Norms regarding gender and sexual diversity: unfinished changes in youth discourses

Abstract

Assuming that young people have more tolerant and individualistic standards than the previous generations, this paper uses excerpts from biographical interviews applied to boys and girls to question the limits of the sexual liberalization ideology. To do that, the analysis focuses on two key dimensions of the discourses on changes in sexuality: the gender equality and the acceptance of sexual diversity. Without denying the growing flexibility of affective and sexual norms and trajectories, we seek to show that the experience of sexuality reflects a movement towards the liberalization of the conducts only in the prescribed limits, being such constraints attached to the gender differences and to the heteronormativity.