Abstract

Parent-child communication about sex and sexuality during adolescence may have long-lasting effects on children’s sexual self-concept and sexual health. As such, the present study explored the connection between mother-son communication about sex and sexuality while growing up and emerging adult sons’ sexual well-being. The sample consisted of 137 sexually active men between the ages of 18 and 23. The findings revealed that open mother-son communication was negatively associated with sons’ sexual anxiety and positively associated with sons’ sexual satisfaction, but that sons’ sexual self-esteem and anxiety did not account for the association between mother-son communication and sons’ sexual satisfaction. These findings provide preliminary evidence that sons’ perception that their mother provided an open and non-judgmental communication environment for discussing sex during adolescence is associated with positive sexual outcomes for emerging adult sons later in life. These findings and their implications are explored through the lens of communication privacy management theory.

摘要

青春期亲子关于性和性的交流可能对儿童的性自我概念和性健康产生长期影响。因此，本研究探讨了母子在成长过程中关于性和性的交流与新兴成年儿子的性健康之间的联系。该样本由 137 名 18 至 23 岁的性活跃男性组成。研究结果表明，开放的母子交流与儿子的性焦虑呈负相关，与儿子的性满足呈正相关，但儿子的性自尊焦虑并不能解释母子交流与儿子性满意度之间的关联。这些研究结果提供了初步证据，表明儿子认为他们的母亲为青春期讨论性行为提供了一个开放和非评判的交流环境，这与成年儿子以后的积极性结果有关。通过通信隐私管理理论的视角探讨了这些发现及其影响。