Boys and Sex: And the survey says...
Are teen boys going to have sex? Are ALL teen boys having sex? Answers in a new survey may surprise readers.
What boys think about sex can be found in a 2010 survey conducted for Seventeen Magazine in conjunction with The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy.
February 12 is National Purity Day, a teen movement now in its seventh year, and an appropriate time to look at some of these survey results.
In “That's What He Said: What Guys Think About Sex, Love, Contraception, and Relationships,” 1200 online interviews were conducted by TRU with teen boys and young men ages 15-22.
P. 3: (page numbers not counting the cover)
• Over three-quarters (78%) stated there is too much pressure from society to have sex (this could be due to findings on p.7 that guys are influenced by pornographic images and sex education).
P. 4:
Bad news:
• More than half (57%) of those who have had sex admit they’ve had unprotected sex.
• Nearly one-third (30%) say they would have sex even if there was no condom handy.
• Three out of ten (19% of the younger, 35% of the older) say they've had sex with a girl whom they knew was drunk.
• One in six (17%) say they wait for their partner to insist on using protection.
• 15% don’t know that condoms aren’t foolproof.
Good news:
• 23% have lied about not being virgins when they actually were! Of the 60% who admit they’ve lied about having sex:
• 44% lied to appear more sexually experienced; 39% say they lied to appear “cooler.”
• Seven out of ten (71%) say that a girl who has “sexted” (sent nude or semi-nude photos of herself via cell phone or internet) is not girlfriend material. See this blog site’s previous post on “sexting.”
P. 7:
•542 of those surveyed were virgins! That’s the best news on boys and sex in a while - and surprising, with all the encouragement on television and in movies to just go ahead and do it.
4 comments:
Sounds like mixed results. Good for those 542. I'm sure the peer pressure is intense.
This is encouraging news. I wish "Hollyweird" would see that they're sending the WRONG message to our youth.
Very good statistics. Are these based on all types of backgrounds and beliefs?
Hi Katy, thanks for asking. These appear to be at-random on line interviews, not religiously related. Page 7 of the study gives some percentages of the boys' backgrounds. http://www.thenationalcampaign.org/resources/pdf/pubs/ThatsWhatHeSaid.pdf