Sexual socialization among Asian Americans: A multi-method examination of cultural influences

The sexual socialization of Asian American youth was examined using large-scale survey and focus group methodology. In the quantitative component, surveys were administered to 167 Asian American undergraduates who were predominantly second generation and East Asian in origin. Survey measures assessed the following types of variables: (1) Basic demographics; (2) Culturally relevant factors, including immigration history, acculturation, and ethnic identity; (3) Sexual Socialization Factors, including the quantity, quality, and perceived influence of parent-, friend-, and media-provided sexual messages; and (4) Level of dating and sexual experience. Results indicated that parents provided the least amount of sexual communication to Asian American children relative to other sources. Parents conveyed more sexually conservative messages, while the media conveyed more sexually permissive messages. Women who had rules about dating and received fewer messages from the media about the value of sexual exploration were significantly more sexually experienced. Men who received more sexual communication from friends and more messages from parents about the value of sexual exploration were also significantly more sexually experienced.; In the qualitative component, semi-structured focus group interviews were conducted with 30 Asian American undergraduates. Results indicated that several features of Asian cultures contributed to Asian Americans' sexual socialization, including having: (1) an interdependent orientation that privileges the group over the individual; (2) a cultural emphasis on social propriety and "saving face"; (3) a cultural taboo that impedes parent-child communication about sex; and (4) a tight-knit Asian community through which sexual gossip "spread like wildfire" and sexually active girls risk developing a bad reputation. Whereas women perceived Asian culture to be sexually conservative and restrictive, they perceived mainstream American culture to be sex-positive, extolling the values of gaining pre-marital sexual experience. Tension was portrayed as the result of competing desires to fulfill their parents' expectations and finding those expectations to be overly rigid, unappealing, or inconsistent with expectations and ideology that they encountered outside of their homes. This study takes a cultural psychology perspective, based on the assumption that a process-oriented approach starting within one particular culture was most fruitful in understanding the normative developmental processes of sexual socialization among Asian Americans.