ADOLESCENCE

The next stage, adolescence, happens between 14 and 19 years old, give or take[1]. Besides intimacy and complicity, they feel ready to experiment, to cross boundaries and to share the news and achieves with friends. The urgent need is to be in tune with friends, in what concerns news sensations and transgressions.

At the beginning of this phase arousal is, theoretically, already included in approaches and relations. It is the beginning of relationships, marked by intense and unconditional feelings. Eroticism brings, along with it, curiosity and the need to feel and grasp how the other person– their object of interest- feels. Besides their own desire, they want to be able to feel and understand how the other person feels and when arousal happens in others’ body- the onset of the “interactional dance” aka sex. The conclusion of this stage allows the new young men and women to get started in seduction and love games, which can’t be taught, they need to be learned from experience. In the end of Sexual Identity phase both should be able to not only get in tune with how women and men feel during the sexual act, but also share their “intimate experiences” with pals[2]. Besides eroticism, admiration and deference for their intellectual role models are part of the development of Sexual Identity.

Although sexual experimentation is still hesitant, logical and arguing skills are fully active. So, the urge for new experiences and discoveries, together with the ability to reason, result in immediacy. This maybe one of the reasons for frustration and irritability in teenagers, because it is not always possible for them to do whatever they wish.

To be continued in Post 4

[1] Our criteria to define adolescence is the period of biological maturation. Our goal is to stress events and or phenomena that go along with both biological and psychological growth and bring changes and challenges that may affect their emotional balance. [2] It is important to point out that introjecting new identity models doesn’t concern gender identity or sexual orientation.