Why Do Teens Have Sex?

Posted on January 25th, 2008 by olga

At the same time as a current study proposed sexy media images might be to blame, a new study demonstrates kids might as well be motivated by relationship goals like intimacy and social status.
Teens want their relationships to bring them intimacy, social status, and sexual enjoyment — and they have a strong expectation these aims will be fulfilled if they have sex, in accordance with a recent report of Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health. The report says these perceived profits should be judged along with the risks (sexually transmitted diseases, pregnancy) when developing programs aimed at preventing early teen sex.
Mary Ott, MD, from Indiana University, along with colleagues from the University of California, San Francisco, required to find out why young teens want — or would want — to have sex (defined in this study as male-female contact). They reviewed 637 ninth-graders in two socioeconomically- and ethnically-diverse Northern California schools.
Gender Differences
-Approximately 57 percent of the kids were girls, 43 percent boys, and the majority was 14 years old.
-The investigators found the boys and girls respected relationship aims in a different way:
-Girls believed intimacy considerably more chief than boys did.
-Boys reported higher hopes that sex would make possible pleasure and social status.
Of the teens who replied a question about sexual practice, 13 percent said they had had sex. The experienced teens regarded as intimacy and sexual pleasure considerably more significant as a relationship aim than the inexperienced teens did.
As for social status, sexually experienced girls saw less importance in that than inexperienced girls did. There was no dissimilarity of judgment about social status among experienced and inexperienced boys.
The investigators say this maintains the double standard that sex recovers the social status of boys but puts in danger it for girls.
In general, teens supposed sex to help them achieve aims of intimacy, pleasure, and social status. On the other hand, girls and sexually inexperienced teens had lower hopes.
Prevention Tactics
The investigators say programs to persuade against early teen sex typically focus on the pessimistic — the dangers of STDs and pregnancy. Teens might pay attention to the message better, they say, if the positive expectations — “developing a sense of intimacy, achieving social skills and aims, and experiencing sexual pleasure” — are known and alternative ways to get those aims proposed.