Marianne Cense

This study utilizes gendered social script theory to explore how same-sex love (SSL) women and men navigate cultural expectations, familial dynamics, and emotional processes after coming out. While prior research has addressed gendered heteronormative scripts, mainly in Western individualist cultures, less is known about their internalization and renegotiation within collectivist, family-centered contexts. We apply a tripartite framework, cultural, interpersonal, and intrapsychic scripts, to guide a directed content analysis of 49 in-depth interviews with Surinamese Hindustani SSL individuals living in the Netherlands and Suriname within a diasporic and collectivist context. Cultural scripts surrounding marriage, motherhood, fatherhood, palvár ke íjjat (family honor), and manai ka bole (what will people say?) shaped early socialization. After coming out, familial surveillance often decreased for SSL women, yet they faced internal struggles involving shame, guilt, and loyalty. SSL men, by contrast, continued to face strong interpersonal control, reinforcing intrapsychic tensions around masculinity and filial duty. Findings reveal gendered patterns in emotional processing: SSL women internalized responsibility for maintaining harmony, whereas SSL men viewed their same-sex love as a source of familial shame. Gendered scripts thus shape emotional navigation within collectivist family systems.

Previous research has indicated that intersex people face specific challenges in their sexual development, including uncertainties or confusion about their gender, a negative genital self-image, and hesitance to engage in romantic and sexual relationships. However, in-depth knowledge regarding a central period in this development, adolescence, is missing. In our qualitative study, we explore which factors influence the relational and sexual development of intersex youth and what elements contribute to positive development. We interviewed eighteen intersex persons aged 18–38. We identified three main themes: (1) intersex experiences, (2) the described sexual and relational life course, and (3) factors influencing a positive development. Our findings show that intersex youth face many obstacles in their relational and sexual development, many of which are related to healthcare. However, their life stories also illuminate how healthcare professionals, as well as parents, friends, partners, teachers, and others, can make a substantial difference in intersex lives by breaking normative, binary thinking on sex and gender.

Previous research showed that intersex people face specific challenges in their sexual development, including uncertainties or confusion about their gender, a negative genital self-image, and hesitance to engage in romantic and sexual relationships. However, in-depth knowledge of a central period of this development, adolescence, is missing. In our qualitative study, we explore which factors influence the relational and sexual development of intersex youth and what elements contribute to a positive development. We interviewed eighteen intersex persons aged 18-38. We identified three main themes: (1) intersex experiences, (2) the described sexual and relational life course, and (3) factors influencing a positive development. Our findings show that intersex youth face many obstacles to their relational and sexual development, many of which related to healthcare. However, their life stories also illuminate how healthcare professionals but also parents, friends, partners, teachers and others can make a substantial difference in intersex lives by breaking normative, binary thinking on sex and gender.

Involvement as peer researchers provides young people with an opportunity to exercise their right to participation and can facilitate unique insights into young people’s lives, social contexts, choices and negotiations. However, evidence on the approach has to date included little in-depth discussion on the complexities presented by sexuality research. Here, engaging young people as researchers is influenced by intersecting cultural discourses, particularly regarding youth agency and sexual freedom. This article provides practice-based insights from involving young people as peer researchers within two rights-based sexuality-focused research projects in Indonesia and the Netherlands. Drawing on two contrasting cultural contexts, it explores benefits and challenges regarding youth-adult power dynamics, the taboo nature of sexuality, research quality and dissemination. Recommendations for future studies include ongoing training and capacity strengthening for peer researchers which recognise cultural and educational backgrounds, strong youth-adult partnerships creating an enabling environment for the engagement of peer researchers, careful consideration of how young people are involved and critical reflection on adult-centric views of what constitutes “academic” research.

Debates on human agency, especially female and sexual agency, have permeated the social scientific literature and health educational practice for multiple decades now. This article provides a review of recent agency debates illustrating how criticisms of traditional conceptions of (sexual) agency have led to a notable diversification of the concept. A comprehensive, inclusive description of sexual agency is proposed, focusing on the navigation of goals and desires in the wider structural context, and acknowledging the many forms sexual agency may take. We argue there is no simple relation between sexual agency and sexual health. Next, we describe the implications of such an understanding of sexual agency for Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) and for sexual health and rights (SHR) programming more generally. We put forward validation of agentic variety, gender transformative approaches, meaningful youth participation, and multicomponent strategies as essential in building young peoples’ sexual agency and their role as agents of wider societal change. We also show that these essential conditions, wherever they have been studied, are far from being realized. With this review and connected recommendations, we hope to set the stage for ongoing, well-focused research and development in the area.

Young people are not satisfied with the sexuality education they receive in Dutch high schools. They rate their sexuality education as mediocre (5.8 on a scale of one to ten). In cooperation with 17 young peer researchers, we explored what good sexuality education looks like from the point of view of young people. The peer researchers collected data in their own high school, using mixed methods, starting with individual interviews, followed by focus group discussions and Photovoice sessions to get more in-depth views on topics, class atmosphere, and teacher skills. In total, 300 pupils aged 12–18 participated in the research. Our findings demonstrate that young people want more sexuality education, during their whole school career. They want sexuality education to move beyond biological functions, sexually transmitted diseases, and reproduction into issues like dating, online behavior, sexual pleasure, relationships, and sexual coercion. Moreover, pupils want sexual diversity integrated and normalized in all content. One of the main issues is that sexuality education should be given in a safe class atmosphere, which demands sensitivity from the teacher. In addition to the findings of the study, this article reflects on the steps to be taken to realize the changes desired by young people.

Introduction: Positive ethics is a trending topic in sports. However, a gap exists when sexuality and gender issues are concerned. This study aimed to explore the concept of sexual integrity as an opportunity for the development of a positive ethics approach of sexuality and gender in sport contexts. Materials and methods: To obtain consensus on definition, operationalization, and competences, a Delphi study was conducted among 77 stakeholders divided into panels of youth coaches, physical education (PE) teachers, athletes, and PE students. Results: Consensus was reached on a definition and operationalization of sexual integrity in sport contexts, defining it as the conscious, respectful, and responsible handling of one’s own and other people's body, opinions, relationships, and behaviour with regard to sexuality and gender, with the aim of contributing to the pleasure, development, resilience, and safety of (young) people in sports. Core competences for sexual integrity were highlighted, not only for coaches and PE teachers, but also for youngsters to develop. Discussion: This study presents a definition, an operationalization, and a number of competences for sexual integrity. With these, an essential connection with a positive ethical climate is proposed for the benefit of coaches, PE teachers, and youngsters as actors. The operationalization and concrete list of competences will aid the development of future prevention policies regarding sexual and gender-based violence, with an important opportunity for programme designers and policy makers to optimize training programmes. Further research is required to include sport federations’ perspectives and to develop and implement programmes addressing sexual integrity for the benefit of coaches, PE teachers, and youngsters.

Sexual health policies explicitly aim to encourage young people to take responsibility for their sexuality to prevent adverse outcomes such as unintended pregnancies, STIs and sexual assault. In Europe and North America, ‘choice’ has become a central concept in sexual and reproductive health policy making. However, the concept of choice is not unproblematic, not least because the cultural emphasis on individual responsibility obscures structural limitations and inequalities, and mutual responsibility between partners. Moreover, studies on the life stories of young people show how agency is forged and expressed within a social context and is manifested through responsiveness to others. This raises the question of how we can conceptualise sexual agency in a way that includes this sociality. How can we rethink sexual agency beyond autonomy? This article explores these issues using data from four separate research projects that shared the aim of exploring young people’s sexual agency in different areas. Drawing on findings from these studies, it advances a multicomponent model of sexual agency that connects individual choice to the social, moral and narrative context which young people navigate.

The complexity of young people’s strategic negotiation of sexual agency constitutes a challenge for professionals working in the area of sexuality education. This paper explores how comprehensive sexuality education can support young people to develop sexual agency in all its forms: embodied, bonded, narrative and moral. A first step is to base sexuality education on the recognition of the connectedness of young people to different people and to different sexual cultures. This implies that comprehensive sexuality education should provide the tools that can help young people in the process of taking up a position, forming an identity and embodying a sexual self within their own social and cultural context. Moreover, comprehensive sexuality education should not only be aimed at empowering individuals, but should also address different sexual cultures, gender norms and other social norms, to stimulate critical consciousness and collective agency, and thereby create an environment that enables and supports young people’s agency and diminishes inequality and restrictive norms.