Changes in the sexual behaviour of young people: introduction

摘要

Youth and sexualityIf the sexual revolution of the 1960s unveiled changes in the sexual behaviour of youngpeople that had silently begun in the previous decades, recent years have seen new andrelevant changes, spurred by social media and the web propagating easy-going lifestyles,even in countries where such transformation proceeds at a slower pace (Barbagli, 2013;Bozon & Kontula, 1998; Inchley et al., 2020; Treas, 2002; Wellings, Palmer, Machiyama,& Slaymaker, 2019).Today’s young people are the grandchildren of men and women born in the 1940sand 1950s, who were the main actors in the sexual revolution. They are the “heirs ofthe sexual revolution”—as advanced by Billari, Caltabiano, and Dalla-Zuanna (2007)—growing up in a more liberal and permissive family environment compared to theirparents and grandparents.The changes in sexual behaviour that characterised the last 50 years are related to amore general process of transformation, involving transition to adulthood, union formationand dissolution, and reproductive behaviour, which started in Northern andWestern Europe between the 1960s and 1970s. This change slowly diffused elsewhereand was defined as the Second Demographic Transition (SDT) to distinguish it fromthe First Demographic Transition, which was the passage from a regime of high mortalityand fertility to a low mortality and fertility one (Lesthaeghe & Van de Kaa, 1986;Van de Kaa, 1987; for a recent global update, see Lesthaeghe, 2020).These new features of contemporary societies have been interpreted mainly as consequencesof a profound cultural change, with the emergence of new ideas and valuesthat influence people’s choices. Regarding sexual behaviour, two aspects are prominent:an increased emphasis placed on individual autonomy, including in sexual lifestyle, andthe rejection of social control and rules (operated by the family, the church, the state,or other social institutions). Thus, premarital and extramarital sexual intercourse,extramarital fertility, and homosexual relationships have become more and more publiclydisclosed and institutionalised. This radical change has also been powered by the contraceptive revolution, which was accompanied by the legalisation and subsequentdiffusion of the contraceptive pill. This revolution has ultimately allowed for a separationof sexuality from reproduction, a more gender-equal role-set between partners, andgeneralised sexual freedom for women as well as men (Giddens, 1992; Goldscheider,Bernhardt, & Lappeg?rd, 2015; Gross, 2005).