Sexual Attitudes and the Spread of Disease: Sex before 16 is widely admitted by young people
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Your support makes all the difference.ONLY 3 PER CENT of young people believe that sexual intercourse should be reserved for marriage, with nearly half admitting to their first experience before the age of 16, a new study has found.
Although 82 per cent of those interviewed said their most recent sexual experience had taken place within a 'steady relationship', up to a quarter of young men and 12 per cent of young women were unfaithful.
Sexual activity on holiday - outside the steady relationship - was a common indicator of infidelity.
A survey of the sexual lifestyles of nearly 4,000 16- to 24-year-olds in south-west England found that half of 16-year-olds, two-thirds of 17-year-olds, more than four-fifths of 18-year-olds and almost all in their early 20s were sexually experienced. Forty-one per cent of the non-virgins said they had sex before the age of consent.
The study is the first part a research project by Dr Nicholas Ford, lecturer at the Institute of Population Studies at the University of Exeter, and is published in the July edition of The British Journal of Family Planning. The second part will look at young people's use of contraceptives.
Dr Ford says the findings are important because the younger someone is when they first have intercourse, the less likely they are to use any form of contraception. 'Furthermore the majority of non-virgin respondents are sexually active on a regular basis, with more than half (56 per cent) having engaged in intercourse during the last week, increasing to nearly two-thirds in the last month.
'Also, about one half of non- virgins had engaged in oral sex during the last month, highlighting the need to include reference to the potential risk of STD (sexually transmitted disease) infection from such activity in relevant sex education,' he says.
Although sexual intercourse is 'virtually universally condoned and practised', he found that only 9 per cent had sex on the first date with a new partner and 12 per cent within the first week. Just over half had first sex with a new partner within a month of dating.
As with other similar surveys, Dr Ford found a discrepancy between the numbers of young men and young women who said they have had four or more sexual partners in the past year.
One reason for this may be bravado among men and reticence in women; another that there may be a small number of very sexually active women who have many partners. Dr Ford suggests that this group may be too small to be identified in most surveys.
Attitudes between young men and young women varied. Half of men but only a quarter of women felt that 'casual recreational' sex was permissible. But only one-third of men compared to three-fifths of women took a 'romantic', longer-term view of their relationships.
Dr Ford points out that there were also young men who took the romantic view and young women who took the casual view.
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