Vicissitudini dell’identità sessuale in adolescenza: note pedagogiche

Abstract

The article proposes to carry out some considerations on the theme of sexual identity in adolescence in the present time of our western society, according to some pedagogical notes. Sexual identity is assumed to be the fulcrum of personal identity, which develops throughout the life cycle and is affected by a series of determinants. Taking up the Laufer concept of definitive sexual organization, it is argued that the vicissitudes of sexual identity in the adolescent period are linked to the first infantile educational relationships, as well as to the adolescent's ability to oppose the pathological pressures of the social group and of today's to consume. Overall, these pressures configure a new social superego or set of social pathologies against which it is difficult for the individual to rebel. In the article there follows a reference to the theme of bullying in adolescence, which much depends on deep-level anxieties about the sexual identity of bully and victim, and which tends towards the exclusion and marginalization of those who do not embody the ideal of power in the group of membership. Finally, the topic of a wide-ranging sex education is addressed, capable of speaking to the adolescent mind with clear explanations open to complexity, and which focuses on the ability to develop deep human relationships throughout life. as the basis of a model of formation of the person and of a pedagogical ideal of emancipation which remains substantially topical. In this light, a mention is made of the psychic pain that still afflicts many homosexual adolescents in our society and of the naturalness of homosexuality.