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Adolescent sexuality in the United States relates to the sexuality of American adolescents and its place in American society, both in terms of their feelings, behaviors and development and in terms of the response of the government, educators and interested groups.

According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in the year 2007, 35% of US high school students were currently sexually active and 47.8% of US high school students reported having had sexual intercourse. This percentage has decreased slightly since 1991. Every year, an estimated 1 in 4 sexually active teens contracts an STD, and teenage pregnancy is 2 to 10 times more prevalent in the United States than in other similarly developed countries.

In 1999, a Kaiser Family Foundation study found that 95% of public secondary schools offered sex education programs. More than half of the schools in the study followed a comprehensive approach that included information about both abstinence and contraception, while approximately one third of schools provided students with abstinence-only sex education. In 2002, most Americans favored the comprehensive approach. A 2000 study found that almost all schools included HIV information in their curricula. There have been efforts among social conservatives in the US government to limit sex education in public schools to abstinence-only sex education curricula.

Virginity

Main article: Virginity

Adolescents who don't believe in sex outside of marriage are usually young (13-15) or very religious. Waiting for marriage is a more distant and less attractive ideal for boys than it is for girls. One observer believes that American teens "are not as oversexed as some observers have feared." Many, especially girls, are in no rush to lose their virginity, often because "they recognize the emotional and physical risks of sexual activity and have simply decided that they can afford to wait."

The reasons most American adolescents profess for wanting to want to wait until marriage to begin becoming sexually active are usually pragmatic. The most common responses given for waiting include:

• They don't think adolescents are emotionally ready.
• They don't think they are mature enough to handle sex.
• They don't want to complicate their lives with the additional emotional ties that sex brings.
• They fear pregnancy could limit their future life choices.
• They don't perceive that high school is the time for sex.

Strategic youths hold more conservative views on sex, regardless of religiosity, and are more likely to delay losing their virginity. Adolescents whose parents are both college educated are also likely to delay losing their virginity, as are youths who live with both of their biological parents. Adolescents who say their families understand them, have fun with them, and pay attention to them have more conservative sexual values, and are likely to delay having sex.

Middle- and upper-middle-class teens have high expectations for their future careers and lives. Their delay of sex is more "shrewd" than religiously based. Those who delay sex are "just abstaining for the present to safeguard their future schooling plans, career trajectories, and life chances.

On the other hand, youth not adverse to risk are more likely to have sex. Youth in schools with large percentages of classmates who have had sex are more likely to have had sex themselves. These schools have a culture of more permissive sexual attitudes. "School norms definitely matter for sexual decision making." Adolescents who date multiple people in a short time period are more motivated to have sex, have more opportunity to have sex, and are more likely to have had sex.

About 75% of evangelical youth support waiting until marriage, but only 50% of mainline Protestant youth say the same. "If the gap between mainline and evangelical abstinence ethics is widening, the one between the religious and the nonreligious is already a chasm." The more a teenager attends church and the more important they say religion is in their lives, the more likely they are to support waiting until marriage. Of those who say that religion is extremely important in their lives 80.8% say they support waiting until marriage, but only 22.5% of those who say it is not important at all support waiting.

Religion

Religion	Supports waiting until marriage to have sex
Evangelical	73.7%
Mainline Protestant	51.9%
Black Protestant	54.8
Catholic	51.2
Jewish	27.0
Mormon	77.3
Other religion	53.4
No religion	29.3

Importance of religion	Supports waiting until marriage to have sex
Extremely important	80.8%
Very important	67.2%
Somewhat important	44.7%
Not very important	30.8%
Not important at all	22.5%

Abstinence

Main articles: Sexual abstinence and Chastity

For the last 20 years abstinence rates among American adolescents have risen. The percentage of high school students in the U.S. who reported that they have ever had sexual intercourse dropped from 54.1% in 1991 to 47.8% in 2007 and to 43% in 2011. A cross-sectional survey in 1998 found that fear of pregnancy was the most commonly cited reason for choosing abstinence, especially among girls, as well as boys who had caused a pregnancy in the past. Other reasons included a fear of sexually transmitted infections, a lack of desire, being afraid of getting caught, and the belief that sex was not appropriate for someone of their age.

Adolescents who have received sex education in school or church settings are less likely to be sexually active. For girls, they were 59% less likely and boys were 71% less likely. Epidemiologists at the Center for Disease Control emphasize that for sex education to be effective, it should take place before teens become sexually active.

Most common reasons virgins cite for remaining abstinent

Reason	Percent of 9th grade males	Percent of 12th grade males	Percent of 9th grade females	Percent of 12th grade females
Fear of pregnancy			82%	77%
Fear of STDs	57%	46%	75%	61%
Decision to wait until marriage	43%	47%	56%	58%
Belief that sex was not right for a person their age	50%	33%	70%	51%
Parents would object	56%	43%

Both adolescents who have never had sex and those who have chosen to become abstinent after engaging in sexual behaviors cite the negative consequences of sex as reasons why they choose not to have sex. Girls of all ages and experience levels were more likely than boys to cite the fear of pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. Virgin boys were more likely than girls to say they believed most students did not have sex.

Boys who caused a pregnancy in the past were more than twice as likely to become abstinent after this episode than boys who had not. However, for girls, past pregnancy had little correlation with secondary abstinence. Fear of pregnancy, wanting to wait until marriage, and not wanting to have sex were cited more often by virgins in the 12th grade than they were by 9th graders. Of the sexually experienced who are now practicing abstinence, girls were more likely than boys to say a lack of desire, fear of STDs, being afraid of getting caught, the belief that sex wasn't appropriate for someone their age, and that their parents had taught them the advantages of waiting as reasons why they made their decision.

Abstinence pledge

Main article: Abstinence pledge

About 13% of teens have taken an abstinence pledge to refrain from sexual intercourse until marriage. One study has found that a little more than half of them took a formal, public pledge, and the rest made a private pledge to themselves. Less than 25% of the private pledgers also took a public pledge. Over 50% of pledgers denied making the pledge during a second survey a year later. Private pledges work better than public pledges.

Teens who say that religion is extremely important in their lives are more than twice as likely to take the pledge as the teens who say it is only very important, and 4-6 times more likely than nonreligious teens. The pledge is most popular among evangelical and Mormon adolescents, and more popular with girls than boys. Evangelical youths are the targets of most of the pledge movements.

Pledgers are more likely than nonpledgers to wait until marriage to have sex, but if they do not, they lose their virginity later than nonpledgers. They have fewer sexual partners overall, and their partners are less likely to cheat. The pledge also reduces the occurrence of sexual relationships prior to marriage. Delaying the loss of virginity and having fewer partners pays "considerable dividends in terms of initial and lifetime risk of acquiring a sexually transmitted disease." Those who are sexually active are exposed to every person their partner has ever had sex with as well, so the risk is exponential.

Despite some press reports to the contrary, anal sex is not a common substitute for intercourse to maintain technical virginity. "It is very unusual."

Loss of virginity

Roughly 7,000 American teenagers lose their virginity on average every day. "It is obvious that something significant is going on developmentally, biologically, socially, and culturally to make sexual intercourse attractive enough that roughly one-third to one half of all young Americans try it for the first time--in spite of its physical and emotional risks--within the span of about two to three years (between ages 16 and 18)." Few have lost their virginity by the time they turn 13, and most have by 20 years old.

Today both boys and girls are now "entering puberty at least two years earlier than previous generations. This means they are ready for sex earlier physically, but not emotionally or cognitively." The gap between when when people become sexually mature and when they get married is now 12 years and shows no signs of diminishing. "Twelve years of sexual maturity is a long time to avoid sex, so most do not."

"The norm appears to be 'emotional readiness,' a catchphrase or action script with which many adolescents identify." As a norm, however, emotional readiness lacks a standardized content and thus "it risks being a platitude." It is a "slippery term" that doesn't have a hard and fast definition. Some teens believe that whether or not they were emotionally ready for sex may only be determined in hindsight. If they didn't regret their first experience then they were ready. If they did regret it, or if they "freaked out," then they were not. Few adolescents include raising a child or making a long-term commitment in their definition of emotional readiness.

Many teens who want to have sex do not, at least not as soon as they want to, and others who wish to long delay having sex become sexually active sooner than they wanted. One longitudinal study found that 37% of virgins who did not plan on having sex in the near future had lost their virginity one year later.

Girls lose their virginity "not so much as a choice but as a consequence of growing up in a society wherein girls are subject to great sexual pressure, even coercion." 'It just happened naturally' is their way of saying that he decision to have sex was made passively, often in order to maintain a valued relationship." When talking about their first time, most girls "didn't prepare. They didn't explore. Often they didn't even agree to sex. They gave in, they gave us, they gave out. At most they waited. At least, that's how they told it" to researchers.

It was in the 1920s that losing one's virginity prior to marriage became more common, and typically to one's future spouse. In the 1960s more and more youth began having sex with people they did not intend to marry.

Where virginity is lost

The teen's home, their partner's home or a friend's house is the most common place for virginity to be lost, with 68% of teens losing their virginity in one of those three places. The same study found that "the likelihood of a first sexual experience happening will increase with the number of hours a day teens spend unsupervised." According to one study, almost 14% of teens lose their virginity in June, the most common month.

Parties are not a "primary venue" to lose one's virginity, especially if the encounter is planned, although they are slightly more common when teens are younger. "Parties typically mean and, in turn, impaired decision making and reduced volition."

Age at loss of virginity

Percent of teens who claim to have had sex, by age

Age	Boys	Girls
14	7.9%	5.7%
15	14.6%	13.0%
16	25.3%	26.8%
17	39.4%	43.1%
18	54.3%	58.0%
19	65.2%	70.1%

The average age of first sexual intercourse in the United States is 17.0 for males and 17.3 for females. Most American teenagers are virgins, and the percentage of teens who are virgins has been increasing. 43% of unmarried teenage girls and 42% of unmarried teenage boys have ever had sexual intercourse. In 2002, 46% of girls and 46% of boys had had sex by 19. Among younger teens, the majority claim to be virgins, and this percentage has risen over time.

Sixteen percent of adults first had sex before age 15, while 15% abstained from sex until at least age 21. Girls will most likely lose their virginity to a boy who is 1 to 3 years older than they are. One per cent chose to have sex when they were 13 or younger, 5% at 14 or 15 years old, and 10% at 16 or 17 years old.

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, "Early timing of sexual initiation is important for two reasons. First, the younger the age of first sexual intercourse, the more likely that the experience was coercive, and forced sexual intercourse is related to long lasting negative effects."

Religion	Mean age at loss of virginity
Evangelical	16.3
Mainline Protestant	16.7
Black Protestant	15.9
Catholic	16.7
Jewish	17.5
Mormon	18.0
Other religion	16.6
No religion	15.9

Regret and negative experiences with virginity loss

Among sexually active teens, "a majority of boys and nearly three-quarters of girls regard their own initial sexual experience unfavorably—as an event they wish they had avoided." A detailed qualitative study of girls virginity loss found that they "were almost all quite negative (and, in some cases, horrific)." The most common regrets relating the loss of virginity are when it was lost and to whom it was lost.

Multiple studies have found that the majority of American teens who have had sex wish they had waited. Among 12 to 14 year olds, 81% of adolescents regret losing it when then did. While those who lose their virginity while they are younger are more likely to regret it, they are also more likely to have more sex partners than those who lose it when they are older.

Regrets are more common among girls than boys. After losing it, many girls are subsequently disappointed that their first time having sex wasn't as romantic "as they were led to believe it would be." "The letdown so many girls describe is not wholly physical. It is romantic as well. Girls often expect that having sex will transform an uneven relationship into a blissful fusion," but are then let down. Girls are more sensitive to any differences between their idealized version of losing their virginity and how it actually happens. Girls have to do a considerable amount of mental and emotional work to reconcile these two accounts.

For boys, their biggest regret is the person to whom they lost their virginity.

Risk related to the timing of virginity loss

Researchers have found that the younger an adolescent is at the time of their sexual debut, the greater the likelihood that they will engage in delinquent acts later. Adolescents who experience late sexual debut are the least likely to participate in delinquency. Adolescents who start having sex at a young age may not be prepared to deal with the emotional, social and behavioral consequences of their actions. Adolescents "who waited longer than average may be developing friendships and relationships that can help protect them from potentially troublesome behaviors as they become young adults...The timing of events such as sexual activity can have profound consequences for adolescents, particularly when they occur prematurely...[T]he timing of sexual initiation does matter. Adolescents need to be at a stage when they are developmentally prepared for it."

According to a report prepared for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services,

the younger the age of first sexual intercourse, the greater the risk of unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections. This is because those who begin having sex at young ages are generally exposed to risk for a longer time, are less likely to use contraception, generally have more sexual partners, and tend to engage in higher risk sexual behaviors such as alcohol or drug use prior to sexual intercourse and having multiple concurrent sexual partners. It must be recognized as well that early intercourse is frequently not voluntary.

Less than 20% of teens become sexually active at 14 years of age or younger; however, if they do, they are six times more likely than their peers that self-identify as a virgin to drink alcohol once a week or more, four times more likely to have smoked marijuana and three times more likely to be regular smokers of cigarettes. Other research also shows that risk behaviors often appear in clusters. If an adolescent is engaging in one risk behavior then there is a strong chance there may be others. For example, many teens are either using drugs or alcohol when they first have sexual intercourse. Students seventh and eighth grade who use drugs and alcohol were more likely than non users to begin having sex.

Virginity loss due to sexual assault

One in seven girls "have a forced introduction to sexual activity," either through rape or molestation. Rape seldom involves contraception, almost always involves older boys or men, "and certainly does not leave its victims in a position to quickly regain emotional stability and relational trust." Before age 15, "a majority of first intercourse experiences among females are reported to be non-voluntary."

Many girls have trouble defining it as rape, and many distinguish between unwanted sex and forced sex. Among sexually active girls, two-thirds say they didn't want to lose their virginity when they did or that they had mixed feelings about it. Another 42% reported that losing their virginity before age 18 was not completely wanted, while the remaining portion of the sample waited until age 18 or older to have sex (wanted, 22%; unwanted, 21%). Girls who have unwanted sex report that they "seemed to have lost some part of their selves" and describe it as "the boys taking something from them."

A first sexual experience that was unwanted or not completely wanted was strongly associated with future divorce. "If the sex was not completely wanted or occurred in a traumatic context, it's easy to imagine how that could have a negative impact on how women might feel about relationships, or on relationship skills. The experience could point people on a path toward less stable relationships."

Sexual behavior

Sexually active girls aged 15–19, and percent of how recently they have been sexually active

Age at 1st intercourse	Last 12 months	Last 3 months	Once ever
14 & under	89.0%	77.3%	5.1%
15–16	89.3%	76.1%	10.6%
17–19	96.3%	73.2%	11.6%

The percentage of teenagers who report they are currently sexually active has been dropping since 1991. By 2005, the overall percentage of teenagers reporting that they were currently sexually active was down to 33.9%. A lower number of sexually active teens is "quite positive in terms of their health and their well-being." Some youth who have had sex consider themselves to be "renewed virgins"

One researcher has divided American adolescents into five categories based upon their sexual history.

• Delayers: Have not yet had sex and are not in a hurry to. (38.2%)
• Anticipators: Have not had sex but want to. (24.5%)
• One-timers: Have had sex only once, and either regret it or do not have an opportunity to do it again. (3.7%)
• Steadies: Have had sex multiple times in a monogamous relationship. (10.8%)
• Multiples: Have had sex with multiple people. (22.8%)

Sexually active boys aged 15–19, and percent of how recently they have been sexually active

Age at 1st intercourse	Last 12 months	Last 3 months	Once ever
14 & under	80.9%	66.8%	6.5%
15–16	84.9%	68.9%	10.4%
17–19	94.8%	69.4%	10.0%

"For the most part, teenagers either are having sex or they have not yet had it." Few are stopping after the first time. Teens are likely either to "not have had sex at all until late adolescence--the most common pattern--or to have it more often and with more than one partner. ... Once sexual activity has commenced, it usually continues, and with age the sexual network branches out."

The data shows "that any image of long-term adolescent sexual partnerships is a fiction." Most sexual activity occurs in exclusive relationships, although they are short lived. Those who do not believe in abstinence before marriage usually range in saying you should be dating between three and eight months before having sex.

Factors that correlate with teen sexual activity include:

• "Individual—having a history of sexual abuse, depression, heavy alcohol or drug use.
• Family—living in a single parent or stepparent household, living in a poor household, having parents with permissive values about sexual activity, having little supervision from parents, having siblings who are sexually active, feeling unloved, unwanted, or not respected by parents.
• Community—having friends who are sexually active, having few positive experiences at school, living in a neighborhood with poor neighborhood monitoring."

Those who say they do what makes them happy or what will help them get ahead, as opposed to what God, the Bible, their parents, or some other authority says, are significantly more likely to have had sex and to have had more partners. Those who read the Bible more frequently report fewer incidents of sex.

Girls who date or hang out with older boys are "more likely to be pressured into having sex, more likely to get a sexually transmitted disease, and more likely to experience an unwanted pregnancy." They also have a higher correlation with substance abuse and a combination of sex and drug use. Risky sexual behaviors and sexually transmitted diseases, are "rampant" among teenagers.

Number of partners

Despite the decreasing number of teens having sex, there are still some who are promiscuous. Approximately 15% of students will have sex with four or more partners by the time they graduate from high school. Many others, particularly boys, will lie about how much sex they are having. In one national study, 60% of boys said they had lied about something sexual and 30% had lied about how far they had gone. Long-term, monogamous sexual relationships among teens are less common than a series of short-term sexual relationships.

The younger an adolescent is when they first have sex, the more partners they are likely to have over their teenage years. Over a quarter of girls aged 15 to 19 who first had sex when they were younger than 15 have had seven or more partners. Only 6.5% of girls who first had sex between 17 and 19 have had seven or more partners. For boys, there is an even larger gap. More than 31% of boys aged 17 to 19 who had sex for the first time at age 14 or younger have had seven or more partners, but only 3.8% of boys who waited until they were at least 17 had the same number.

Motivation for sexual activity

In a 2003 study, 89% of girls reported feeling pressured by boys to have sex, while 49% of boys reported feeling pressured by girls to have sex. In contrast, 67% of boys felt pressured by other boys, while 53% of girls felt pressured by other girls.

A 2005 poll found that, of the teens surveyed, the reasons they had sexual intercourse for the first time were:

	Major reason	Minor reason	Not a reason
Met the right person	62%	20%	18%
Were curious	36%	35%	28%
To satisfy a sexual desire	34%	34%	31%
Hoped it would make relationship closer	28%	28%	44%
Pressure from partner	15%	19%	65%
Wanted to be more popular and accepted	2%	16%	81%

The vast majority of 13- to 16-year-olds, 87%, have not had sexual intercourse, and 73% have not been sexually intimate at all. Sexual activity is much more common among 15 to 16 year-olds (41%) than 13 to 14 year-olds (14%).

Three quarters of them have not because they feel they are too young, and just as many say they have made a conscious decision not to. Girls are more likely than boys to say they have made a conscious decision to wait (81% vs. 67%) and are more likely to believe they are too young (82% vs. 67%).

Hooking up

Main article: Casual sex

Increasingly, teenage sexual encounters in the United States do not occur in the context of a romantic relationship, but in a "hook up" that is purely sexual. Over half of sexually active teens have had sexual partners whom they are not dating. This is a "a genuine and puzzling change in teen sexual behavior" and a "profound shift in the culture of high school dating and sex." A friends with benefits relationship is "always a disaster for somebody. We're human beings, we develop feelings, and somebody always gets hurt as a result."

With regards to oral sex, experts have noted that casual attitudes towards it have made it so common that "we're talking about a major social norm. It's part of kids' lives." Along those lines, adolescents with personal and perceived peer norms that encourage adolescents to refrain from sex are less likely to engage in it. Girls as young as junior high age "with pitiable self-esteem... give oral sex to boys while insisting that they are not sexually active - an astonishing redefinition of sexual activity shared by most of their generation."

Oral sex

Half of all 15- to 19-year-olds have had oral sex. That percentage rises to 70% by the time they turn 19, and equal numbers of boys and girls participate. The data indicates that many teens, particularly those from middle- and upper-income white families, don't consider oral sex to be as significant or meaningful as older generations do. Almost half of boys (47%) believe that oral sex is "not a big deal." Slightly more than a third of girls (38%) feel the same way.

Oral sex usually precedes intercourse as an introduction to sexual activity. Up until youths are 15 years old, oral sex is 50% more common than intercourse, and around 17 years old intercourse becomes more popular.

While oral sex can be performed on either gender, when teens speak about oral sex, most adolescents are talking about fellatio and not cunnilingus. "There is discrepancy when it comes to willingness to perform oral sex [with] 22% of sexually active girls say[ing] their partner never performs oral sex on them, while 5% of boys say their partner never does." Oral sex is "now commonly performed by very young girls outside of romantic relationships, casually and without any expectation of reciprocation."

When girls provide oral sex "they do so without pleasure, usually to please their boyfriend or to avoid the possibility of pregnancy." This paradigm has entitled boys and disempowered girls, putting girls at a disadvantage. Adolescents who engage in oral sex but not intercourse report fewer problems with sexually transmitted diseases, guilt, and their parents, but also less resulting pleasure, self-confidence or intimacy with their partners.

Researchers believe that some teens, and particularly girls, engage in oral sex as a way to avoid vaginal intercourse. However, experts caution that "we need to move away from the idea that girls who engage in oral sex but not intercourse are 'technical' virgins – that you're not having sex because no one's penetrating you. Let girls know that every time you do something like that, you compromise yourself and give up some of your power."

Researchers believe that oral sex may have become more popular than intercourse for adolescents because teens believe it carries fewer physical and emotional risks. Experts have found that oral sex, as well as vaginal sex, was associated with negative consequences.

Non-religious youth are more than twice as likely to give or receive oral sex as compared to religious youth in both genders. Only 1.5% of black youth have had oral sex but not intercourse.

Anal sex

Some data indicates that anal sex among teens may be on the rise. Of 15- to 17-year olds, 8.1% of boys and 5.6% of girls have had heterosexual anal sex. "The ubiquity of pornography is likely playing a role" in anal sex's rise. Nontraditional sexual practices like anal sex "no doubt receive a boost from their online visibility."

Anal sex is more common among those who don't attend church and who think that religion is unimportant. While up to 17% of youth who never attend church have had anal sex, only 2% of the most religiously active youth have.

Contraceptive use

Most adolescents and young people, without regard to religiosity or virginity status, are comfortable with the idea of contraception. Less than 8% of teens question their morality, 30% to 40% of them don't use it during their first sexual encounter.

Among sexually active 15- to 19-year-olds, 83% of females and 91% of males reported using at least one method of birth control during last intercourse. Sexually active adolescent girls who wish to avoid pregnancy are less likely than those of other ages to use contraceptives (18% of 15- to 19-year-olds used no contraceptives, versus 10.7% average for women ages 15 to 44). Most non-virgins (78% of girls and 85% of boys) used contraception the first time they had sex.

Among adolescents, the most common methods of contraception are birth control pills (used by 43.5% of 15- to 19-year-old girls) and condoms (used by 22%). In 2007, 61.5% of high school students reported using a condom the last time they had sexual intercourse, up from 46% in 1991. While 90% of teens surveyed in one poll knew they could get an STD from having sexual intercourse, only 67% said that they use protection every time they have sex.

One simulation projected that increasing contraceptive availability among teenagers reduces teen pregnancies in the short run, but may result in more teen pregnancies in the long run. The researchers found "that even well intended contraception policies can be self-defeating." This simulation also found that decreasing access to contraception leads to lower rates of sexual activity among teenagers and thus will lower the simulated teen pregnancy rate in the long run.

"A dramatic change has occurred in how young Americans think about controlling their own fertility--and in a relatively short period of time. Unprotected sex has become for some youth a moral issue, like smoking around small children or not wearing a seatbelt. "It's not just unwise anymore; its wrong... No one wants to be known for doing it, even if they would prefer it. It's becoming socially unacceptable." For nonreligious youth, "unprotected sex is becoming a new taboo, replacing premarital sex in its ability to provoke shock and concern."

Alcohol use

A survey by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy found that "7% of youth used alcohol the first time they had sex, and 6% used alcohol the most recent time they had sex."

Boys will use drugs and alcohol for different reasons than girls. Boys are more likely to use in order to relax and to prevent premature ejaculation. Girls will often become intoxicated before engaging in sexual activities because it "numbs the experience for them, making it less embarrassing and less emotionally painful."

For girls to "tolerate" having casual sex they "have to get loaded. This whole hooking up culture is making them unhappy and anxious. It requires them to find ways to manage these very intense situations, namely drugs and alcohol."

Social and cultural aspects

"Sex is a moral act, and it is impossible to think about adolescent sexual attitudes and behavior in morally neutral terms." Multiple studies have found that "official moral neutrality about sex is a fiction: it merely disguises the moral assumptions upon which actors draw and which institutions purvey. There is no value-free perspective on sex."

Despite their behaviors, 90% of adolescents "agree that most young people have sex before they are really ready". Still, teens hesitate to pass judgement on their peers who are having sex.

Youth with friends who are sexually permissive or who attend schools with a high percentage of non-virgins have a more difficult time avoiding sex, even if they want to. "In other words, social context matters: what happens around teenagers--including the perspectives and behaviors of parents, siblings, peers, and friends--affects their lives, right down to their thoughts, attitudes, intentions, and actions." Few will admit that the actions of their friends don't have an impact on their behavior, but "the pressure and its influence remains apparent to observers."

Planning for sex, including contraception, "may produce in religious youth (and their parents, if they find out) feelings of guilt or disappointment of a higher order than the feelings experienced with spontaneous sexual activity." Girls' odds of feeling sex-related guilt are 92% higher than boys'. However, religious involvement alone does not mean that their religion influences their sexual attitudes and behaviors. "Something more is required for religion to make a more apparent difference in the sexual lives of adolescents, and that something is elusive and defies easy description. It involves the internalization of both a belief system and a religion identity."

Between themselves, girls often discuss how physically painful the first time is, the sexual misbehavior of more promiscuous girls, and the perceived need to be sexually attractive to retain boyfriends. Boys complain less about emotional issues and more about sexual experiences "gone awry," not getting enough sex as they would like, not being selective enough in their partners, and sex that wasn't satisfying. Sex among teens often has "clear power differences between boys and girls."

"Social forces that influence adolescent sexual behavior at one point are often found to have changed when reexamined just 10 years later."

Social forces

"We've gone though a 30 year period when sexuality was the solution; it has now become the problem. It's like a drug in our culture. Kids look upon it [sex] as a way of managing how they are feeling as opposed to of a way of expressing intimacy. We have such disturbed family systems that kids have impairments of their ability to regulate their affective lives;... naturally enough they look at these things as their solutions."

"Perhaps nothing has so powerfully and rapidly altered how adolescents make sexual decisions as their widespread access to contraception." The benefits of sex are the same as always, but contraception lowers the costs. "The costs [of sex] are no longer primarily physical, but instead psychological and social. Indeed, the most immediate physical risks of sex--pregnancy or STDs--appear increasingly benign to many adolescents, especially the ones actively pursuing sexual relationships.

Sexting, the sending of sexually explicit messages and/or photographs, has become increasingly popular with adolescents. However, "can glamorize and normalize sex in a way that might cause some teenagers to start having sex earlier, or in unhealthy ways."

According to one study, laws that require parental notification or consent before a minor can obtain an abortion "raise the cost of risky sex for teenagers." The study found that states which have enacted such laws have seen lower gonorrhea rates among teens than states that do not have such laws. The study's researchers believe these laws lower the gonorrhea rate because teens reduce the amount of sexual activity they have and are more fastidious in the use of birth control.

Casual sex

Main article: Hookup culture

"Sexual behaviors and attitudes change from generation to generation, but the explosion of sex without meaning or substance signifies more than yet another generation's effort to stake its claim by shocking its parents (in this case, parents often too jaded to be shocked)." "Kids are not doing the traditional meeting and dating. It's a big change from what we used to see - a boy and girl dating and having a relationship. That has changed completely. Now we have girls come in for testing and when we ask their partner's name, the girl will only be able to tell us a first name or a nickname. They won't even know where the boy lives."

"Casual teen attitudes toward sex — particularly oral sex — reflect their confusion about what is normal behavior... [T]eens are facing an intimacy crisis that could haunt them in future relationships. 'When teenagers fool around before they're ready or have a very casual attitude toward sex, they proceed toward adulthood with a lack of understanding about intimacy.'" Disconnection and loneliness can both trigger and result from adolescent sexual activity.

Though a girl is "far more likely to feel used and abused after a typical" hook up, the "impersonality of twenty-first-century adolescent sex victimizes girls" and "plenty of harm" is done to boys as well. When taking part in hookups, "the kids don't even look at each other. It's mechanical, dehumanizing. The fallout is that later in life they have trouble forming relationships. They're jaded." Many worry that "if we are indeed headed as a culture to have a total disconnect between intimate sexual behavior and emotional connection, we're not forming the basis for healthy adult relationships."

The "explosion of sex without meaning" among American teens "is deeply symptomatic. Emotional deadness, disengagement, and constriction are increasingly the norm. (Oral sex is, after all, 'just something to do.') 'Sexual addiction,' [the medical] term for moving from sexual experience to sexual experience without ever being satisfied, is prevalent. Meanwhile, for many kids precocious sexuality represents not freedom and experimentation but is a byproduct frequently seen with sexual trauma: compulsively driven activity that both expresses and aims to manage the effects of chronic intrusion and overstimulation."

Sexual ethics

Few adolescents can articulate a deep, discernible, nuanced sexual ethic. For American youth, "sexual morality is seldom categorical. It is fluid in its boundaries and subject to considerable gray areas and alteration on-the-fly." For many, religion may play "a confused role" in shaping their sexual attitudes and practices.

There is, however, evidence of "an emerging middle class sexual morality" among some American teenagers that is evident among religious teens, particularly but not exclusively among Jews and mainline Protestants. They are likely to trade vaginal intercourse for activities such as oral sex, mutual masturbation, and pornography and masturbation. This group sees intercourse as dangerous to their future life prospects. They are sexually tolerant, but want to avoid pregnancy and the stigma and hardship of a STD. "Simply put, too much seems at stake. Sexual intercourse is not worth the risk" for them.

Nonreligious youth have far fewer boundaries around sex. They have less guilt after sex, lose their virginity earlier, and are more promiscuous.

Abstinence pledgers, and especially the girls, are idealists and expect a lot from both marriage and sex. However, many sexually active teens say that sex is "no big deal." "Sex is a big deal, however. Married adults who cheat on their spouses are rarely greeted with apathy." Adolescent male culture, on the other hand, represses and redirects the notion that sex has deep emotional qualities that "can touch our souls."

"The sexual morality of adolescents--even religious ones--is hardly simply and may not always make a great deal of sense to adults."

Definitions of virginity

Among young people engaging in some form of sexual activity, definitions of virginity differ. Virginity is usually defined as the state of a person who has never engaged in sexual intercourse.

Of adolescents age 12–16, 83% believe a person is still a virgin after engaging in genital touching, and 70% said they believed one retained their virginity after having oral sex. Additionally, 16% considered themselves virgins after anal sex. However, 44% believed that one was abstinent after genital touching and 33% believed one could have oral sex and still remain abstinent. Of anal and vaginal sex, 14% believed you could engage in the former and 12% said you could participate in the latter while still remaining abstinent.

According to a 2007 study, "a large proportion of young people believe even an intimate level of sexual contact is abstaining from sex and being a virgin." If an adolescent engaged in a particular behavior they were more likely to believe that they still meet the definition of a virgin. Among those 15-19 years old, those who remain a "technical virgin," that is one who has some sexual contact but not intercourse, are motivated more by the fear of pregnancy or STIs and less by religion and morality.

Schoolmates and friends

Sexual decision making is "strongly bound to social context," and school peers play a critical role in "creating a sense of normative behavior" that can either encourage teens to have or to delay sex. How deeply a person is embedded in social networks also plays a role in influencing their behavior.

Social support, heightened monitoring, and strong families bring down the rates of sexual activity among adolescents. If an adolescent's friends show greater religiosity, that youth's odds of having sex fall considerably. Their influence is seen on both religious and non-religious friends alike. The more time these friends spend together, the greater a predictor it becomes in whether or not they are virgins.

Academics and extra-curricular activities

Adolescents who are better students initiate sexual activity later than those who are poor students. In a small study, seventh and eighth graders who did well in school (A's and B's) may be less likely to initiate sexual activities than those who perform average or poorly. In addition, among those seventh and eighth graders, those with personal and perceived peer norms that encourage adolescents to refrain from sex are less likely to engage in it.

According to another study, girls who participate in girls-only activities are far less likely to experience a teenage pregnancy and less likely to be sexually active in general. Participating in competitive sports has also shown to have an effect for girls. A study published in 1999 found that female adolescents who participated in sports were less likely than their non-athletic peers to engage in sexual activity and/or report a pregnancy. Males interested in arts are also less likely to be involved in a pregnancy situation. It is unclear whether these correlations are causal or the reflection of the underlying bias of the considered population. The study that reported these findings did not take into account the sexual orientation of the subjects.

Race and class

Over half of African American youth who attend church weekly are not virgins, while only 16% of Asian Americans or 20% of white regular attenders have had sex. Most black youth in one study could articulate their church's position on sex, and many even agreed with it, but few lived up to it. "The standard of waiting until marriage seems hopelessly idealistic and perhaps even inapplicable to their situations." For many, marriage is a "white thing."

Sex is so common among black youth that it "seems to have spawned a passive, inevitable, 'it just happens'" attitude towards sex.This is in contrast to to many white girls who "commonly display a vocabulary of control and sexual strategy or else a constructed helplessness--some said they were romantically overcome 'by the moment.'"

Middle class girls are more able to say no to sex compared to working class girls, and youth from less-educated families are more likely to have had sex.

Religion

Black Protestant youth are the most likely subset of youth by religion to have had sex, followed by non-religious youth.

Though mainline Protestants parents and teens tend to have more permissive views about sex, they tend to those their virginity later. They are more concerned about protecting their educational and economic futures, and thus delay sex and use contraception more.

Some teens feel unable to live up to their church's teachings and are overwhelmed by society's values about sex. They may intend to avoid sex, but their will is weakened when not shared by their friends and peers.

"The most compelling sexual scripts--the ones that get the most face time with all but the most sheltered youth--are often not religious ones, but secular and permissive ones." If you consider how many permissive sexual messages are received every day compared to the number of restrivetive sexual messages, "the scales would quickly tip toward the permissive." With 8 hours a day in school, and it is "no wonder that the intentionally religious adolescent sexual decisoin maker is so unusual. The competition between religios scrtipts and mass media scripts about sex is almost no contest." In our society, permissive scripts are normal and restrictive scripts are uncommon.

The more time a teen spends in organized religion is less time they can be having sex, and it makes it less likely that a teen will get caught up in the heat of the moment.

Sexual assault

One study has found that 16% of all 18 year old girls have been raped.

Physical effects

The American Academy of Pediatrics has identified the sexual behaviors of American adolescents as a major public health problem. The Academy is concerned about the prevalence of sexually transmitted diseases in sexually active teenagers and about the very high rate of teenage pregnancy in the United States compared to other developed countries.

As their brains are still not fully developed, adolescents and young adults have difficulty predicting the consequences their actions will bring and thus often underestimate their risk for adverse consequences. Research into adolescents' sexual behavior in situations outside traditional dating situations, commonly referred to as hooking up, shows that adolescents underestimate the risk involved in such situations. With all the issues and problems relating to adolescent sex, "ideally, they [adolescents] won’t be having sex.".

Early sex poses a greater physical threat for girls than for boys. Adolescent girls are especially vulnerable to sexually transmitted infections.

Pregnancy

Main article: Teen pregnancy

Teen pregnancies—defined as pregnancies in women under the age of 20, regardless of marital status—in the United States decreased 28% between 1990 and 2000, from 117 pregnancies per every 1,000 teens to 84 per 1,000. Teenage birth rates peaked in 1991, when there were 61.8 births per 1,000 teens, and the rate dropped in 17 of the 19 years that followed. From 2009 to 2010, the teen pregnancy rate dropped 9%, the biggest one year drop since the 1940s.

Slightly more than half of Hispanic and black women will become pregnant before the age of 20. Asian-Americans have the lowest rate of pregnancy before the age of 20 of any ethnic group. Statistics also vary regionally. Several Southern states from New Mexico to Mississippi experienced rates of more than 50 births per 1,000 teenage girls. In New England, most states had less than 20 births per 1,000 girls.

One in four American women who had sex during their teenage years will have a baby before they are married, compared to only one in ten who wait until they are older. Even more will experience a pregnancy. Of women who have sex in their teens, nearly 30% will conceive a child before they are married. Conversely, only 15% of women who don't have sex in their teens will become pregnant before they are married. Of all women, 16% will be teen mothers.

International comparisons typically place US teen pregnancy and teen birth rates among the highest in the developed world. For example, a 2001 study by UNICEF found that the US teenage birth rate was the highest among 28 OECD nations in the review; in a 1999 comparison by the Guttmacher Institute, U.S. teen pregnancy and teen birth rates were the second-highest among the 46 developed countries studied. In 2002, the U.S. was rated 84th out of 170 World Health Organization member countries based on teenage fertility rate.

According to an international comparison by the Guttmacher Institute, teen pregnancy and childbearing levels are higher in the US largely because of differences in contraceptive use. Sexually active teens in the US are less likely to use any contraceptive method and especially less likely to use highly effective hormonal methods, primarily the pill, than their peers in other countries. The research also found that US teens who become pregnant are less likely to choose abortion, whether due to lack of access, higher levels of antiabortion sentiment, or greater acceptance of teen motherhood.

Sexually transmitted infections

Main articles: Sexually transmitted disease and Safe sex

Each year, between 8 and 10 million American teens contract a sexually transmitted disease. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, almost half of the 19 million sexually transmitted diseases reported in the U.S. occur in young people, ages 15 to 24. Lloyd Kolbe, director of the CDC's Adolescent and School Health program, called the STI problem "a serious epidemic." The younger an adolescent is when they first have any type of sexual relations, including oral sex, the more likely they are to get a STI.

Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control have noted that teenagers often don’t understand the risks associated with sexual activity. “Research suggests that adolescents perceive fewer health-related risks for oral sex compared with vaginal intercourse. However, young people, particularly those who have oral sex before their first vaginal intercourse, may still be placing themselves at risk of STIs or HIV before they are ever at risk of pregnancy." "Several studies have documented that oral sex can transmit certain STIs, including chlamydia, genital herpes, gonorrhea and syphilis. Teenagers and young adults engaging in sexual activity are at increased risk of STIs or HIV.”

A 2008 study by the CDC found that one in four teen girls, or an estimated 3 million girls, has an STI. The study of 838 girls who participated in a 2003–04 government health survey found the highest overall prevalence among black girls; nearly half in the study were infected. This is compared with 20% among both whites and Mexican-American teens. The same study found that, among those who were infected, 15% had more than one STI, and 20% of those who said they had only one sexual partner were infected.

In the CDC study, 4% were infected with chlamydia, historically the most prevalent of all STIs in the general population. More than a third of all chlamydia cases occur in those aged 15 to 19. Additionally, 2% were infected with herpes simplex. The herpes infection rate fell between 1988 and 2004 among teens as well as the overall population.

HPV

Human papillomavirus (HPV) is the most common STI among teens as well as adults. In the CDC study, 18% of teen girls were infected with HPV. Another study found that HPV infections account for about half of STIs detected among 15- to 24-year-olds each year. While HPV infections may not cause any disease, it can cause genital warts and cervical cancer.

An HPV vaccine protects women against some types of HPV, but not every type. Even after being vaccinated girls can still come down with HPV related cancers and genital warts. The vaccine is only effective before exposure to HPV. "One concern within the medical community is that the vaccination will provide a false sense of security."

Cancer

HPV, the most common STI, causes many types of cancer including oral cancer and cancer of the cervix, anus, and penis. In recent years there has been a huge surge in HPV-associated oral cancers. Between 1988 and 2004, HPV-associated oropharyngeal cancers rose 225%. "Oral sex is the primary culprit." The incidence of HPV-associated cancers that affect men is growing along with the cancers that affect women.

Psychological effects

For teens, "having sex changes you. It is emotionally powerful and there are risks involved." "Sex simply does not come without emotional strings for the majority of American adolescents, especially girls." "Overall, for either gender, teens who are not sexually active are markedly happier than those who are active." "Early sexual activity—whether in or out of a romantic relationship—does far more harm than good."

There is no data to suggest that sexually active teenagers actually exhibited better emotional health, happiness, heightened respect between genders, a more mature sense of responsibility, or an improved ability to make lasting, intimate relationships. "It's just not there--not in the survey data, the interviews, or other published studies."

Many teens "do a good deal of mental labor and normative affirmation" to convince themselves that sex during the teenage years is a good idea, despite it being "a period of relational instability and immaturity." "Arousal may come naturally during adolescent development, but sexual happiness does not."

Dr. Drew Pinsky has also said "All of us want young people to make better choices, to delay their sexual contact, to make sure that they fully understand the implications of those choices -- which of course, they never do." "Sex is far from a simple pleasure. The emotional pain that lingers after poor sexual decision making, at any age, is evidence of the complex morality inherent to human sexuality. The sexual human begs for something better and more lasting than hooking up or satiating a partner's will."

Relationships

Teens lack "secure and stable romantic relationships," and while this might not be necessary for satisfying sex, " it does make for emotional health and deeper sexual contentment." Most adults don't want anyone, especially teens, to have "sexual relationships laregely divorced from real intimacy, security, love, and commitment." Society, however, is "threatening to not only accept such half-baked relationships, but even encourage them." "Sex without security tend to damage people on the inside."

Production of oxytocin increases during the adolescent years, and it is key to monogamy and long-term attachment. Oxytocin is "nature's way of weaving people together." Girls have more of it and may be more sensitive to it. Psychologists theorize that oxytocin will make them care about relationships and feel connections with others more intensely than boys. This is "a logical explanation for why girls are in turmoil after a hook up and boys are not". Boys are more likely to compartmentalize moral claims about sex and less likely to understand sex as "optimally involving relational commitment."

Brain development

The earlier onset of puberty for children is putting pressure on children and teens to act like adults before they are emotionally or cognitively ready, and thus are at risk to suffer from emotional distress as a result of their sexual activities. While teens may be sexually mature, they are "in a constant state of emotional maturation and development."

Adolescents "often haven't achieved the emotional, even neurological, maturity necessary for making autonomous and self-aware sexual choices." Emotional, social and cognitive development continues well past adolescence. As the frontal lobe of the brain, which houses complex thinking, understanding cause and effect, controlling impulses, and judgment, is not fully developed until a person is in their 20s, "teens are less prepared to think about 'if I do this today, what will happen to me tomorrow?'"

With their still-developing brains, teens do not yet possess the ability to either fathom the physical and emotional consequences of sex or to deal with them once they happen. In one study, among those who had had both oral and vaginal sex, 60% reported at least one negative effect, such as feeling used, getting pregnant, contracting a sexually transmitted infection, or feeling bad about themselves.

Psychological problems and emotional distress

"We tend to focus on the health consequences of having sex, like pregnancy and STIs, but we also need to talk to [teens] about all the emotional consequences," experts say. Disease and illness related sexual activity is epidemic, but "the psychological outfall isn’t far behind." Having a first sexual encounter before 15 has been found to be correlated with higher rates of mental illness.

Sex for teens is not "without risk. It can take a toll on the soul, dehumanizing unsuspecting students who tumble too soon into the world of hooking up, not knowing enough about sex or themselves to avoid getting hurt." Despite "societal shifts in sexual standards, human development remains pretty much the same. Kids are still emotionally vulnerable and volatile – more so if they are sexually active".

Teens are not in the dark about sex itself, "they're in the dark about the implications of [sexual behavior]. They're in the dark about the emotional reality, they're in the dark about the biological reality, they're in denial about this thing that has become a drug in our culture, rather than an expression about intimate relations." He continued, "It's too far the other way: It's not that they don't know about it, they know everything, but at the same time, they know nothing. And that's the problem. So the human piece is left out, the human reality is taken away, it's all thought of very casually."

Researchers have found that cutting is linked to higher levels of risky sex among teenagers. "Habitual cutting is a way of managing intense emotional distress. It makes sense that the level of impulsivity and risk taking would also be higher in these teens." Cutting, even once, is "a warning sign that they are overwhelmed in some way."

Depression and suicide

Longitudinal research has shown "a significant association between teenage sexual abstinence and mental health." In a broad analysis of data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, researchers found that engaging in sex leaves adolescents, and especially girls, with higher levels of stress and depression. "Depression, anxiety and increased stress accompany the abuse of alcohol and drugs also observed in sexually promiscuous teens."

Research has found "a dramatic relationship" between sexual activity among adolescents and "multiple indicators of adolescent mental health. Risk for depression is "clearly elevated" for the sexually active of either gender. Boys who have had sex are more than 8 times as likely to attempt suicide (6%) as virgins (0.7%), and sexually active girls are almost three times as likely (14.1% versus 5.1%).

Compared to abstainers, membership in any of the risk clusters was associated with increased odds of depression, serious thoughts about suicide, and suicide attempts." Sexually active girls are more vulnerable to depression, suicidal ideation, and suicide attempt than sexually active boys, but there is little difference between boys and girls who are not sexually active.

“Teenage sexual activity routinely leads to emotional turmoil and psychological distress. [Sexual permissiveness leads] to empty relationships, to feelings of self-contempt and worthlessness. All, of course, precursors to depression.” Experts recommend that sexually active adolescents be screened for depression and be "provided with anticipatory guidance about the mental health risks of these behaviors." Experts recommend that parents and health professionals help teens prepare for and cope with the emotions attached to sex.

Casual sex

For teens, "sexual relationships have been decoupled. We don't speak of young Americans as having premarital sexual relationships; instead we say that they have premarital sex. Casual attitudes amongst adolescents toward sex and oral sex, in particular, "reflect their confusion about what is normal behavior."

When taking part in hookups, "the kids don't even look at each other. It's mechanical, dehumanizing." When speaking with researchers about their sex lives, most boys fail entirely to mention their partners' emotions, and "very few [boys] expressed concern about how his sexual partner felt." Especially among younger teenagers, casual sex is associated with depression. This impersonality is harmful to both girls and boys; however, girls are especially at risk of becoming victims in casual sexual relationships.

Studies show "what many teens come to find out on their own: Even if sexual activity seems casual, it often is not. A casual hookup on a Friday night might not feel that way a month down the road." When having casual sex teens are "pretending to say it's just sexual and nothing else. That's an arbitrary slicing up of the intimacy pie. It's not healthy." Depression, alcohol abuse, anorexia, and emotional disturbance can all afflict adolescents as a result.

When adolescents engage in casual sexual relationships, they proceed toward adulthood with a lack of understanding about intimacy. Experts worry that "if we are indeed headed as a culture to have a total disconnect between intimate sexual behavior and emotional connection, we're not forming the basis for healthy adult relationships." Physician Bernadine Healy states, "Both as doctor and mother, I can't help but believe that our anything-goes society, in which impulses are immediately satisfied and sex is divorced from love and bonding, is simply not healthy physically, emotionally, or spiritually."

Males and females experience sex differently. Males are more able to shrug off a one-night stand, but "girls are more confused afterward... and in general suffer a loss of self- esteem." When girls hook up they "don't count on... oxytocin, a chemical produced in the brain to promote feelings of connection and love. Oxytocin is most commonly associated with breast-feeding; it's what helps a mother bond with her infant."

Known as "cuddling hormone" or "hormone of love," oxytocin is also produced during sex, causing the partners to form emotional attachments with one another. "The more intense the sex, the more oxytocin." Males also get a bigger dose of testosterone, which suppresses the oxytocin." This is "a logical explanation for why girls are in turmoil after a hook up and boys are not".

Oral sex

Teens believe that oral sex is less risky to their emotional and physical well being than vaginal sex, but experts at the University of California do not believe this conclusion is warranted. They found that oral sex, as well as vaginal sex, was associated with negative consequences.

With regards to oral sex, it is almost always the boys who receive it and the girls who give it. When girls provide oral sex "they do so without pleasure, usually to please their boyfriend or to avoid the possibility of pregnancy." This paradigm has entitled boys and disempowered girls, putting girls at a disadvantage. Adolescents who engage in oral sex but not intercourse report fewer problems with sexually transmitted diseases, guilt, and their parents, but also less resulting pleasure, self-confidence or intimacy with their partners.

Of adolescents engaging in oral sex only, girls were twice as likely as boys to report feeling bad about themselves and nearly three times as likely to feel used. Boys who engaged in oral sex were more than twice as likely as girls to report feeling more popular and confident.

Psychological effects specific to girls

Girls are "at particular risk for experiencing negative social and emotional consequences of having any type of sex," including oral sex. "Early sex is a threat, and it remains a greater threat to girls than to boys." "Just because a girl has matured physically, doesn’t mean she’s socially or psychologically mature." Additionally, early sex poses a greater physical threat for girls than for boys. Adolescent girls are especially vulnerable to sexually transmitted infections.

Some research suggests that females are not biologically or evolutionary equipped to handle casual sex. Girls are more than twice as likely as boys to say they felt bad about themselves and more than three times as likely to say they felt used as a result of engaging in sex or hookups. The hormone oxytocin, released during sex, affects women differently than men, so that "when women think they can have sex and walk away just like guys do, they're having to suppress thousands of years of evolution that tells them to cuddle, stay in bed, and look forward to tomorrow. When they get up and walk out, they feel depressed and don't know why."

"Young teen girls who engage in sexual activity to win the approval of a boy may find themselves disappointed when the relationship ends and may be at odds with their own value system." The American Psychological Association task force in 2007 found that an early emphasis on sexuality stunts girls' development in other areas. "When kids are about defining themselves, if you give them this idea that sexy is the be-all and end-all, they drop other things."

Girls who participate in group sex are more likely to smoke cigarettes, get an STD, and be victims of dating violence.

Casual sex

In a study of casual sex among adolescents, many girls believed they could have a purely sexual experience with no emotional ties, and they believed it was sexist to assume otherwise. However, the study found that both the girls and the boys who were hooking up often really were depressed and didn't feel very good about themselves. "All the experts who talk about teen sexuality maintain that... it's impossible" for girls to enjoy meaningless sex as much as boys. Girls will "inevitably regret what they did." Girls "particularly are suffering from the new regime [i.e. casual sex] and are having some lasting problems" as a result of it.

When asked if girls and women really wanted casual sex as much as men did, Dr. Drew Pinsky said he had spoken to them "by the thousands" and that they absolutely did not. The only reason they engaged in it, he said, was because they thought it was what they need to do in order to get the guy. The current paradigm of casual sex has left females "ambivalent, unhappy and uncomfortable."

Regret, depression, and mental illness

While teens may believe that their sexual activities are fine at the time, they may feel very differently in time and regret the choices they made. Research shows that 2/3 of sexually active girls wish they had waited longer before having sex. Of seniors in high school, 74% of girls regret sexual experiences they have had. Girls are more than twice as likely as boys to say they felt bad about themselves and more than three times as likely to say they felt used as a result of engaging in sex.

For girls, even modest involvement in sexual experimentation elevates depression risk. Sexually active teenage girls are more than twice as likely to suffer depression compared to those who are not sexually active. More than 25% of sexually active girls are depressed all of the time, most of the time, or a lot of the time, but more than 60% of girls who are not sexually active are never depressed.

Sex therapists have found that the roots of sexual issues facing adults often date back to regretful teenage experiences. Research has also found that being abstinent in the teen years was associated with better mental health at age 29. Girls who were virgins at age 18 were also less likely to have a mental illness at age 40.

Dating violence

Main article: Teen dating violence

Girls who have engaged in sexual intercourse are five times more likely than their virgin peers to be the victim of dating violence. Girls who were intentionally hurt by a date in the past 12 months are at a "significantly elevated risk for a broad range of sexual health concerns and for pregnancy." Girls who have been victims are also twice as likely to report high levels of multiple sexual partners.

Effects on relationships

Teens are "in the dark about the implications of [sexual behavior]. They're in the dark about the emotional reality, they're in the dark about the biological reality, they're in denial about this thing that has become a drug in our culture, rather than an expression about intimate relations."

When engaging in sexual acts the body produces oxytocin, a chemical produced in the brain to promote feelings of connection and love. It is known as the "cuddling hormone" because it helps mothers bond with their babies. "The more intense the sex, the more oxytocin" is released. Research has found that it is released in both men and women after orgasm and it is key to monogamy and long-term attachment. Areas of the brain rich in oxytocin light up when people who have been in love for decades were shown a photo of their beloved.

Production of oxytocin increases during the adolescent years. For girls, who have more of it and are more sensitive to it, oxytocin will make them care about relationships and feel connections with others more intensely than boys. After an orgasm, women receive a "seriously intense surge" of oxytocin. That surge of oxytocin produces a strong connection to the boy for girls, so that is "a logical explanation for why girls are in turmoil after a hook up and boys are not".

Boys also get a dose of oxytocin, which can rise to as much as 500% of their normal levels, so when "a man ejaculates, he bonds utterly with" his partner. However, males also get a bigger dose of testosterone which overpowers the oxytocin.

When a male has sex and orgasms, he gets that hit of oxytocin that takes him to a level similar to hers, so he will exacerbate the problem by saying, "I love you you're the best." His oxytocin goes down in a couple of hours, as testosterone floods in and mitigates the oxytocin level. But she has this oxytocin that rages for days and days, and she thinks he's in love with her. I think that's why we have so much depression after these romantic and sexual breakups.

Middle school relationships

Students who date in middle school have significantly worse study skills, are four times more likely to drop out of school, and abuse alcohol, tobacco and marijuana twice as much as their single classmates. "At all points in time, teachers rated the students who reported the lowest frequency of dating as having the best study skills and the students with the highest dating as having the worst study skills." "A likely explanation for the worse educational performance of early daters is that these adolescents start dating early as part of an overall pattern of high-risk behaviors."

Teenage relationships

Even when teens are in a romantic relationship, sexual activities can become the focus of the relationship. Not only are such relationships less sustained, they are often not monogamous and they have lower levels of satisfaction than relationships that do not have sexual activities as their focus. The "early initiation into sexual behaviors is taking a toll on teens' mental health" with dependency on boyfriends and girlfriends, serious depression around breakups and cheating, and suffering from a lack of goals as possible results.

Adult relationships

When adolescents engage in casual sexual relationships they do not develop skills such as trust and communication that are key ingredients in healthy, long-lasting relationships. In purely sexual relationships, adolescents pick up "a lot of bad habits" and don't learn "to trust or share or know how to disagree and make up." They become jaded and as a result later in life, they have trouble forming adult relationships. "They don't learn to build that emotional intimacy before they get physically intimate. In the long term, that develops bad relationship habits."

Experts worry that when teens have sex before they're ready then they undervalue the experience and that leads to a cynical view later on. "[T]hey can develop a kind of negative attitude about life in general, that things aren't that special and they aren't that wonderful and what's the big deal about a lifelong commitment and a family commitment? They're disappointed, probably because they weren't mature enough to understand the meaning of it, and it's kind of made them kind of cold to the idea of commitment in other ways."

Those who lose their virginity in their 20s or later are more likely to find happiness in romantic relationships later in life than those who lose it during their teenage years. “Individuals who first navigate intimate relationships in young adulthood, after they have accrued cognitive and emotional maturity, may learn more effective relationship skills than individuals who first learn scripts for intimate relationships while they are still teenagers.”

When a man achieves orgasm his oxytocin levels can rise up to 500% of their normal levels. "When "a man ejaculates, he bonds utterly with" his partner. By the time a young man has reached his early twenties, his girlfriend or his wife will become his primary emotional caregiver. By having casual sex while he is younger, however, he will learn to suppress the natural bonding mechanism that comes with sex and oxytocin. If this happens, he may not be able to establish an emotional relationship with a woman, who does view sex as connected to intimacy, and will be more likely to become depressed, commit suicide, or die from illness.

Other effects

School work

The context of sexual relationships may determine whether the sex is harmful or not to a young person's GPA, as well as to their chances of dropping out of school. For teens, "sex outside of a romantic relationship may exacerbate the stress youths experience, contributing to problems in school." However, teen sex, on its own, is "not going to derail [students'] educational trajectories."

On the other hand students who hook up and have casual sexual encounters are more likely to do poorly in school and get lower grades. They also care less about school and get in more trouble. Boys who hook up have GPAs that are .3 lower than virgins and girls who have casual sex have GPAs that are .16 lower. They also get suspended or expelled more and had lower expectations of going to college.

All kids who have sex, even if they are in a relationship, are more likely to skip school or just drop out altogether. Additionally, adolescents who start having sex before they reach age 16 are much less likely to go to college.

Marriage

Women who first have sex as teenagers are much more likely to divorce, especially if their first time was unwanted or if they had mixed feelings about it. Among sexually active girls, two-thirds say they feel this way. Girls who lost their virginity before the age of 16 are also more likely to divorce than those who lose it later.

Of women who had sex for the first time as teens, 30% divorced within five years, and 47% divorced within 10 years of getting married. The divorce rate for women who delayed sex until adulthood was far lower: 15% at five years, and 27% at 10 years. "There are down sides to adolescent sexuality, including the increased likelihood of divorce," according to Anthony Paik, associate professor of sociology at the University of Iowa. Researchers believe "that the early sexual experience leads to the development of behaviors or beliefs that promote divorce."

Legal issues

Age of consent

Main article: Ages of consent in North America § United States

Each state has its own age of consent. Currently, state laws designate the age of consent as 16, 17, or 18. More than half of the states have designated 16 as the age limit). However, the five most populous states all have a higher age of consent (California: 18, Texas: 17, New York 17, Florida: 18 and Illinois: 17).

• age of consent 16: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Georgia, Hawaii, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia
• age of consent 17: Colorado, Illinois, Louisiana, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, Texas, Wyoming
• age of consent 18: Arizona, California, Delaware, Florida, Idaho, North Dakota, Oregon, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, Wisconsin.

Sexting

Main article: Sexting

More than one fifth of teens have sent sexually suggestive text messages or nude photographs of themselves online. Teens who photograph or film themselves or receive photos of others, known as sexting, can be charged with child pornography. Others who post the photos online could also be charged with child pornography and face prison time. Sexting can be considered sexual harassment.

Sexting is linked to psychological distress among teens. Those involved in sexting are more likely to report a suicide attempt, and have twice the odds of reporting depressive symptoms as students who aren't involved in sexting. "For girls who send the sexts... there is a disillusionment and a sense of betrayal when it's posted everywhere. When it gets forwarded to multiple boys at multiple schools and also other girls ... a girl starts getting called names and her reputation is ruined."

Boys who are victims of sexually predatory teenage girls can also be devastated. Sexually predatory girls will ask a boy, particularly a sexually naive boy, for photos, and "he's sort of flattered and he feels like a big guy and then she sends them around." It can cause lasting harm.

Often girls who take racy photos of themselves "want to be admired, want someone to want them." "A lot of them are lonely and starved for attention. A lot of girls think they have no choice but to pose in this way. And then there are the thrill seekers who do it because it's edgy and cool."

Experts say that sexting poses a serious problem, partly because teens do not understand that the images are permanent and can be spread quickly. “It does not click that what they’re doing is destructive, let alone illegal.” “Once they are out there, it spreads like a virus,” police say.

Pornography

Young people who viewed online pornography are 3.5 times as likely also to report clinical features of major depression. The pornography may have contributed to their depression. They were also much more likely to report substance abuse and other deviant behaviors. One study has found that teens want to be taught about "the huge emotional gap between porn and reality."

Online porn is more accessible than the offline variety, and it has different effects. Male users tends to distract men from their real life sexual partners. The strongest predictors of internet porn use are weak religious ties and the lack of a happy marriage. The more important religion is to a teen, the less likely they are to use pornography.

Exposure

Between the 3rd and 10th grades more than 90% of children will be exposed to pornography. A 2003 study found that 25% of youth were exposed to unwanted sexual content on the internet, and one in four of them were extremely upset by what they saw. "One wonders if the same would be true today, considering the numbness that tends to accompany heightened exposure." Adolescents are being exposed to sex, including alternative sexual practices, "more intensively at earlier ages than ever before."

Pornography as education

School based sex-ed is "rapidly being replaced as authoritative by uncensored and unchallenged sexual content on the Internet." For millions of youth, internet porn is their introduction to both sexual information and expression. "Pornography is "a cultural force that is shaping the sexual attitudes of an entire generation" and a "major form of sex ed today for boys; it's going to have dire consequences for the boys, for the girls, and for the culture."

Porn is "a central source of adolescents' information about the sexual practices of others. It's a poor source, no doubt, fraught with unreal accounts of hypersexuality, group sex, fetishes, and women who live only to sexually satisfy men. It does not reflect sexual reality." Some boys use pornography as instructional tools about proper sexual technique, a thought that "most girls would certainly loathe."

Internet pornography "is certainly the primary--and, for some, the only--sexual education that teenagers now receive." Exposure to porn makes acts "presumed to be both normative and mutually pleasurable." Exposure is so widespread that even classroom sex-ed "pales in significance and gravity." Even if kids don't watch internet porn themselves, they will still probably hear about it and be influenced by their friends and peers who do.

Effects on boys

"Many boys learn to assume that the things women do in porn--how they dress and act around men--is also how women are supposed to act in real life. These same boys are learning to expect girls their own age to act like the women in porn videos, too." Most internet pornography shows submissive women and aggressive men. The main themes of heterosexual pornography are that women always want sex from men, that women like all the sexual acts that men demand of them, and any woman who doesn't realize this at first can be persuaded with a little force. "As a result, some adolescent boys approach girls expecting them to be into anything and everything."

Most teenage boys look at porn, but don't admit to using it much. Many believe it is helpful for revealing pent up sexual tension and some feel guilty about using it. Most are embarrassed to admit it. They also don't talk to their friends about it, and don't believe that it affects them.

Effects on girls

While only 3% of girls claim to use internet pornography, "social media and Internet porn are influencing junior-high and high-school girls' understanding of sexiness. Girls are learning to use porn and porn archetypes to impress boys as early as middle school." "On top of the rise of Internet porn and the rest of the porn industry, there are other influences in society dedicated to teaching young girls that it's never too early to sex themselves up for the boys."

However, while it is "easy for a girl to know how to act sexy.. to feel sexy, to desire sex, is something most of these same "sexy girls" have never experienced." It is difficult to determine just how much "adolescent girls have actually internalized the unrealistic (and emotionally harmful) norms of pornography," but the evidence suggests that they are.

Outside influences

Media

Main article: Media and American adolescent sexuality

The American Academy of Pediatrics has argued that media representations of sexuality may influence teen sexual behavior, and this view is supported by many scholars,. Young teens who watch movies with more sexual content tend to become sexually active at an earlier age, and engage in riskier sexual behaviors.

The American media is the most sexually suggestive in the world. The sexual messages contained in film, television, and music are becoming more explicit in dialog, lyrics, and behavior. In addition, these messages contain unrealistic, inaccurate, and misleading information that young people accept as fact. In television programing aimed at teens, more than 90% of episodes had at least one sexual reference in it with an average of 7.9 references per hour.

In the media "non-ideal" losses of virginity are often portrayed in more pleasant or happier ways than they typical are in real life, but adolescents are less likely than adults to recognize that movie sex is unrealistic. The entertainment industry "is largely unconcerned with what real adolescents are doing. Movie and television producers opt to simulate youthful sexual expression and to glamorize emerging sexuality."

Only 3% of sex scenes on television involved apparent contraception use. “Few [films] showed contraceptive use or safe sexual practices. When safe sex is portrayed in films, it is often in comedies and is presented as an inconvenience or embarrassment. The motion picture industry could make an effort to show healthier, safer behaviors, just as they have reduced the amount of smoking shown in films. To minimize risky sexual behavior later in life, parents can restrict the amount of sexual content children view and educate them about the consequences of sexual behavior that are often left out of films.”

Some researchers have found a correlation between the amount of television with high sexual content that teenagers watch and an increased likelihood of them becoming pregnant or fathering a child out of wedlock. These researchers believe that reducing the amount of sexual content adolescents watch on television could substantially reduce the teen pregnancy rate.

However some scholars have argued that such claims have been premature. Furthermore, according to US government health statistics, teens have delayed the onset of sexual intercourse in recent years, despite increasingly amounts of sexual media.

Family

Teens who frequently did “things like eating dinner together as a family or engaging in fun activities or religious activities together” were less likely to have sex, had fewer sexual partners, and had less unprotected sex. One additional family activity per week reduces the likelihood of sexual activity by 9%. Family activities were "centrally important supports for children, providing opportunities for emotional warmth, communication, and transmission of values and beliefs.” However, "negative and psychologically controlling" parenting such as "criticizing the ideas of the adolescents, controlling and directing what they think and how they feel," increased the probability of adolescents having sex.

Girls who have positive relationships with their fathers wait longer before they have sex. Girls rely on their fathers attention until they transfer it to a boyfriend. Other research shows that kids whose fathers are involved report less sexual activity than on average, and less risky sexual behaviors when they do.

Girls who grew up in homes without their father are significantly more likely to have premarital sex than girls who are raised by both parents. In addition, teens who lived with stepparents or in a single-parent household had notably higher levels of risky sex behavior than did kids who lived in stable and biological-parent families. At a summit in Detroit on girls and sexual attitudes it was revealed that some "girls in that same age group [13–16] are 'dating' men as old as 30 because the men can give them things – love, money, presents – that their parents cannot."

In current times "Adults condone a variety of sexual misbehaviors, from harassment to assault" which can give a ones daughter or son the wrong idea about what is correct/acceptable and what is not when it comes to sex.

Friends

Both boys and girls feel pressure from their friends to have sex. The perception adolescents have of their best friends' sexual behavior has a significant association with their own sex behavior. Sexually active peers have a negative effect on adolescent sexual delay, however responsive parent-adolescent sex discussions can buffer these effects.

Adolescents who reported sexual activity had high levels of reputation-based popularity, but not likeability among peers; however, sex with more partners was associated with lower levels of popularity.

Sexual education

Main article: Sex education in the United States

Two main forms of sex education are taught in American schools: comprehensive and abstinence-only. Comprehensive sex education covers abstinence as a positive choice, but also teaches about contraception and avoidance of STIs when sexually active. A 2002 study conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that 58% of secondary school principals describe their sex education curriculum as comprehensive. The difference between these two approaches, and their impact on teen behavior, remains a controversial subject in the United States.

There have been numerous studies on the effectiveness of both approaches, and conflicting data on American public opinion. Public opinion polls conducted over the years have found that the majority of Americans favor broader sex education programs over those that teach only abstinence, although abstinence educators recently published poll data with the totally opposite conclusion. The poll sponsored by the National Abstinence Education Association and conducted by Zogby International found that:

When parents become aware of what abstinence education vs. comprehensive sex education actually teaches, support for abstinence programs jumps from 40% to 60%, while support for comprehensive programs drops from 50% to 30%. This sharp increase in support of abstinence education is seen across all political and economic groups. The majority of parents reject the so-called "comprehensive" sex education approach, which focuses on promoting and demonstrating contraceptive use. Sixty-six percent of parents think that the importance of the "wait to have sex" message ends up being lost when programs demonstrate and encourage the use of contraception.

Experts also encourage sex educators to include oral sex and emotional concerns as part of their curriculum. Their findings also support earlier studies that conclude

that sexual risk-taking should be considered from a dynamic relationship perspective, rather than solely from a traditional disease-model perspective. Prevention programs rarely discuss adolescents’ social and emotional concerns regarding sex.... Discussion about potential negative consequences, such as experiencing guilt or feeling used by one's partner, may lead some adolescents to delay the onset of sexual behavior until they feel more sure of the strength of their relationship with a partner and more comfortable with the idea of becoming sexually active. Identification of common negative social and emotional consequences of having sex may also be useful in screening for adolescents at risk of experiencing more-serious adverse outcomes after having sex.

Comprehensive

The National Association of School Psychologists, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Public Health Association, the Society for Adolescent Medicine and the American College Health Association, have all stated official support for comprehensive sex education. Comprehensive sex education curricula are intended to reduce sexually transmitted disease and out-of-wedlock or teenage pregnancies.

Proponents of this approach argue that sexual behavior after puberty is a given, and it is therefore crucial to provide information about the risks and how they can be minimized. They hold that abstinence-only sex ed and conservative moralizing will only alienate students and thus weaken the message.

A report issued by the Department of Health and Human Services has found the "most consistent and clear finding is that sex education does not cause adolescents to initiate sex when they would not otherwise have done so." The same report also found that:

Family life or sex education in the public schools, which traditionally has consisted largely of providing factual information at the secondary school level, is the most general or pervasive approach to preventing pregnancy among adolescents.... Adolescents who begin having sexual intercourse need to understand the importance of using an effective contraceptive every time they have sex. This requires convincing sexually active teens who have never used contraception to do so. In addition, sexually active teens who sometimes use contraceptives need to use them more consistently (every time they have sex) and use them correctly.

Abstinence-only

Main article: Abstinence-only sex education

Abstinence-only sex education tells teenagers that they should be sexually abstinent until marriage and does not provide information about contraception. In the Kaiser study, 34% of high-school principals said their school's main message was abstinence-only. Some Christian organizations advocate abstinence-only sex education because it is the only approach they find acceptable and in accordance with their churches' teachings.

Some organizations promote what they consider to be "sexual purity", which encompasses abstaining from not only intercourse before marriage, but also from sexual thoughts, sexual touching, pornography, and actions that are known to lead to sexual arousal. Advocates of abstinence-only sex education object to comprehensive curricula which fail to teach moral behavior; they maintain that curricula should promote conventional (or conservative) morality as healthy and constructive, and that value-free knowledge of the body may lead to immoral, unhealthy and harmful practices.

A comprehensive review of 115 program evaluations published in November 2007 by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy found that two-thirds of sex education programs focusing on both abstinence and contraception had a positive effect on teen sexual behavior. The same study found no strong evidence that programs that stress abstinence as the only acceptable behavior for unmarried teens delayed the initiation of sex, hastened the return to abstinence, or reduced the number of sexual partners. According to the study author:

"Even though there does not exist strong evidence that any particular abstinence program is effective at delaying sex or reducing sexual behavior, one should not conclude that all abstinence programs are ineffective. After all, programs are diverse, fewer than 10 rigorous studies of these programs have been carried out, and studies of two programs have provided modestly encouraging results. In sum, studies of abstinence programs have not produced sufficient evidence to justify their widespread dissemination."

From parents

"It is widely believed" that teens today know more about sex than their parents did at their age, but research has found that while their "vocabulary of sexual physiology may be astute, their wisdom often ends there--knowledge of words without an understanding of what sex entails both physically and emotionally." Most studies of teens knowledge about sex and related topics find their knowledge level is quite low.

Dr Drew wants to make one thing "clear to parents out there. It is OK to tell your kids not to have sex. And I would encourage you to do so. Delaying is the goal here." When parents don't talk to their children about sex it is "at best foolish and potentially harmful to the the development of a healthy sexuality, and at worst maddeningly irresponsible as we enter an era of the Internet-as-sex-educator." The media, and peers will fill in as sex educators if parents do not.

Parents think they teach their kids much more about sex than their children think they do. One study found that 72% of mothers said they talked to their kids about sex, but only 45% of their children agreed. Of parents who regularly attend church, 48% say they talk "a great deal" about the moral issues relating to sex, compared to 29% of parents who never attend church.

Parents are more likely to shape their children's attitudes and beliefs about sex than they are about their knowledge about sex. Teens prefer their parents to their peers for information, and say that parents have the greatest influence on their sexual decision making.

Parents who do not talk about sex with their teenagers about sex, or having a conversation that is not handled well, "can cause long-term damage." Multiple studies show that teens tend to evaluate the silence negatively, causing both "pain and resentment" both in the short term and then later in adulthood.

Most teens (70%) say they have gotten some or a lot of information about sex and sexual relationships from their parents. Other sources of information include friends at 53%, school, also at 53%, TV and movies at 51% and magazines at 34%. School and magazines were sources of information for more girls than boys, and teens "who were sexually active were much more likely to say they got information about sex from their friends and partners."

About 50% of boys have said they talked to a parent about sex, compared to 85% of girls. Parents are also much more likely to talk to girls about "the emotional impact of sex, the potential loss of respect, and the virtues of virginity." Less than half of parents with daughters under 18 talk to their girls about how to say no to boys, and about half talk to them about contraception. While 78% of parents believe that their daughters can talk to them about any topic, only 54% of girls believe they can discuss any topic with them.

Extracurricular activities

Girls who participate in athletics, artistic, or academic extracurricular activities are less likely to be sexually active than girls who don't participate in any. Female athletes have "significantly fewer sex partners, engaged in less frequent intercourse... and began having sex at a later age." For boys, those who participate in sports are slightly more likely to be sexually active, and those who are in artistic activities are considerably less likely.

Religion

Religious adolescents lose their virginity 3 years later than the average American. On average, those with strong religious backgrounds become sexually active at age 21. Many studies have found an inverse relationship between religiosity and high-risk adolescent behaviors, including sexual activity. Religion and family support can provide a positive model for adolescents.

On the other hand, violating a community's religious norms can evoke feelings of guilt, shame, and fear, and may provoke social sanctions from the community, including formal rebukes from clergy, as well as gossip, ridicule, and ostracism from peers. Avoidance of these consequences encourages conformity and abstinence in adolescents. Because of this form of social control, religious adolescents who do engage in sexual activity may experience increased cognitive dissonance and psychological distress.

The inverse relationship between religiosity and high-risk behaviors in adolescents can in part be attributed to sexually active religious teens attempting reduce cognitive dissonance in one of two ways: either by reducing their sexual activity or by altering their religious beliefs to reduce conflict with their behavior. This therefore serves as a self-selection bias, where those more involved in religious communities may be those who are more risk-averse and comfortable with social control."

Despite the rich teachings many faiths have on sex, "the only sexual message most religious youth are getting is, 'Don't do it until you're married.' And this message doesn't go far at all toward shaping sexual decision making."

Sexual minorities

Among American teenagers, 2% of girls identify as lesbian while 1% of boys identify as gay. Experimenting with bisexuality is more common with girls than with boys, although this diminishes by early adulthood. Of 15 to 19 year old girls, 6.4% identify as bisexual. By the time they are 20-24 years old only 3.5% identify that way, and a mere 2% of 35-44 year olds will. No similar pattern exist for men. While 10.7% of girls say they have had some sort of same-sex sexual relations, only 4.3% of boys say the same.

According to a study based on a sampling of teenagers in Massachusetts, sexual minority youth, that is, those who identify as gay, lesbian, or bisexual or had any same-sex sexual contact in their lifetimes, were significantly more likely than other students to report lifetime sexual intercourse (72% vs. 44%). The same study found that sexual minority youth were more likely to report sexual intercourse before age 13 (18% vs. 4%), sexual intercourse with four or more partners in their lifetimes (32% vs. 11%), and recent sexual intercourse (55% vs. 33%).

Among students in the Massachusetts study who ever had sexual intercourse in their lifetimes, sexual minority youth were significantly more likely than other students to report "having been or gotten someone pregnant (15% vs. 4%) and having been diagnosed with HIV or another STI (10% vs. 5%)." Several studies have found that gay youths are represented disproportionately among adolescents who drop out of school, run away from home, abuse alcohol and other drugs, engage in prostitution, or attempt, contemplate and successfully commit suicide.

The less religious a teen is, the more likely they are to report some sort of same-sex experience, either an attraction, sexual encounter, or bisexual identity. There is a marked difference in responses based on religiosity with 27% of non-religious girls saying they are at least sometimes attracted to other girls, compared with only 8% of the most religious girls. 19% of the least religious girls have had same-sex relations, but only 7% of more religious girls have.

It is also true for boys that increased religiosity decreases the amount of reported same sex attraction or experiences. "There is simply very little evidence of same-sex anything among the most religious boys. Not a single 15- to 19-year-old boy in the [National Survey of Family Growth] who reported attending church more than once a week self-identified as a homosexual." The less religious are far more likely to experience a same sex outcome of any type. Youth who identify as something other than heterosexual probably actively avoid religious participation; it isn't that religion makes them straight.

Most teens believe that being gay is "not normal and is either against the Bible, nature, or both," yet they have gay friends and wish to continue being friends with them, and don't think people should be judged because they are gay.

See also

• Adolescent sexuality in Canada
• Rates of teenage pregnancy
• Teenage pregnancy
• Teenage pregnancy and sexual health in the United Kingdom
• Adolescent sexuality

Works cited

• Regnerus, Mark (2007). Forbidden Fruit: Sex & Religion in the Lives of American Teenagers. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0195320947.

External links

• "The International Encyclopedia of Sexuality: United States of America" (sections 4B, 5B, and 6A cover adolescent sexuality).

Category:Adolescence Category:Teenage pregnancy Category:American culture Category:Sexuality and age Category:Sexuality in the United States