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The Relationship Between Sexual Activity and Depressive Symptoms in Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Youth: Effects of Gender and Family Support

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Abstract

There is considerable debate over whether adolescent sexual activity is maladaptive and associated with worse mental health outcomes versus a positive developmental milestone that is associated with better mental health outcomes. Although these perspectives are often pitted against one another, the current study employed a more integrative perspective: adolescent sexual activity may be maladaptive in certain contexts, but healthy in other contexts. We investigated whether family support and gender moderated the relation between sexual activity and mental health outcomes in a diverse sample of 519 lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) youth. Specifically, we examined whether youth who engaged in more sexual activity would have fewer depressive symptoms in the context of a more supportive family environment, but more depressive symptoms in the context of a less supportive family environment and whether this effect was stronger for sexual minority girls. Consistent with the sexual health perspective, we found that among girls with more family support, those who engaged in more frequent same-sex sexual contact had lower levels of depressive symptoms. Unexpectedly, we found that among boys with more family support, those who engaged in more frequent same-sex sexual contact had higher levels of depressive symptoms. In contrast, girls and boys with less family support showed no relation between sexual activity and depressive symptoms. Overall, results suggest that context is critical when determining whether same-sex sexual contact among LGB youth should be considered maladaptive or beneficial.

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Notes

  1. By “quantity” of same-sex sexual contact we mean the average of the number of times participants engaged in several specific sexual behaviors over the past 6 months. Although sex is mostly typically defined as “sexual intercourse” among heterosexual populations, the normative definition of sex among LGBT populations encompass a wider variety of behaviors (e.g., it includes mutual masturbation). Hence, an ecologically valid measure of sexual activity among sexual minorities needs to take into account both the varied nature of sexual behaviors as well as the frequency of those various behaviors. Our measure gives weight to both the number of sexual episodes (an event where anything at all sexual occurred), but also to the varied nature of episodes (i.e., those episodes that included a greater variety of behaviors end up with more weight in the aggregate measure than those that included just a single behavior). Exploratory analyses utilizing other composite measures of sexual behavior yielded similar results in this sample.

  2. We also examined whether religiosity was related to any of the sexuality variables or depressive symptoms. However, it was not and thus not utilized in any of the present analyses.

  3. Given the possibility for some of our covariates (e.g., number of sexual partners and romantic partner status) to substantively change our findings, we also conducted analyses excluding these covariates. Results of those analyses were substantively identical to those presented above.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge Jordan Rullo, Jennifer Pritchard, and Karen Wohlleiter for their efforts in study coordination, as well as Laura Vaughn, Lida Rogers, Trevor Wright, and William Brown for their assistance with data collection. We are grateful to the Attic Youth Center, BAGLY, Indiana Youth Group, and the Sexual Minority Alliance of Alameda County for their cooperation in housing the project. This research was supported by grant MH072381 from the National Institute of Mental Health.

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  1. Department of Psychology, University of Utah, 380 South 1530 East, Room 502, Salt Lake City, UT, 84112-0251, USA

    Janna A. Dickenson & David M. Huebner

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Dickenson, J.A., Huebner, D.M. The Relationship Between Sexual Activity and Depressive Symptoms in Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Youth: Effects of Gender and Family Support. Arch Sex Behav 45, 671–681 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-015-0571-8

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