Sexual attraction, sexual identity, and psychosocial well-being in a national sample of young women during emerging adulthood.

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/106627/1/Sexual attraction, sexual identity, and psychosocial well-being in a national sample of young women during emerging adulthood.pd

Man and the Last Great Wilderness: Human Impact on the Deep Sea

The deep sea, the largest ecosystem on Earth and one of the least studied, harbours high biodiversity and provides a wealth of resources. Although humans have used the oceans for millennia, technological developments now allow exploitation of fisheries resources, hydrocarbons and minerals below 2000 m depth. The remoteness of the deep seafloor has promoted the disposal of residues and litter. Ocean acidification and climate change now bring a new dimension of global effects. Thus the challenges facing the deep sea are large and accelerating, providing a new imperative for the science community, industry and national and international organizations to work together to develop successful exploitation management and conservation of the deep-sea ecosystem. This paper provides scientific expert judgement and a semi-quantitative analysis of past, present and future impacts of human-related activities on global deep-sea habitats within three categories: disposal, exploitation and climate change. The analysis is the result of a Census of Marine Life – SYNDEEP workshop (September 2008). A detailed review of known impacts and their effects is provided. The analysis shows how, in recent decades, the most significant anthropogenic activities that affect the deep sea have evolved from mainly disposal (past) to exploitation (present). We predict that from now and into the future, increases in atmospheric CO2 and facets and consequences of climate change will have the most impact on deep-sea habitats and their fauna. Synergies between different anthropogenic pressures and associated effects are discussed, indicating that most synergies are related to increased atmospheric CO2 and climate change effects. We identify deep-sea ecosystems we believe are at higher risk from human impacts in the near future: benthic communities on sedimentary upper slopes, cold-water corals, canyon benthic communities and seamount pelagic and benthic communities. We finalise this review with a short discussion on protection and management methods

Stability and Change in Self-Reported Sexual Orientation Identity in Young People: Application of Mobility Metrics

This study investigated stability and change in self-reported sexual orientation identity over time in youth. We describe gender- and age-related changes in sexual orientation identity from early adolescence through emerging adulthood in 13,840 youth ages 12–25 employing mobility measure M, a measure we modified from its original application for econometrics. Using prospective data from a large, ongoing cohort of U.S. adolescents, we examined mobility in sexual orientation identity in youth with up to four waves of data. Ten percent of males and 20% of females at some point described themselves as a sexual minority, while 2% of both males and females reported ever being “unsure” of their orientation. Two novel findings emerged regarding gender and mobility: (1) Although mobility scores were quite low for the full cohort, females reported significantly higher mobility than did males. (2) As expected, for sexual minorities, mobility scores were appreciably higher than for the full cohort; however, the gender difference appeared to be eliminated, indicating that changing reported sexual orientation identity throughout adolescence occurred at a similar rate in female and male sexual minorities. In addition, we found that, of those who described themselves as “unsure” of their orientation identity at any point, 66% identified as completely heterosexual at other reports and never went on to describe themselves as a sexual minority. Age was positively associated with endorsing a sexual-minority orientation identity. We discuss substantive and methodological implications of our findings for understanding development of sexual orientation identity in young people

Does Maltreatment in Childhood Affect Sexual Orientation in Adulthood?

Epidemiological studies find a positive association between physical and sexual abuse, neglect, and witnessing violence in childhood and same-sex sexuality in adulthood, but studies directly assessing the association between these diverse types of maltreatment and sexuality cannot disentangle the causal direction because the sequencing of maltreatment and emerging sexuality is difficult to ascertain. Nascent same-sex orientation may increase risk of maltreatment; alternatively, maltreatment may shape sexual orientation. Our study used instrumental variable models based on family characteristics that predict maltreatment but are not plausibly influenced by sexual orientation (e.g., having a stepparent) as natural experiments to investigate whether maltreatment might increase the likelihood of same-sex sexuality in a nationally representative sample (n = 34,653). In instrumental variable models, history of sexual abuse predicted increased prevalence of same-sex attraction by 2.0 percentage points (95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.4, 2.5), any same-sex partners by 1.4 percentage points (95% CI = 1.0, 1.9), and same-sex identity by 0.7 percentage points (95% CI = 0.4, 0.9). Effects of sexual abuse on men’s sexual orientation were substantially larger than on women’s. Effects of non-sexual maltreatment were significant only for men and women’s sexual identity and women’s same-sex partners. While point estimates suggest much of the association between maltreatment and sexual orientation may be due to the effects of maltreatment on sexual orientation, confidence intervals were wide. Our results suggest that causal relationships driving the association between sexual orientation and childhood abuse may be bidirectional, may differ by type of abuse, and may differ by sex. Better understanding of this potentially complex causal structure is critical to developing targeted strategies to reduce sexual orientation disparities in exposure to abuse