Extended abstract
Introduction: In our current society, there is a lot of complexity and diversity of behavior, given that, sexual understanding is of the challenging issues for the young people, and young generation does not know how to deal with it. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze young people’s sexual understanding, so the purpose of this study was to explore the young people’s sexual understanding.
The issue as a social structure, cultural and biological construct that underlies social change, has become central in various discourses in the public domain and in academic circles. What clearly influences the statements derived from these discourses, understanding the concept of young people and perception of the subjectivity, attitude, and behavioral tendencies of this group which has had its effect in addition to its social theorizing, it has influenced policy and social planning for this group. On the other hand, the acceleration and variety of changes that the transient Iranian society is experiencing and the structural and institutional changes associated with it make the issues of young people more complex and ambiguous. One of the factors related to sexual function about which less has been done, is different levels of sexual knowledge and understanding of people. Sexual understanding is one’s values and beliefs about sex, which is manifested in their sexual behavior. These attitudes are based on family and cultural perspectives on gender, formal and informal sex education, and previous sexual experiences. Sexual understanding can exist in two general forms: free-thinking and conservatism. People who have a free-thinking understanding on sexual issues such as sexual roles and all kinds of sexual activities, have open and flexible attitudes. Against, people who are conservative, they are less inclined to adopt views on sexual issues and they show less flexibility. Although sexual orientations are innate and involuntary, sexual understanding and behaviors are teachable and incorrect attitudes toward this issue are one of the major problems for Iranian families. Sexual understanding has a strong association with public health instability, so that this attitude can predict the likelihood of a person’s sexual health being compromised. Everyone’s attitude towards sexual issues is largely influenced by culture and since so far in our country little research has been conducted on discovering the sexual understanding of individuals and its consequences in persons and society, therefore, it is necessary to explore the sexual understanding of young people.  Since the phenomenological approach is more appropriate for discovering the experience and understanding individuals, the focus of this study was decided to be on investigating the young people’s sexual understanding. Therefore, the qualitative method of phenomenology was used in this study.
Method: Current research was conducted by adopting a phenomenological approach with purpose of examining young people’s sexual understanding. Research method was qualitative, and it was carried out with 18 young people (9 Women and 9 Man) from Shiraz. The sampling method was purposeful and consistent with theoretical saturation logic so as to achieve phenomenological exploration of the young people’s sexual understanding. Data were collected through semi-structured in-depth interviews. After a deep exploration of the interviews, the themes were extracted and analyzed following King and Horrocks (2010) thematic analysis model.
The interview questions were open-ended and based on they were prepared based on the objectives and theoretical background of the researchers, attempts were also made to obtain as much information as possible from the interviewees’ point of view, if they answer to the designed questions, more questions would be asked during the interview with the help of Socratic question method, that is “don’t miss out on receive the smallest points”.
Findings: The results indicated two main areas: sexual understanding and consequences of sexual understanding and each includes the following conceptual categories. Sexual understanding had two domains of free-thinking and conservative understanding, and the consequences of sexual understanding included three domains: individual, family, and social. The findings underscore young people’s positive understanding toward cohabitation and, and prefer these relationships to official marriage and the provision of its difficult conditions.
The results of the study indicated that young people’s attitudes not only had an impact on themselves but also on their families and society because on the one hand, decisions such as cohabitation and informal sexual relationships is regarded as a barrier to marriage and the breakdown of family foundations and, on the other hand, provide grounds for social reprobation. We conclude that with proper sex education during childhood and adolescence, we can prevent the formation of undesirable sexual understanding among young people and subsequently contribute to the formation of healthy sexual interactions. In addition to safeguarding the family’s foundations, we prevent reprobation. The abnormal free-thinking sexual understanding has made some families take the impact of transnational patterns easy and it has also increased their tendency toward modern thought. Conservative sexual understanding has evolved because of the taboo view of society on sexual issues, emphasis on the sanctity of traditions and unwillingness to talk about these issues. This might be the reason why some young people secretly seek to satisfy their sexual desire despite the fear of rejection and or blame.
Discussion: The findings emphasize that culture and family play a significant role in reinforcing or consolidating person sexual understanding and that person sexual understanding also influences family and culture. Some young people have an abnormal understanding of sexual issues, which makes them look at sex more openly and then experience cohabitation, and other types of informal sexual relationships.
Authors’ contributions
All authors contributed in designing, running, and writing all parts of the research.
Conflicts of interest
The authors declared no conflict of interest.
Acknowledgement
The authors of this article have followed all principles of research ethics, including informed consent, good behavior and avoiding harm to participants, confidence building and non - distortion of data. In addition, we sincerely thank all the participants and individuals in the research for trusting the researchers and providing true their personal information.