It is poorly known that the notions about sexuality in adolescence still prevalent in many countries were directly influenced by the thinking of such dissimilar personalities as U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt and Dr. Sigmund Freud.

In the years of transition from the 19th to the 20th century, Roosevelt wrote a series of speeches in which he vehemently urged that young men forge a tough character that was compatible with going into the workforce or the military to fight their country’s “just wars”, and that young women prepare themselves to be “the wise and fearless mother of many healthy children”.

Following the call of the president remembered among us for his famous phrase I took Panama, the psychologist Stanley Hall coined the term “adolescence” and in 1904 published two volumes with 1,414 pages under that title.

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Stanley Hall’s central thesis is summarized in that during the adolescent years there is a period of “storm and stress” in which the changes of puberty motivate sexual behaviors that, in order to be controlled, must be channeled towards socially accepted activities such as religious feelings and beliefs, through the process of “sublimation” postulated by Freud.

This point of view has evolved in medicine and public health towards an approach that understands adolescent sexual development as a stage of risk behaviors for early maternity and paternity, viral and non-viral sexually transmitted infections (STIs), and vulnerability to all types of sexual abuse and violence. This approach does not encompass the complex and also positive reality of sexuality in the years prior to coming of age, but unfortunately, the evidence seems to confirm it.

The results of the National Demographic and Health Survey (ENDS – 2020) have not yet been released, but data from the Secretary of Health of Bogota, for example, account for 25 babies born to girls aged 10 to 14 years and 960 born to adolescents aged 15 to 19 years in 2022. Unacceptable figures that in the first case are considered sexual abuse, given that the age of consent for sexual activity is 14 years old.

There are also reports in Colombia of the practice of chemsex – a combination of psychoactive substance use with high-risk sexual behavior for HIV and other STDs – involving adolescents and young adults.

Without denying the above, scientific research on adolescence has been able to demonstrate that sexuality is an essential dimension integrated with normal biological and psychosocial development during adolescence and that sexual exploration and experimentation at this stage of life are essential to achieve a satisfying adult sexual life that contributes to personal, community and societal well-being.

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It is true that the irruption of hormones at the onset of puberty and with them the presence of intense and frequent sexual desire that motivates the search for sexual pleasure can provoke in adolescents situations of emotional “storm and stress” and impulsive behaviors.

It is also true that the same sex steroids influence the structural maturation of the brain and contribute to the functional reorganization of the neural networks that make possible a greater emotional balance, a fuller consciousness and an advanced intellectual development. All of these conditions favor the understanding of one’s own sexuality and the self-control of sexual behavior.

Thirty-five years ago, together with Magdalena Villegas and under the direction of Helí Alzate, as professors at the University of Caldas, we began to investigate the sexual behavior of Colombian adolescents. Those first results showed marked gender differences in the frequency of sexual desire and in the average age of initiation in different sexual activities and erotic experiences. Today these differences have changed significantly.

In a global context, comparing between countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America, a study found that, between 1994 and 2018, the percentage of Colombian women aged 20-24 years who had had vaginal intercourse before the age of 15 years had increased progressively year after year, while it had decreased in the rest of the countries.

As a statement from the Pan American Health Organization and the World Association for Sexual Health warns, “an emphasis on prevention of problems (pregnancy, HIV, HPV), combined with an almost total silence about desire and pleasure distorts the reality of human sexuality and can result in programs for young people […] that are irrelevant to their needs”.

We need comprehensive, science-based sexuality education that promotes adolescent sexual health, prevents sexual violence, and respects the exploration of romantic relationships and erotic behaviors typical of this period of life.

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