Attitude of People in Their Emerging Adulthood Towards Selected Moral Norms Related to Sexual Activity

• Main Authors: Zbigniew Izdebski, Krzysztof Wąż
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń 2020-12-01
• Series: Przegląd Badań Edukacyjnych
• Subjects: sexual morals; sexual activity; emerging adulthood
• Online Access: https://apcz.umk.pl/czasopisma/index.php/PBE/article/view/PBE.2020.024/27680

Nowadays, we witness a principal change in the normative order referring to human sexuality, and a change of the role of individual factors of sexual socialisation. This paper presents selected findings of the research on sexual morals of people at their emerging adulthood, aged 18–25, carried out in Poland on a representative sample in 2017. The research focused on the respondents’ attitude to the social norms related to sexual activity. Two thirds of the respondents had established sexual relations. There is a clear trend among women to stabilize the intimate relations, and the respondents tend to postpone their matrimonial and procreative plans. The respondents support the norms which may be defined as components of the “golden mean” sexual ethics. Greater liberalism of young men shows in their attitude to the norms related with risky sexual behaviour, widening the repertoire of the forms of sexual intercourse, and sexual activity on the internet. Women significantly more often support the norms which refer to functioning in a relationship. The views of the people who had their sexual initiation are the expression of support for permissive ethics. Religious people and those who regularly practice religion more often present views characteristic of restrictive ethics. It was not proved that the respondents who had attended school family planning classes more often supported restrictive norms referring to sexual activity, which might be expected taking into consideration the abstinence model of the classes.