hanneblank (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} hanneblank) wrote,@ 2005-07-15 20:19:00 |
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A Basket of Data, Having Spent All Week Shaking the Statistical Trees
I've spent the majority of this week looking over surveys and reports of behavioral research dealing with sexuality, and specifically dealing with virginity and virginity loss. I would estimate that I've gone through six hundred pages of written material, give or take a bit. I've examined statistics from the USA, Canada, Ireland, the UK, Finland, France, and Germany, and from the 1950s to the present.
Here's what we know, in a rough outline, about virginity loss (NB: when "virginity loss" is defined as "first experience of penis-in-vagina heterosexual intercourse) in the industrialized West, with an emphasis on the USA (since that is where the lion's share of the available researches have been carried out):
-- A relatively small proportion of people experience sexual debut prior to the age of 15, but percentages vary distinctly by population. Males are more likely to have intercourse prior to age 15 than females. In the USA, African-Americans of both sexes are disproportionately represented in this group, with males outnumbering females handily. Both in the USA and elsewhere, girls and boys from poorer families are more likely to experience earlier sexual debut than those from wealthier ones.
-- Socioeconomic status of families is directly linked to age at virginity loss in general. The higher the family's socioeconomic status, the more likely the daughters of those families are to lose their virginity relatively late. Males of high socioeconomic status families, however, are not likely to have a delayed sexual debut, but it is also not necessarily likely to be earlier than the average.
-- The vast majority of people lose their virginity somewhere between the ages of 16 and 20. There are some local variants on the average age, for example, in Ireland, the average age for women to lose their virginity hovers around 19, while in the USA, it hovers around 17.
-- About 50% of US high school graduates have had sex at some point prior to finishing high school. This rate hasn't changed substantially since the early 1980s -- it has hovered between 50 and 55% since 1984, depending on what survey one consults.
-- More of the US under-20 population, percentagewise, was sexually active in the 1950s than is sexually active today in the same age group. The difference? Marriage. During the decade 1950-1959, the United States had the highest 20-and-under marriage rate in the West. Since 1960, however, the average age of first marriage has gone up and the number of under-20 marriages have gone down, as well as the overall rate of marriage declining by close to 10%. Whereas in 1960, the average age of marriage for first-time brides was 20, it is now 26; for grooms it has gone from 23 to 27. In short, the ages at which people begin having sex haven't necessarily changed, but the ages at which they are likely to marry (if they marry at all) have changed quite a bit. It is now common for there to be a gap between the two, whereas 45 years ago, that gap was far less commonplace.
-- As of 2004, it is estimated that throughout the industrialized West, approximately 90% of heterosexuals who do marry will have experienced penis-in-vagina intercourse prior to their marriages. This appears to hold true across all demographics.
-- Women whose first experiences of penis-in-vagina intercourse happen before they are 15 are substantially more likely to have sexual partners who are 5 or more years older than they are. They are also substantially more likely to describe their first experiences of sex as being coercive. Their first sexual experiences are less likely to involve the use of contraception or safer sex practices than are the first sexual experiences of women who lose their virginity at fifteen or older. Women who lose their virginity before age 15 are at higher risk of unplanned pregnancy or STD infection. Women who lose their virginity before age 15 are disproportionately likely to be non-white and to come from families with low socioeconomic status. Some researchers also claim that women who lose their virginity before age 15 are considerably more likely to have experienced a history of physical, emotional, or sexual abuse.
-- The role of self-esteem as a predictor of age at virginity loss is still under debate. The research currently leans toward a predictive model that suggests that for females, higher self-esteem is linked to later virginity loss, while higher self-esteem for males is linked to earlier virginity loss.
-- Teenagers surveyed about their sense of their sexual competence and sexual experience in comparison to their peers described themselves as being "behind the curve" or having less experience/competence than their peers the vast majority (80-85%) of the time. This is true regardless of whether or not they actually are less experienced than their peers. Only 10-15% of adolescents voluntarily characterized themselves as being more experienced than their peers. This suggests that adolescents tend to have exaggerated ideas about what other people are doing sexually, and very little actual knowledge of their peers' sexual realities. Some researchers suggest that this may just be because (gasp! say it isn't so!) teenagers often lie to one another about their sexual experience in order to seem more experienced or competent than they actually are.
-- Having lost one's virginity is no guarantee of ongoing sexual activity. Adolescents who are sexually active are not always consistently or frequently sexually active. Surveys of post-virginity-loss sexual activity among adolescent men often show that adolescent men are engaging in sexual activities with partners relatively rarely: one study showed an average of only ten times a year amongst its "sexually active" 15-19-year-old subject group.
-- A sizeable proportion of adolescents (some studies have seen rates as high as 55%) deliberately decide to delay losing their virginity at some point in their adolescence without the involvement of "virginity pledges" or "abstinence pledges." This may take the form of blanket decisions – "I plan to wait until [I am a certain age / a certain date / marriage / other projected time]" – or may simply take the informal, circumstantial path of turning down individual opportunities to engage in sex as those opportunities present themselves, until such time as they feel that the opportunity, partner, or occasion is the "right one."
There's more, natch, but these are the highlights of what's shaken down out of my research this week that's been particularly interesting and noteworthy to me.
-- Hanne
I've spent the majority of this week looking over surveys and reports of behavioral research dealing with sexuality, and specifically dealing with virginity and virginity loss. I would estimate that I've gone through six hundred pages of written material, give or take a bit. I've examined statistics from the USA, Canada, Ireland, the UK, Finland, France, and Germany, and from the 1950s to the present.
Here's what we know, in a rough outline, about virginity loss (NB: when "virginity loss" is defined as "first experience of penis-in-vagina heterosexual intercourse) in the industrialized West, with an emphasis on the USA (since that is where the lion's share of the available researches have been carried out):
-- A relatively small proportion of people experience sexual debut prior to the age of 15, but percentages vary distinctly by population. Males are more likely to have intercourse prior to age 15 than females. In the USA, African-Americans of both sexes are disproportionately represented in this group, with males outnumbering females handily. Both in the USA and elsewhere, girls and boys from poorer families are more likely to experience earlier sexual debut than those from wealthier ones.
-- Socioeconomic status of families is directly linked to age at virginity loss in general. The higher the family's socioeconomic status, the more likely the daughters of those families are to lose their virginity relatively late. Males of high socioeconomic status families, however, are not likely to have a delayed sexual debut, but it is also not necessarily likely to be earlier than the average.
-- The vast majority of people lose their virginity somewhere between the ages of 16 and 20. There are some local variants on the average age, for example, in Ireland, the average age for women to lose their virginity hovers around 19, while in the USA, it hovers around 17.
-- About 50% of US high school graduates have had sex at some point prior to finishing high school. This rate hasn't changed substantially since the early 1980s -- it has hovered between 50 and 55% since 1984, depending on what survey one consults.
-- More of the US under-20 population, percentagewise, was sexually active in the 1950s than is sexually active today in the same age group. The difference? Marriage. During the decade 1950-1959, the United States had the highest 20-and-under marriage rate in the West. Since 1960, however, the average age of first marriage has gone up and the number of under-20 marriages have gone down, as well as the overall rate of marriage declining by close to 10%. Whereas in 1960, the average age of marriage for first-time brides was 20, it is now 26; for grooms it has gone from 23 to 27. In short, the ages at which people begin having sex haven't necessarily changed, but the ages at which they are likely to marry (if they marry at all) have changed quite a bit. It is now common for there to be a gap between the two, whereas 45 years ago, that gap was far less commonplace.
-- As of 2004, it is estimated that throughout the industrialized West, approximately 90% of heterosexuals who do marry will have experienced penis-in-vagina intercourse prior to their marriages. This appears to hold true across all demographics.
-- Women whose first experiences of penis-in-vagina intercourse happen before they are 15 are substantially more likely to have sexual partners who are 5 or more years older than they are. They are also substantially more likely to describe their first experiences of sex as being coercive. Their first sexual experiences are less likely to involve the use of contraception or safer sex practices than are the first sexual experiences of women who lose their virginity at fifteen or older. Women who lose their virginity before age 15 are at higher risk of unplanned pregnancy or STD infection. Women who lose their virginity before age 15 are disproportionately likely to be non-white and to come from families with low socioeconomic status. Some researchers also claim that women who lose their virginity before age 15 are considerably more likely to have experienced a history of physical, emotional, or sexual abuse.
-- The role of self-esteem as a predictor of age at virginity loss is still under debate. The research currently leans toward a predictive model that suggests that for females, higher self-esteem is linked to later virginity loss, while higher self-esteem for males is linked to earlier virginity loss.
-- Teenagers surveyed about their sense of their sexual competence and sexual experience in comparison to their peers described themselves as being "behind the curve" or having less experience/competence than their peers the vast majority (80-85%) of the time. This is true regardless of whether or not they actually are less experienced than their peers. Only 10-15% of adolescents voluntarily characterized themselves as being more experienced than their peers. This suggests that adolescents tend to have exaggerated ideas about what other people are doing sexually, and very little actual knowledge of their peers' sexual realities. Some researchers suggest that this may just be because (gasp! say it isn't so!) teenagers often lie to one another about their sexual experience in order to seem more experienced or competent than they actually are.
-- Having lost one's virginity is no guarantee of ongoing sexual activity. Adolescents who are sexually active are not always consistently or frequently sexually active. Surveys of post-virginity-loss sexual activity among adolescent men often show that adolescent men are engaging in sexual activities with partners relatively rarely: one study showed an average of only ten times a year amongst its "sexually active" 15-19-year-old subject group.
-- A sizeable proportion of adolescents (some studies have seen rates as high as 55%) deliberately decide to delay losing their virginity at some point in their adolescence without the involvement of "virginity pledges" or "abstinence pledges." This may take the form of blanket decisions – "I plan to wait until [I am a certain age / a certain date / marriage / other projected time]" – or may simply take the informal, circumstantial path of turning down individual opportunities to engage in sex as those opportunities present themselves, until such time as they feel that the opportunity, partner, or occasion is the "right one."
There's more, natch, but these are the highlights of what's shaken down out of my research this week that's been particularly interesting and noteworthy to me.
-- Hanne
