Children exposed to sexual activity in adults, nudity, less overall privacy, and bathing without privacy are more likely to exhibit sexual behaviors. If parents knowingly expose their child to harmful sexual media or pornography, this is abnormal and requires social services referral. Parents should expect the highest degree of overt sexual behavior in the three to five-year-old, which should decrease with age until puberty. In looking at sexual behavior problems in children, one needs to look at their developmental age. Sexual contact with others and sex with other people are less likely to be normative. Children with intellectual disabilities can display what is considered abnormal behaviors because of their younger developmental age. Sexual behavior problems in children include the following: •
Self-penetration of their anus or genitals with objects or fingers
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Persistent or frequent sexual activity
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Sexual behaviors involving another who is more than three years in age apart from them
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Any type of coercive sexual activity
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Explicit imitation of adult sexual behaviors
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Asking adults for sex
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Oral to genital contact
There is a higher than average risk of ADHD, conduct disorder, and oppositional defiant disorder among children who have problem sexual behaviors. These are children who externalize their emotional problems and who often need to have other things addressed besides their sexual behavior issues. There is also a high risk of abuse of all types in children who have sexual behavior problems.
SEXUALITY IN ADOLESCENTS Sexuality changes in adolescence but is intensified by puberty and the onset of puberty. Adolescents engage in kidding, flirting, masturbation, and sex with others. As with children, there are social influences on what is acceptable in adolescents as far as 179
