Teenagers Have Sex
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Teenagers Have Sex
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Our conversations are sprinkled with slips, pauses, lies, and clues to our inner world. Here’s what we reveal when we speak, whether we mean to or not.
By Alison Calabia published July 1, 2001 - last reviewed on June 9, 2016
While the media bombards us with alarming statistics about the
number of teenagers having sex, few reports shed light on what might
encourage teens to become sexually active in the first place. Three
studies offer some insight into sexually active teens: environment, age
of partner and perceived family support may affect young people's
decisions to have sex.
In a study presented at a meeting of the American Public Health
Association (APHA), researchers at the University of Kentucky followed
950 teenagers at 17 high schools in Kentucky and Ohio from 9th to 11th
grades. They found evidence that teens who have intercourse tend to think
their friends are too, even if they're not. "You're 2.5 times more likely
to have sex by the 9th grade if you think your friends are having
sex -- whether or not they really are," says Katharine Atwood, assistant
professor at the Kentucky School of Public Health. Plus, teens tended to
overestimate how many of their friends were sexually active. Only 33
percent of kids in the study had had sex by the 9th grade, but 31
percent said that most or all of their friends had had sex. "If you can
persuade them that fewer are having sex than they think," she says, "that
can have a significant impact on their behavior."
Among young girls, a partner's age is a risk factor for sexual
activity. "The younger the girl is at the age of first intercourse, the
more likely she is to have a much older partner," says Harold Leitenberg,
Ph.D., a professor of psychology at the University of Vermont. His study,
published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior, found that of 4,201 girls
in 8th through 12th grades, those who lost their virginity between
ages 11 and 12 tended to have partners five or more years older. For
girls who had sex later in adolescence , the partner's age disparity was
much smaller. Early sexual initiation was also associated with a number
of behavioral problems. "Ignoring the age of the partners, the earlier a
girl was when she first had intercourse, the greater her risk of suicide
attempts, alcohol use, drug abuse , truancy and pregnancy ," Leitenberg
says.
The good news is that while teen sex may not be wholly preventable,
the health risks it involves can be reduced through communication within
the family. More research presented at the APHA meeting showed that
frequent parent-child discussions about sex and its dangers may prevent
teenagers from engaging in risky sexual behavior. Researchers at Emory
University questioned 522 sexually active African-American adolescents
about the openness and support that their families provided. Adolescents
who felt that their families were more supportive were less likely to
have unprotected sex, and thus were at a lesser risk for pregnancy and
disease.
Psychology Today © 2022 Sussex Publishers, LLC
Our conversations are sprinkled with slips, pauses, lies, and clues to our inner world. Here’s what we reveal when we speak, whether we mean to or not.
Part of HuffPost Wellness. ©2022 BuzzFeed, Inc. All rights reserved.
Teen pregnancy is at a record low in the U.S. , and a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may explain why.
The new data, collected from 2011-2013, shows that adolescents are delaying sex, being more responsible with birth control and have better birth control access and perhaps more cultural support than any previously studied generation. Still, there are improvements to be made, particularly for some groups who are at higher risk of pregnancy than their peers. Here's what we learned from the latest data on teens and sex:
Teens are continuing to delay sex for longer, said the CDC's lead author Gladys Martinez. Back in 1988, 51 percent of teen girls and 60 percent of teen boys reported having sex at least once between the ages of 15 to 19. Now those numbers are 44 percent and 47 percent, respectively, holding steady from a previous CDC report that used data collected between 2006 to 2010.
Teens who delay sex until older adolescence, or age 17 and up, are more likely to use birth control during their first sexual encounter. This is significant, explained Martinez, because teen girls who used birth control that first time were half as likely to become teen moms than those who did not.
"The data on sex activity and contraceptive use, linked together with the data on the probability of having a teen birth, all line up in helping explain the recent decline in teen birth rates,” Martinez concluded.
The chart on the left shows that rates of sexual activity are holding steady with 2006 to 2010 levels, while the chart on the right shows that teens who don't use birth control for their first time are more likely to become pregnant in their teenage years.
The vast majority of teens (79 percent of girls, and 84 percent of boys) use birth control during their first time, and condoms were their most commonly-reported method. Martinez pointed out that in addition to being cheap and accessible, condoms are the only birth control methods that also protect against disease.
Also of note: Emergency contraception use rose from eight percent in 2002 to 22 percent in 2011-2013 .
The most likely explanation for this major increase is the changing access to emergency contraception, Martinez hypothesized, as it is now available over the counter with no age limits .
Gender Equality Is Improving Sexual Health
“In the previous decade, if a girl had a condom with her, there was a fear she’d be called a slut,” said Brindis. “But a woman’s right to be protected against an unintended pregnancy or STD or HIV has become a greater part of the social norm, so those numbers have been increasing over time."
The graphic above shows that while condoms are the most popular method of birth control at 97 percent, withdrawal comes in second at 60 percent. The pill, the patch and depo provera, a hormonal injection, are on the decline, while emergency contraception and hormonal implants are up.
Considering how dicey the withdrawal method is as a means of birth control ( Planned Parenthood warns it takes a great deal of "self-control, experience, and trust”), it’s alarming to see how many teens report having used it at least once to avoid pregnancy. But Martinez notes that it mirrors adult use; 60 percent of U.S. women also report using withdrawal at least once.
Brindis also emphasized that this data shows “ever use,” as in, has a person ever used a given method of birth control, even one time. By no means does it indicate that withdrawal is some teens’ primary method of birth control, she said. Instead, high pullout rates mean simply that adults have to do a better job helping teens anticipate sexual encounters.
"It may not be the best safety net, but it is a safety net that young people may have to rely on when they’re caught in the moment,” she said. "We have to help young people anticipate what happens in that moment."
The bottom line here: the kids are alright, but we shouldn't pat ourselves on the back just yet. U.S. teen pregnancy rates, while historically low at 26.5 per 1,000 women , are still the highest among nations that track this sort of data.
"We’re not in the promised land yet, but we’re going in the right direction and it’s taken a whole village to make an impact on this issue," said Brindis. If the U.S. wants to continue on this path, she said, the country needs to start zeroing in on at-risk teen subgroups that still might see parenthood as a more fulfilling and realistic path than college or career training.
"We need jobs and we need kids to graduate from high school," Brindis concluded. "These kinds of strategies that go beyond the availability of condoms and clinics are a very important part of the formula."
10 Must-Know Birth Control Facts See Gallery
Part of HuffPost Wellness. ©2022 BuzzFeed, Inc. All rights reserved.
Professor Claire Brindis, an expert on teen health at the Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health at University of California, San Francisco, thinks that the report’s findings are “great news” for American teens. Brindis credited everything from the Affordable Care Act to condom visibility in films -- look no further than the recent “Trainwreck” for evidence -- for higher rates of birth control use and the continued delay of teens' first sexual experience. She also said that changing social norms about a woman’s sexuality have contributed to smarter sexual choices in teens.
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By Tracy Engelbrecht
As the writer of a book about my teen pregnancy, I’m always asked why I think teenagers have sex. Duh. For EXACTLY the same reasons adults do. Some good, some stupid. It’s simplistic and dangerous to assume that only teenagers from dysfunctional homes have sex. Sooner or later, we all look outwards into the world, away from our parents, no matter how attentive they were. That’s just natural. Here are some other reasons: Biology. Teenagers have been having sex for millennia. It’s what our bodies were made to do at that age, because we were dead by 20 and needed to have sprogged before the sabre-tooth tigers got us. Society has moved on and now tells us we may not do it, but our bodies have not caught up. It feels good. Sex for fun is fine for a while, but without a safe and true emotional connection, recreational sex gets old very fast. Which leads to riskier choices in pursuit of the same high as before. Emotional fulfilment. Having sex with someone you love, and who loves you, can inspire contentment and joy. Sharing in this way can be a beautiful thing. Maybe to you this will mean sex after marriage only. But marriage is still no guarantee of a safe or happy sexual experience, and no amount of sex or wedding cake will magically provide intimacy, confidence, self-esteem or love that wasn’t there already. When you come right down to it, it won’t give you anything you haven’t already got. Except maybe gonorrhoea. Power. Some people of all ages and genders use sex to get what they want: whether it’s by demanding it, promising it, providing it or withholding it, it’s a means to an end and someone is getting used and hurt. So, so wrong. NOW you can talk about sex and morals in the same sentence. Read 14 questions for your teen to ask before having sex . Are there other reasons why teens have sex?
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Tell parents to try harder to be there for their teens says mom who lost her daughter to suicide
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