Falling Standards of Sexuality: Exploring the Associations between Sexting, Parental involvement and Sexual Risk Behaviour of Young Persons

Global studies on sexuality and sexual orientations have shown that young persons’ attitudes and orientations towards sexuality differ from their parents’ largely due to generational shifts. For instance, the acceptance of same sex relations and premarital sex have risen significantly since the 1970s to the present; research reports this increase to be about 29% and 24% for premarital sex and same sex marriage respectively. While these changes may be attributable to generational shifts on the one hand, it is also possible that Parental Involvement (PI) may have explanations for the shifting standards of sexuality in the present generation. In this study, we explored how PI may be moderating the relationship between a relatively harmless sexual behaviour (sexting) and its consequent progression into Sexual Risk Behaviour (SRB) in adolescents. Participants were 330 (50% females, Mage= 16, SD=.92) undergraduate students who responded to measures on the three variables as well as some demographics. PI was conceptualised to include parental discipline, parental monitoring, parental school participation and home discussion. Results showed significant associations between PI, sexting and SRB as well as interactions between sexting and PI in predicting SRB. Discussions explored the current findings viz a viz suggestions and recommendations for intervention and further studies.