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Concurrent and Longitudinal Associations Between In-Person and Online Sexual Behaviors and Sexual Subjectivity in
Marie-Michèle Paquette1, Jacinthe Dion2,3, Beáta Bőthe4,3
1Département de Psychologie, Université de Montréal, C.P. 6128, Succursale Centre-Ville, Montréal, QC, H3C 3J7, Canada. marie-michele.paquette@umontreal.ca.
Abstract:
Adolescents learn that they are sexual beings with choices, desires, and deserving of pleasure, which corresponds to sexual subjectivity. Sexual subjectivity evolves over time and through sexual experience. Past research has less investigated how online sexual behaviors (i.e., sexting and pornography use), especially among sexual and gender minorities, might contribute to the development of sexual subjectivity. Importantly, no study has explored the directionality of associations between sexual subjectivity and sexual behaviors. This prospective study examined the bidirectional associations between sexual behaviors and sexual subjectivity across gender and sexual identities. An autoregressive cross-lagged analysis with a multi-group approach among 3150 adolescents (MageT1 = 15.5, SDage = 0.6; MageT2 = 16.4, SD = 0.55; 52.3% cisgender girls, 2.0% gender minority, and 15.6% sexual minority adolescents at baseline/T1) revealed that sexual subjectivity was positively associated with oral/manual stimulation, sexual intercourse, and sexting one year later. Masturbation and pornography use were not significantly related to sexual subjectivity over time. No significant bidirectional association was observed. No significant gender and sexual orientation differences were observed in any of the associations. This work provides one of the most comprehensive examinations to date concerning the directional influences of sexual subjectivity and the range of sexual experiences comprising adolescents' sexual lives.
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