2004, Number 1
Primeras experiencias sexuales en adolescentes inhaladores de solventes: ¿De la genitalidad al erotismo?
Aguilera RM, Romero M, Domínguez M, Lara MA
Full text
Language: Spanish
References: 30
Page: 60-72
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ABSTRACT
Sexuality is an exceptional area for the analysis of relations between men and women as subjects that are constituted and at the same time, constitute a generic organization that gives rise to specific gender roles in every society. Clarifying the gender category enriches its analysis by considering the social construction of sexual difference and the social-cultural dimension of people’s corporeal nature.Sexuality may become a field for the expression of the interests of various groups, such as teenagers who have developed their own sexual styles in order to distinguish themselves as a generation. When these adolescents are also alcohol and drug users, the relationship between adolescence and sexuality becomes even more complex.
It is often said that teenage alcohol and drug users begin their sex lives without protection, motivated more by external factors than by personal decisions and that they are more likely to contract sexually transmitted infections such as AIDS or have unwanted pregnancies. They report a higher number of sexual partners and a low condom use; very fewer women ask their partners to use condoms.
This study explores the relationship between adolescence and certain aspects of sexuality within a group of teenager users of inhalants who also consumed other substances. It utilizes indepth knowledge to explore elements for the analysis and understanding of the sexual practices of teenage users of various drugs that live in environments regarded as “protected” or of low-risk such as family and school.
It is a qualitative research project in which the participants were contacted at schools through a combined procedure of convenience sampling and the snowball technique. Ten men (with an average age of 15) and 8 women (with an average age of 16) were given in-depth interviews that were recorded, transcribed and analysed using the content analysis technique.
Early results show that the subjective experiences of sexuality were reported to have taken place as part of a process of secularization of culture, which, as Amuchástegui has reported, has enabled dominant Catholic discourse to share spaces with those derived from personal practices and experiences. The results also reflect the influence of elements resulting from the discourse of modern medicine, which, together with traditional elements, shape their subjectivities, as described by Castro and Miranda.
The different subjective experience in men and women (permeated by the cultural construction of sexual difference) of the physical and biological changes experienced as a result of puberty (in men, this involves “becoming a man”, feeling better about themselves and experiencing sexual pleasure; while in women, it is a nuisance and a bother, and leads to greater social and familial control) may explain the fact that it is precisely at this age when the gender gap, becomes wider in women. This is due to the fact that men construct themselves, as far as gender is concerned, in a higher hierarchical position vis-à-vis women (“it’s pretty awful being a woman”), while women assume that they are in a disadvantaged position.
The fact that men (and even some women) state that the double sexual standard is “natural”, led us to review the way in which relations between genders take place among teenagers. This will provide analytical elements for understanding the social “double standard” regarding consumption, this is far less questioned and much more highly tolerated in men than in women.
Although pleasure and desire can be experienced by both men and women, for the former it is a “natural need” whereas for the latter it is something that “must be controlled”. Women in general refer to penetration as being painful, whereas men refer to it as a pleasurable situation but in a context of being “put to the test”. They express a fear of being touched and explored by other males (homophobia), which would appear to be an element that transforms male hegemony and the power relations between the sexes, hence the irrational fear it causes. In comparison with their peers in society at large, the women in this sample proved to be more open to experimenting with their bodies and getting rid of controls, perhaps because their drug use has enabled them to eliminate some of the stereotypes associated with the female gender.
As for their sexual behavior as users, they reported beginning to have intercourse at a slightly earlier age than their peers in society at large, which, together with histories of sexual abuse and violence in women and of physical violence in men and alcohol and drug use in both, increases the likelihood of health problems associated with these life circumstances (STI, unwanted pregnancies, abortions and situations of re-victimization).
Women reported differences in the costs of consumption due to their gender, since some of them do not wish “to create a happy family” because “I’m too wild and promiscuous, no man would want to look after me” and “perhaps my ovaries are already rotten”.
The study ends with the need to “demythologize” alcohol and drug use associated with sexuality among adolescents, since although it may make them braver about sex by freeing them from social restrictions and causing pleasurable sensations, it also makes them less able to take care of themselves and to experience pleasurable sensations while in full control of their faculties.
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