Teens more savvy about safe sex than 8 years ago

Teens appear to be more safe-sex savvy than they were eight years ago, according to the Centers for Disease Control’s 2006-10 National Survey of Family Growth.

After data was compiled from the largest sample of teens that has ever been interviewed for the project since it began in 1973, two things have become evident.

Teenage boys are using more condoms, more often, while the amount of teens having intercourse is not on the rise.  

Michael Reese, director of the IU Center for Sexual Health Promotion, said he would attribute this increase to three factors:

Present-day teens have never known a day when HIV and other serious STDs were not a possibility.

Condom education has improved from what it used to be in the nation as a whole..

Condoms on the market today are better than what they were 20 years ago. Users have rated these condoms to be a more positive sexual experience than what they used to be.       

Eight out of every 10 teenage boys, between the ages of 15 and 19, used a condom during their first sexual encounter, which is a 9 percent increase from the last time the study was done in 2002.

The study also showed teen boys are using more “dual-method” practices like using a condom in combination with a female hormonal method like birth control pills, contraceptive injections or patches. 

IU sexual health researchers through the School of Health, Physical Education and  Recreation conducted the National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior in Oct. of 2010, which documented sexual behaviors of Americans between ages 14 and 94.

The researchers reached similar conclusions about teenage sexual experiences.

Teenage females who were sexually experienced declined significantly from 51 percent in 1988 to 43 percent in 2006 to 2010, according to the study.

This long-term decline is a reversal from a period during which the percentage of teenagers who were sexually experienced was steadily increasing throughout the 1970s and ’80s.

The main reason teens cite for staying abstinent remains the same as the 2002 survey: “against religion or morals.”

According to the study, 41 percent of females and 31 percent of males chose this as their main reason for not having had sex.

The second most popular reason chosen among males was that they “haven’t found the right person yet.”

This response increased significantly for male teenagers from 21 percent in 2002 to 29 percent in 2006 to 2010.

Teen males are not the only ones to have increased their use of birth control/STD preventative actions. Females have also cited increased use of a wider array of hormonal methods other than the pill during their first time.

A larger proportion used hormonal methods other than the pill at first sex, and a higher percentage had used emergency contraception (14 percent), the contraceptive patch (10 percent) or the contraceptive ring (5 percent).