Gender Differences in Idealized and Actual Romantic Relationship Events in Adolescents: Implications for Preventative Safe Sex Interventions for Adolescents

Although sexual risk behavior occurs in a dyadic context, much of the research on sexual behavior has been separate from research on the relationships in which these behaviors occur. Thus, little is known about how sexual behavior fits into the progression of a relationship, and the gendered dynamics that contribute to sexual risk-taking. Using AddHealth data, this study compares adolescents’ idealized progression of relationship events to their actual progression, and how idealizing particular events differentially predicts behaviors for boys and girls.

Method: Participants (N=2,613; 55.6% female) indicated whether or not they ideally wanted to engage in 17 events in a relationship, and the order in which they would prefer to experience them in Wave 1. In Wave 2, those participants who reported being in a romantic relationship reported the actual order in which these events occurred. In this analysis we focused on three events: saying “I love you”, sexual intercourse and talking about STIs and contraception.

Results: More boys wanted to ideally have sex (59.1% v. 38.5%, p<.001) and have sex before saying “I love you” (11.5% v. 7.7%, p<.05) than girls. We ran two logistic regressions to examine whether ideally wanting sex and the ideal order of sex at Wave 1 predicted odds of having sex at Wave 2. Boys were less likely to have had sex with their partner than girls (OR=.53). Adolescents who wanted to have sex were 3.5 times more likely to have had sex. However, among adolescents who ideally wanted to have sex, the ideal order of sex differentially predicted engaging in sex for boys and girls. For girls, wanting sex later (e.g. after saying “I love you”) was associated with 1.6 times greater odds of having sex; for boys, wanting to have sex later was associated with 13% lesser odds of having sex.  

Conclusion: Findings that more girls have sex than want to and that girls who want sex later in a relationship are more likely to have sex are consistent with research showing that women are more likely to comply with a partner’s request for sex than men. However, there were no gender differences in the association between wanting sex and engaging in it, suggesting that girls may be more comfortable stopping unwanted sexual behavior than controlling the context in which these behaviors occur. Understanding adolescents’ sexual behavior as part of relationships could improve the efficacy of STI and pregnancy prevention programs.