Sex or Gendered Violence? Why the Quality of Early Sexual Experiences Matter for Young Women

• In Event: Sociology of Sexualities Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 7: Sexuality and Gender I

Abstract

The general consensus of the academic community has long been that early sexual experiences for young girls have detrimental mental health effects, physical health outcomes, and relationship outcomes. While the causal linkage has been questioned, it has not been interrogated beyond the realm of physical health outcomes (Kugler et al. 2018). Others have pointed out that while there are certainly negative outcomes, there is also possibility for healthy sexual health and behavior outcomes later because women go on to experience less pain during sex and experience higher satisfaction (Peragine et al. 2022). Those contradictory findings both cite early sexual debuts as what could possibly be the reason for these outcomes. Using a mix of quantitative and qualitative data from Relationship Dynamics and Social Life Study (RDSL), this paper explores an alternative possible explanation that it is not early sex that is leading to all of these poor outcomes, rather that the quality of that sex is what matters, particularly whether or not it is consensual.

Author

• Anjali Biswas, Indiana University-Bloomington