Sexual scripts refer to the language of sexually acceptable and expected behaviors that both men and women follow when they experience a sexually structured situation of a sexual nature. Therefore, sexual scripts form a foundation for an individual’s sexual identity and are largely responsible for driving all interaction between men and women in societal and personal situations. Sexual scripts are constructed throughout childhood and adolescence much like language shapes people during those formative years.  Like language, individuals cannot readily recall each phase of development but they receive constant sexual input that is “stored away and filed” until the script’s designated appropriate time calls upon them to act out their sexual roles, fantasies, and impulses.  Men and women respond to sexual advances according to their sexual script, that cause them to mirror such behaviors as the dominant and submissive roles men and women express in nearly every relationship.

Michael W. Wiederman writes, “social scripts instruct members of a society as to appropriate behavior and the meanings to attach to certain behaviors.” Therefore, despite the script’s subject, whether heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual, individuals express sexuality by mirroring what they “learned”.  during childhood and adolescence about bedroom behavior.“Healthy” sexuality calls on sexual scripts whenever an individual has a sexual encounter with another script-driven individual.

  However, some sexual scripts can be “called into play” through the act of fantasy in an individual’s mind.  Generally, fantasy is no more than an excerpt of the culture’s sexual scripts, but in “abnormal” development, they can foster unhealthy ideas absorbed by individuals in the formative years.  Today’s adolescents are coming of age earlier than did past generations, and they generally assume adult traits and behaviors that were not acceptable twenty years ago.  Along with these roles and deep intimate relationships with others, their sexual scripts show sign of change.  John H. Gagon and William Simon discuss “the overshadowed” existence of social scripts that simultaneously develop with sexual scripts and how acceptable behaviors in the world at large are reshaping adolescent sexual scripts.

Sexual scripts are a normal part of each individual’s development.  They can be relatively benign, or they can cause dangerous behaviors to be acted out.  For certain, despite what range they fall into, they are ingrained deeply and altering them is a difficult task.  Shift can occur, as is seen with today’s changing adolescents, but for many of these scripts, the basics have remained unchanged for a very long time.