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Parental Sexual Passion and Parent-Child Communication About Sex

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Abstract

The purpose of this study was to assess the relationship between parental sexual passion styles and parent-child communication about sex. The central research questions were how parent sexual passion was associated with parent-child communication about sex and whether commonalities emerged in communication patterns across passion styles. Data were taken from a US national sample; participants were 801 mothers and 838 fathers (n = 1639). Comprehensive measures of parent-child sexual communication and sexual passion were used in a structural equation model. Among both mothers and fathers, harmonious sexual passion was associated with higher communication frequency, openness, and adolescent disclosure. Obsessive and inhibited sexual passion were associated with parental control of communication. Inhibited sexual passion was associated with adolescent secrecy. Additionally, for mothers only, obsessive sexual passion was associated with higher adolescent disclosure; for fathers only, inhibited sexual passion was associated with higher communication frequency and adolescent disclosure. These results help to connect the individual-level concept of sexual passion with dyad-level communication about sex; they also can help lead researchers and practitioners to better understand the influence of motivation and sexual passion on parental participation in sex education, which may lead to more effective efforts to educate adolescents about sex.

Highlights

  • Parents with higher levels of harmonious passion had higher levels of communication about sex with their adolescents.

  • Parents with higher levels of inhibited and obsessive sexual passion had higher levels of controlling communication about sex with their adolescents.

  • Parents with higher levels of inhibited passion had adolescents with higher levels of secrecy about their sexuality.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Family Life, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, USA

    Dean M. Busby

  2. Department of Sociology, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA

    Nathan R. Jeffery

  3. Human Development and Family Studies, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut, USA

    Veronica R. Hanna-Walker

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  1. Dean M. Busby
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  2. Nathan R. Jeffery
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Correspondence to Dean M. Busby.

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Busby, D.M., Jeffery, N.R. & Hanna-Walker, V.R. Parental Sexual Passion and Parent-Child Communication About Sex. J Child Fam Stud 32, 2419–2430 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-022-02369-z

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