS, sexual and reproductive well-being, and community-based research. Her body of work aims to utilize research as an avenue for (1) sharing the stories and realities of African diasporic and Indigenous peoples and (2) improving the health and well-being of these communities.

Introduction

Today’s youth may very well be the most sexually open-minded and tolerant generation. Issues of gender identity and sexual behavior are increasingly prominent in various spheres of popular culture and media consumption. As such, youth are inundated with a barrage of sexual images, content, and ideologies, making sex a topic that is more openly discussed and, therefore, a more significant aspect of young people’s everyday lifeworlds compared to previous generations. While sexuality has always been an important part of adolescence, notions of sexuality have become more fluid and flexible. The sexual experiences of youth are considerably less bound by the limitations of conventional gender norms and heteronormative sexual scripts. With access to the Internet, young people around the globe can readily obtain virtually any and all information they seek concerning sex and sexuality. Gender and sexuality have thus become increasingly salient aspects of identity formation for contemporary youth. Many young people are more openly expressing their gender identity, testing boundaries, and challenging traditional societal norms and the didactic gender constructs of femininity and masculinity. This has led to considerable social debate about not only feminine and masculine identities, but also transgender identities among youth. Indeed, the loosening of gender boundaries and the sexual liberation of youth has not come without backlash. As the present volume of Sociological Studies of Children and Youth was coming together, issues of equality as they relate to sex, gender identity, and sexual behavior have been at the forefront of national political debate in the United States as well as other countries around the world. From discussions about limiting women’s reproductive rights, to efforts to curtail the progress that has been made in terms of legal protections for those in the LGBTQI +  community, the rights of those who do not conform to traditional hegemonic standards of masculinity, femininity, and heterosexuality are being challenged, once again. Amplified effort to control the sexuality of youth is especially exemplified by a recent vote in the House of Representatives to pass legislation that would send teens who sext (or send naked pictures) to jail for a minimum sentence of 15 years. While all of the democrats voted in opposition, only two republicans voted against this harsh measure aimed at punishing teens for engaging in unconventional sexual behavior. In this book, we explore some of the evolving issues concerning sex, gender, and sexuality in the lives of children and adolescents.

Religious groups and leaders have long been concerned with how to best control and monitor the sexual behavior of young followers. In the chapter, “‘Dare to Be Different’: How Religious Groups Frame and Enact Appropriate Sexuality and Gender Norms among Young Adults,” Rhys H. Williams, Courtney Ann Irby and R. Stephen Warner investigate how adults in positions of religious authority attempt to shape the gender norms and sexual behavior of the youth they work with in the face of what they see as an increasingly hypersexualized culture. Through numerous observations and interviews with religious young adults and religious leaders from Muslim, Hindu, and Protestant Christian religious groups, the researchers identify three organizational styles used across the religious traditions to promote traditional understandings of gender, heterosexuality, and marriage.

While there has been growing social acceptance and advocacy for LGBT rights in recent years, many youth continue to experience negative reactions and rejection from family members. Timothy Stablein provides a comprehensive review of the literature concerning the experiences of homeless LGBT youth in the chapter, “Estimating the Status and Needs of Homeless LGBT Adolescents: Advocacy, Identity, and the Dialectics of Support.” After identifying the logistical problems with accurately estimating the extent of the problem, research concerning the experience of homelessness among LGBT youth and issues of advocacy and support are addressed. Stablein then concludes with some practice and policy recommendations intended to help improve the situation of this vulnerable and understudied group of young people.

Youth who have been identified as intersex at birth or as a child represent another group that researchers have neglected to study. As conveyed by the 16 youth interviewed by Georgiann Davis and Chris Wakefield in the chapter, “The Intersex Kids Are All Right? Diagnosis Disclosure and the Experiences of Intersex Youth,” growing up intersex is not as detrimental to gender identity development or sense of self as doctors and parents once feared. Rather than withholding this information as was often done with children diagnosed as intersex a generation ago, all of the youth in this study were made knowledgeable about their diagnosis at the time of diagnosis. As Davis and Wakefield discover, heightened activism and the greater ability to connect with others in the intersex community has had a remarkably positive impact on today’s intersex youth helping them to confront and embrace their intersex status.

Stigma surrounding gender-nonconformity has also lessened over the last decade or so as the topic has gained more public visibility, calling attention to how children can influence parents to develop and accept alternative notions and understandings of gender. In the chapter, “Examining the Family Transition: How Parents of Gender-Diverse Youth Develop Trans-Affirming Attitudes,” Krysti N. Ryan conducts interviews with parents of gender-diverse and transgender children. Mothers, in particular, expressed overwhelming feelings of being caught between the competing mandates of mothering a well-adjusted or “proper” child by hegemonic standards of gender and demonstrating unconditional love, acceptance, and emotional support.

The taboo subject of transactional sexual relations among youth is explored by Ciann L. Wilson and Sarah Flicker in the chapter, “Let’s Talk about Sex for Money: An Exploration of Economically Motivated Relationships among Young, Black Women in Canada.” Relying on multiple sources of qualitative, empirical data, Wilson and Flicker demonstrate the existence of a transactional subculture among a group of Black youth in the Northwestern part of Toronto. Transactional or economically motivated sexual relationships take many forms and are increasingly facilitated by the widespread availability of the Internet, related websites, and social media. While these relations are not specific to any race or class, Wison and Flicker argue that limited resources and access to job opportunities as well as other structural barriers, such as institutional racism, increase the likelihood of women engaging in economically driven relationships.

Using nationally representative longitudinal data (AddHealth), Mollie T. McQuillan extends upon previous research concerning advantages in educational attainment among nonheterosexual youth in the chapter, “Educational Attainment and Sexual Orientation in Adolescent and Young Adult Males.” Compared to their heterosexual counterparts, most sexual minority men are found to have higher educational attainment. Arguing for the parsing of sexual identification categories instead of lumping all sexual minorities into one group, McQuillan finds unique differences between young men who identify with varying levels of homosexuality and heterosexuality. Interestingly, those who inconsistently identified as heterosexual or homosexual reported lower levels of educational attainment compared to those with more stable reports of sexual identification. Early identification of sexual orientation and stability of sexual orientation over time appears to be positively associated with higher levels of educational achievement.

The intersection between queer sexual identity and disability among adolescents has rarely been explored. Youth are often perceived as asexual or sexually pure, especially youth with disabilities. Using data collected from a case study with a young gay man with cerebral palsy undergoing queer affirmative therapy, Rebecca Harvey, Paul Levatino, and Julie Liefeld illustrate some of the challenges of experiencing multiple intersecting marginalized identities in the chapter, “‘To Feel Him Love Me’: Emerging Intersections of Identity, Queerness, and Differing Ability.” The model of therapy presented offers experiential insight and direction for practitioners and clinicians working with queer youth who are differently abled.

As children and adolescents have traditionally been viewed as sexually innocent, there has always been debate about how much and when information about sexuality should be disclosed to young people. Since talking to teens about sex can be quite difficult for many adults, young people are often unprepared for their first sexual experiences and, as a result, more susceptible to negative consequences. In the chapter, “Sexual Debut Education: Cultivating a Healthy Approach to Young People’s Sexual Experiences,” Yvonne Vissing promotes the “sexual debut” framework, a child rights-based approach to sexual education intended to empower young people and give them greater control in decision-making regarding the sexual activity they partake in by arming them with honest and accurate information. This comprehensive approach to sexual education can help to protect youth from victimization, promote greater communication before sex with partners, encourage more satisfying sexual relationships, and increase the overall health and emotional well-being of youth.

Dating violence is one of the deleterious consequences of being poorly educated about sexuality and healthy sexual relationships. In the chapter, “Breaking Up Is Hard to Do: Teen Dating Violence Victims’ Responses to Partner Suicidal Ideation,” Jessica M. Fitzpatrick presents key findings from interviews with 16 young women who had been involved in abusive relationships during their teenage years where their boyfriends threatened suicide when they feared the relationship was ending. The themes that emerge through the interviews demonstrate the need for prevention education to address the connection between dating violence and teen suicide.

Despite a growing body of literature concerning the influence of media on gender and sexual socialization, there is a relative dearth of research on the socializing effects of children’s literature. The manifest and latent content in children’s books can significantly shape how children come to see and understand normative gender and sexuality constructs. In our final chapter, “Two by Two: Heteronormativity and the Noah Story for Children,” Sarah M. Corse analyzes 47 different books about the story of Noah and the flood to demonstrate how traditional gender norms, as they relate to patriarchal hierarchy and a gendered division of labor, and heteronormativity are normalized and reinforced.

Overall, the 10 chapters that have been included in this volume of Sociological Studies of Children and Youth offer considerable insight into various issues concerning sex, gender, identity, and sexual behavior among contemporary youth. Many thanks are due to all of the authors for their contributions to this volume, the anonymous reviewers who offered thoughtful and detailed reviews, and the editorial staff at Emerald Publishing.

Patricia Neff Claster

Sampson Lee Blair

Editors