Dating... Making Out... Young Girls’ Relationships Experience in the Affective-sexual Sphere

IntroductionHuman values are consolidated during youth. Attitudes towards sexuality, love, the roles and norms of relationship between the sexes reveal the affective experience as privileged in personal relationships.Research QuestionsWhat is the meaning assigned by young girls to their affective-sexual relationships? What are the feelings experienced by young girls in their affective-sexual relationships? Purpose of the Study: To discern the experiences of young girls in their affective -sexual relationships.Research MethodsDescriptive exploratory study, using a semi-structured phenomenological interview, with a purposive sample of twenty-three young girls. The sample consists of female students, aged from 15 to 24 years, customers of the Youth Sexuality Supporting Bureau, of the Portuguese Youth Institute (IPJ), between February and March 2007.FindingsFrom the affective-sexual relationships theme the following categories emerged: the meaning of dating, sex as the culmination of sharing, and venturing into unprotected sex. Young girls revealed that despite having friends “with benefits” and making out, when dating was not serious, the need to share feelings, trying to understand the “other” motivated the relations change.ConclusionsSeveral girls revealed that they would have liked to have more information, and that their “first time” was not up to their expectations. Some assumed the partner had no diseases or risked on unprotected intercourse to feel pleasure, a fact that reveal the need to keep investing in building the sense of a full, safe, rewarding sexuality and reproductive life.