Risking the Future Adolescent Sexuality, Pregnancy, and Childbearing, Volume II: Working Papers and Statistical Appendices (1987) / Chapter Skim
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1 Factors Affecting Initiation of Sexual Intercourse
1 Factors Affecting Initiation of Sexual Intercourse
Pages 7-35
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From page 7... ...
This was not only due to the difficulty of obtaining information on sexual behavior, but also to the assumption that intercourse takes place primarily within marriage. However, recently the study of sexual intercourse itself has taken on more importance.
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BACKGROUND According to a nationally representative sample of women in 1982, 43 percent of never married women 15 to 19 said they had had sexual intercourse Pratt et al., 1984~. The proportion of all never married teens who report being sexually experienced rises from a low of 18 percent for 15 year olds to 66 percent for 19 year olds.
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According to 1979 data from a national sample, about half of all females who have had sexual intercourse have had only one partner (Table 1.81. Although a smaller proportion of blacks (41 percent)
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One issue of importance is the extent to which initiation of sexual intercourse is voluntary or involuntary, such as a result of rape or incest. This is especially important for the very youngest teens.
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Probably the most important influence on children is their family of origin. There are many aspects to the family that could affect sexual behavior: 1)
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13 Modeling. Children appear to learn the behavior of models without actual rewards and punishments.
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Individual opportunities for sexual intercourse may be limited indirectly as well. Degree of physical attractiveness or social maturity may limit the ability of a youth to attract a potential partner.
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In a model of sexual intercourse and masturbation for white males which included age, pubertal development (Tanner Scale) and level of serum androgenic hormones, only the hormonal influences {particularly free testosterone)
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A recent study (Jones et al., 1985) examined data for five countries (Canada, England and Wales, France, Netherlands and Sweden and found that at similar ages rates of sexual intercourse, among women are somewhat higher in Sweden than in the United States, quite similar in France, the Netherlands, England and Wales, and among older Canadians, but slightly lower among Canadian women in their early teens.
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For white females, the greater the religiosity of the community, the lower the divorce rate and the lower the proportion of the civilian labor force female the lower the proportion sexually experienced. For black females, the greater the proportion of Spanish heritage, the younger the age of the conununity and the lower the crime rate the lower the proportion reporting sexual experience.
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. The chances that a young black woman living in a poverty area of Chicago would have had sexual intercourse was twice as high as that of a young black woman living elsewhere in the city.
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Thus a larger part of the sexual activity among Hispanic teens than non-Hispanic is postmarital. Comparing never married teens only, Hispanic teen women are least likely to be sexually active -- 37 percent, compared with 39 percent of non-Hispanic white {and other)
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The authors found a strong association between attending a segregated school and the number of friends the respondent reported had had sexual intercourse and between the number of friends reported to have had sexual intercourse and whether the respondent had intercourse. Blacks in segregated schools were more likely and whites less likely to have had sex.
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For those who view with their parents, greater television viewing is associated with much lower level of sexual experience. However, the authors conclude that they find no strong or consistent evidence for a link between the quantity and content of television viewing and the initiation of sexual activity.
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In contrast, the proportion who reported having had sexual intercourse had leveled off for black women between 1976 and 1979; between 1979 and 1982 the proportion of black never married teens in metropolitan areas who reported that they had experienced their sexual debut declined slightly to 53 percent {Table 1.21. The difference between the sexual experience of white and black females appears to have declined slightly over time.
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It does not do that anywhere. In 1982 78 percent of unmarried black 19 year old females reported that they had had sexual intercourse.
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found no relationship between the education of the mother and whether her daughter had initiated sexual intercourse. These researchers, who studied black females in Chicago, controlled for being in a poverty area of the city, which might explain why mother's education had no additional effect.
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Another study found that, in contrast to the results for girls, boys were more likely to inititate sexual intercourse following a change in maternal marital status (Newcomer and Udry, 1983)
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The same researchers also found that having a sister who is a teenager mother was associated with a significantly higher rate of initial sexual intercourse among black females 13 to 19 in 1979 (Hogan and Kitagawa, 1985~. This result is supported by a recent study which found that teenagers with pregnant sisters are themselves at increased risk of pregnancy (Friede et al., 1985)
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As a result peer influence may have been heavily overrated as a source of increased sexual activity among teenagers, particularly among blacks and among white males {Chilman, 1983; Billy and Udry, 1985b,c)
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shows that children are often challenged by "dares" from peers to engage in risk-taking behavior, and about one-third of older children actually did what they were dared to do. Among 7th and 8th graders, boys were dared to perform acts of vandalism or violence while girls were dared to engage in various sexual acts, ranging from a kiss to sexual intercourse.
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Sexual intercourse occurs early in the sequence. It is followed by petting and other sexual behaviors earlier in the scale for whites (Smith and Udry, 1985~.
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The researchers found several personality measures associated with early onset of sexual intercourse. In particular, men and women who placed a higher value on and expectation for independence and a lower value on and expectation for academic achievement, who were more socially critical, more tolerant of deviance and less religious experienced intercourse earlier than their peers.
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Other researchers who have found high educational expectations to be associated with a lower probability of initiating sexual intercourse early include Devaney and Hubley {1981) , Hogan and Kitagawa, (1985)
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Billy (1984) hypothesized two mechanisms whereby community level factors affect adolescent sexual involvement: through a normative structure defining boundaries of permissable sexual behavior and 2)
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Sexual intercourse is a normal adult activity. Where it fits in the human developmental process has not been , adequately researched.
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Black and white females do not differ in SEU for sex. These results certainly make intuitive sense and fit with data that show black males with the highest and all females with the lowest proportion sexually experienced.
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(1984) found that for white but not black females age 15 to 16 in 1981, there was no different in sexual experience between those whose mother was employed and those whose mother was not employed.
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