Sexual Passion in Adolescence: Examining Its Transmission Through Mothers

ABSTRACT

Sexual passion is an important element of adult romantic relationships, but little is known about how it is developed or expressed during adolescence. From a Self Determination Theory perspective, this study explored the connections between parents’ sexual passion and children’s sexual passion, and whether these links were mediated by parents’ communication about sexuality with their children. Using a diverse sample of 484 mother-adolescent dyads (M_age = 14.48, SD = 1.68, 50% female, 56% White), we specified a path model in a Structural Equation Modeling framework to test hypothesized associations. Results indicated that all three types of parent sexual passion – harmonious, obsessive, and inhibited – were positively associated with children’s sexual passion in the same domains. Additionally, the frequency of parent-child sexual communication partially mediated the transmission of harmonious passion, whereas controlling parent-child sexual communication partially mediated the transmission of obsessive passion. These findings highlight the importance of parents’ sexual relationships in the sexual socialization and development of adolescents. Additionally, helping parents to have more frequent conversations about sex with their children could help facilitate the transmission of harmonious sexual passion.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Authors’ Contributions

AF conceived of the study, jointly designed the study, conducted descriptive analyses, and jointly drafted the manuscript; AR jointly designed the study, conducted SEM analyses, and jointly drafted the manuscript. DB revised previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Ethical Approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2024.2342020.