title: The gamesmanship of sex: a model based on African American adolescent accounts.
abstract: This article examines adolescent understanding of the social context of sexual behavior. Using grounded theory to interpret interviews with 39 African American male and female adolescents, the article builds a model of sex-related behavior as a set of interrelated games. A courtship game involves communication of sexual or romantic interest and, over time, formation of a romantic relationship. A duplicity game draws on conventions of a courtship game to trick a partner into having sex. A disclosure game spreads stories about one's own and other's sex-related activities to peers in a gossip network. Finally, a prestige game builds social reputation in the eyes of peers, typically based on gender-specific standards. The article concludes by examining the meanings that sex-related behavior may have for adolescents and the potential use of social knowledge for facilitating adolescent health.
authors.affiliation: Division of Adolescent Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, USA. eyre@itsa.ucsf.edu
authors.forename: S L
authors.initials: SL
authors.lastname: Eyre
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Hoffman
authors.forename: S G
authors.initials: SG
authors.lastname: Millstein
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000294:Adolescent Behavior / Q000208:ethnology*; D001741:Black or African American / Q000523:psychology*; D003625:Data Collection / Q000379:methods; D005260:Female; D006293:Health Promotion; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012495:San Francisco; D012725:Sexual Behavior / Q000208:ethnology*