"من می خواستم او را بهتر بشناسم": انگیزه های دوستیابی نوجوانان پسر، ایدئولوژی مردسالاری و رفتار جنسی

Little is known about adolescent boys’ motives for dating, although stereotypical portrayals highlight a desire for sexual behavior. This issue was examined from a normative perspective that connected dating motives to intercourse motives, masculinity, and dating and sexual behaviors. Data from 105 racially and economically diverse 10th-grade boys were analyzed. Results indicated that the most commonly endorsed motives for dating and intercourse focused on the boys’ partners and relationships, and that boys’ motives tended to be consistent across dating and sexual behavior. Peer conformity motives were less frequently endorsed and typically co-occurred with other motives. Findings revealed few connections between motives, masculinity ideology, and sexual behaviors. Discussion highlights the importance of moving beyond stereotypes when examining boys’ romantic and sexual motives.

Popular depictions of the dating and sexual lives of boys and men in American society highlight an interest in promiscuous sexual behavior, direct boys and men to initiate sexual encounters, emphasize women's bodies as objects, and minimize the importance of the relational aspects of romantic relationships. This image is well known in America (Brooks, 1997; David & Brannon, 1976), appears regularly in television programs (Fouts & Burggraf, 2000; Montemurro, 2003; Ward, 1995) and in sex education websites and curricula (Bay-Cheng, 2001; Fine, 1988), and is regularly incorporated into girls’ constructions of their own sexuality (Tolman, 2002). Research findings that adolescent boys consistently offer greater support for pre-marital coitus, report a younger age of first coitus, and report more coital partners than girls provide some support for this image of masculinity, although differences are often small to moderate in size and have become smaller over time (Oliver & Hyde, 1993). Despite this non-relational stereotype and the documented sex differences, participation in ongoing romantic relationships is extremely common (Collins, 2003; Feiring, 1996; Shulman & Scharf, 2000; Wight, 1994). Given that most boys do participate in romantic relationships, one might ask why they do so. The stereotype and evidence presented above suggest that the primary, and perhaps only, purpose is to obtain access to a sexual partner. However, interviews with adolescent boys provide only partial support for this claim. Boys often reject the stereotype or depictions of their own behavior as stereotypical and instead emphasize motives such as curiosity, companionship, attraction, and occasionally love (Feiring, 1996; Tolman, Spencer, Harmon, Rosen-Reynoso, & Striepe, 2004; Wight, 1994). At the same time, they also report that sexual behaviors from kissing through intercourse are pleasant and desirable, although these behaviors are rarely depicted as the goal of dating (Feiring, 1996; Tolman et al., 2004; Wight, 1994). In this paper, boys’ dating motives were explored as a unique element of relational behavior, as well as in connection to both masculinity and sexual behavior. Motives for dating have rarely been addressed in American research (for parallel discussion regarding the paucity of American research on adolescents’ sexual motives, see Hofstede, 1998; Smiler, in press). Extant data come from two distinct lines of research. Developmentalists, who were recently encouraged to treat adolescents’ romantic relationships as a topic worthy of study (Collins, 2003), have generally examined dating relationships from a normative perspective that highlights affiliative motives and is often rooted in attachment theory (Bowlby, 1982). In these studies, sexual behavior is rarely assessed. Additional data have been provided in studies of adolescent sexual behavior. Here, researchers typically adopt a risk-based approach (e.g., Maxwell, 2002; Resnick et al., 1997) in which romantic relationships are often viewed as a setting (and often, a risk) for adolescent sexual behavior. In this paper, we adopted a “positive” or “healthy” sexual development approach. Here, the term sexual is used broadly to include not only sexual behaviors such as intercourse, but also “pre-coital” behaviors such as kissing and fondling (Horne & Zimmer-Gembeck, 2005) and intrapsychic factors such as subjective evaluation of one's experiences (Smiler, Ward, Caruthers, & Merriwether, 2005). This perspective recognizes that these behaviors are contextually embedded in a variety of ways, including relationships and gender-related beliefs (e.g., O’Sullivan, 2005). Finally, this perspective argues that sexual development, in terms of both relationships and broadly inclusive sexual behaviors, is a normative developmental task for adolescents (Graber, Brooks-Gunn, & Galen, 1998; Haffner, 1998; Russell, 2005; Tolman, Striepe, & Harmon, 2003; Welsh, Rostosky, & Kawaguchi, 2000). The extant research on boys’ subjective experiences of dating suggests several potential motives. In early- and mid-adolescence, boys’ choice of partner is more closely related to girls’ appearance than their personalities (Shulman & Scharf, 2000; Wight, 1994). This may be related to findings that a boys’ status among his male peers may increase if his girlfriend is particularly attractive and decrease if she is deemed unattractive (Fine, 1987; Tolman et al., 2004; Wight, 1994), which suggests that peer status concerns may be a motive for dating. Middle- and older-adolescent boys are more likely to identify emotional intimacy, caring, and support as relational motives (Feiring, 1996; Shulman & Kipnis, 2001; Shulman & Scharf, 2000). Adolescent boys of all ages report that companionship is a particularly important aspect of romantic relationships (Feiring, 1996; Shulman & Kipnis, 2001; Shulman & Scharf, 2000). It seems reasonable that a boy might pursue a relationship for any or all of these reasons. Studies of adolescents’ and undergraduates’ motives for coitus have revealed that intimacy and status-type reasons are commonly offered. Other frequently endorsed sexual motives include one's own sexual desire, partner's sexual desire, and stress release (Cooper, Shapiro, & Powers, 1998; Dittus, Jaccard, & Gordon, 1999; Eyre, Hoffman, & Millstein, 1998; Eyre & Millstein, 1999; Levinson, Jaccard, & Beamer, 1995; Paikoff, McCormick, & Sagrestano, 2000; Regan & Dreyer, 1999; Shulman & Scharf, 2000; Traeen & Kvalem, 1996). The repetition of some motives across dating and coitus suggests that motives might be consistent. It is also important to note that, when the format allows, participants typically report multiple reasons for a single sexual encounter (e.g., Cooper et al., 1998; Eyre & Millstein, 1999). Variations in sexual motive endorsement have been linked to a variety of sexual and non-sexual behaviors. For example, adolescents and young adults who endorsed greater levels of self-affirming reasons for intercourse (e.g., coping, anxiety reduction) were less sexually experienced, more neurotic, and more approving of casual sex (Cooper et al., 1998; Levinson et al., 1995). Others have noted that public displays of affection, such as kissing, are sometimes performed to validate claims of masculinity and/or obtain peer status (Regan & Dreyer, 1999; Tolman et al., 2004), although these motives have also been linked to lower levels of overall sexual experience (Cooper et al., 1998). Collectively, this research suggests that differences in sexual motives are related to differences in sexual behaviors, but it is unclear how dating motives may be related to coital behavior. Gender is also understood to be an important aspect of romantic and sexual behavior within the positive sexuality framework. Here, gender refers not to an individual's biological sex, but rather to the cultural expectations for boys and girls (Unger, 1979). The currently dominant conception of masculinity directs boys to emphasize sexual concerns over relational concerns and to initiate romantic and sexual encounters. Boys may subsequently receive social rewards for promiscuity (Brooks, 1997; David & Brannon, 1976; MacCorquodale, 1989). Thus, a masculinity perspective suggests that status and desire motives should be most frequently endorsed, although past research has indicated the reverse pattern (Feiring, 1996; Shulman & Kipnis, 2001; Shulman & Scharf, 2000). Further, one might expect that boys who are “more masculine” than their peers would be more likely to offer these types of reasons. Endorsement of these masculine beliefs, known as “masculinity ideology” (MI), has been related to adolescent sexual behavior. Findings from one national sample revealed that adolescent boys with higher MI scores also reported a greater number of sexual partners, greater belief that their (female) partners held primary responsibility for birth control, lower levels of condom use, and a more adversarial conception of the relations between the sexes (Pleck, Sonenstein, & Ku (1993) and Pleck, Sonenstein, & Ku (1994)). Meta-analytic results have also indicated a connection between greater endorsement of masculinity (as an ideology or as a personality trait) and greater support for sexual aggression (Murnen, Wright, & Kaluzny, 2002). Thus, higher MI scores should be related to greater experience with sexual behavior. Because greater levels of sexual activity might also produce higher levels of peer status (Regan & Dreyer, 1999; Tolman et al., 2004), higher MI scores are also expected to be related to greater endorsement of peer and status motives. Similarly, masculinity and femininity are partially opposed constructs (David & Brannon, 1976; Spence & Helmreich, 1978; see reviews by Constantinople, 1973; Smiler, 2004), which suggests that lower MI scores might be associated with greater endorsement of the stereotypical feminine motives of companionship and intimacy. In sum, the goal of this study was to explore motivations for dating, using a positive sexual development framework. Further, the study was limited to boys in an effort to assess the influence of masculinity on its “target” population. The study begins by simply describing boys’ dating motives. Prior research suggests that relational motives will dominate, although a gendered lens suggests that masculine motives such as peer/status and pleasure motives will be most common. Connections between dating motives and coital motives were then explored to determine if motives were consistent across behaviors. Links between dating motives and MI were then examined, with an expectation that higher MI scores would be associated with greater endorsement of peer/status and pleasure-oriented reasons and lesser endorsement of relational motives. Finally, connections between motives, MI, and sexual behavior were examined. Here, greater endorsement of peer/status and pleasure motives, as well as higher MI scores, were expected to be related to greater levels of sexual behavior.