No sex please, we're American (teens)

[Gob]

Fewer teens and young adults are having sex, a government survey shows, and theories abound for why they're doing it less. Experts say this generation may be more cautious than their predecessors, more aware of sexually spread diseases. Or perhaps emphasis on abstinence in the past decade has had some influence.

Or maybe they're just too busy.

"It's not even on my radar," said 17-year-old Illinois resident Abbey King, a competitive swimmer who starts her day at 5 am and falls into bed at 10:30 pm after swimming, school, weight lifting, running, more swimming, homework and a volunteer gig working with service dogs for the disabled.

Advertisement: Story continues below The study, released Thursday, is based on interviews of about 5300 young people, ages 15 to 24. It shows the proportion in that age group who said they'd never had oral, vaginal or anal sex rose in the past decade from 22 per cent to about 28 per cent.

The findings are sure to surprise some parents who see skin and lust in the media and worry that sex is rampant.

"Many parents and adults look at teens and sex and see nothing but a blur of bare midriffs. They think things are terrible and getting worse," said Bill Albert, chief program officer for the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy.

There are other surveys of sexual behavior, but this is considered the largest and most reliable. "It's the gold standard," Albert said.

Health scientist Anjani Chandra of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention described the decline in sex as small but significant. She declined to speculate on the reasons. It's difficult to look for a trend earlier than 2002 because previous surveys did not gather as much detail about various types of sex, she added.

However, data over the years on vaginal intercourse among never-married adolescents shows a steady decline since 1988. That seems to be in sync with other CDC studies showing an overall drop in teen pregnancy.

http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/lifemat ... 1bhgx.html

Now if we can get the UK interested....

[Gimcrack]

I don't know how much I agree with that report. In TheKids' circle of girl friends...of the closest 12, only two are virgins. One due to lack of opportunity, one due to religious beliefs. None of these kids are what you would consider 'fast' - almost all are International Baccalaureate students, have strong outside interests (mostly music of some sort), and none are the usual teenaged partiers. They spend their Friday nights watching horror movies, getting stoned, and doing the horizontal mambo with guys in their circle, not necessarily 'boyfriends'.

TheKid isn't driven snow, but she has reconsidered her opinions towards sex due to seeing many students get a STD and/or pregnant. Of the 10 active friends, I know three have had pregnancy scares in the past 6 months, and one is due to give birth any day. This is with contraceptives available in the nurse's office, with a free clinic less than a mile away, with considerable education provided by the schools (maybe not so much the parents).