Sex Codes and Family Life among Poor Inner-city Youths

Abstract

Sexual conduct among poor black inner-city adolescents is resulting in growing numbers of unwed parents. At the same time, many young fathers are strongly committed to their peer groups. They congregate, often boasting of their sexual exploits and deriding conventional family life. These two interconnected realities are born of the extremely difficult socioeconomic situation prevailing in ghetto communities. The lack of family-sustaining jobs or job prospects denies young men the possibility of forming economically self-reliant families, the traditional American mark of manhood. Partially in response, the young men's peer group emphasizes sexual prowess as a mark of manhood, at times including babies as its evidence. A sexual game emerges and becomes elaborated, with girls becoming lured by the boys' often vague but convincing promises of love and marriage. As the girls submit, they often end up pregnant and abandoned, but eligible for a limited but sometimes steady income in the form of welfare, which may allow them to establish their own households and, at times, attract other men, in need of money.