Kids Less Sexually Active Than People Think

Contrary to popular belief, the vast majority of young American adolescents are not sexually active, researchers from the Guttmacher Institute reported in the journalPediatrics.

The authors explained that things change when adolescents reach the ages of 16 to 18.

Lawrence B Finer and Jesse M Philbin gathered and examined newly available public data on sexual initiation, contraceptive use and pregnancy among American adolescents from the 2006-2010 National Survey of Family Growth, issued by the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics. The data involved children and teenagers aged from 10 to 19 years.

They found that very few boys and girls had sex before the age of 13 years. According to their study, the following shows the percentages of young adolescents who had had sex:

• 0.6% of 10-year olds
• 1.1% of 11-year olds
• 2.4% of 12-year olds

They added that the percentage of girls aged up to 12 years who became pregnant was "miniscule".

Adolescence is a time of rapid change

By the time children reached the second half of their teenage years, things started changing rapidly.

• 33% of 16-year-olds were sexually active
• 48% had become sexually active by the age of 17
• 61% at 18 years
• 71% at 19 years

These percentages and ages - when things change - have prevailed for several decades, the researchers found. Low sexual activity during the early years of adolescence has been the norm for a long time, while losing their virginity has been, and remains, a normal part of a teenager's development process.

However, the authors observed that more recently, teenagers appear to be waiting longer to become sexually active. The likelihood of being sexually active at any teenage year is currently the lowest it has been for the last twenty-five years.

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