Early Sexual Activity Among Adolescents In Small Towns and Rural Areas: Race and Gender Patterns.

Summary

A 1987 survey of 758 eighth-grade students from three rural counties in Maryland revealed that 61 percent of males and 47 percent of females have engaged in sexual intercourse, and that 77 percent of black students and 40 percent of whites have ever had intercourse. A logistic regression analyzing the effects of race and gender shows that the odds that young black teenagers would have had intercourse are over five times those for whites, and that the odds for males are about twice those for females. The introduction of developmental, individual, academic and behavioral factors into the regression model has little effect on these odds ratios.

Separate logistic analyses of four subgroups--white males, white females, black males and black females--reveal no consistent associations between sexual activity and the factors examined. For example, such types of problem behavior as cigarette smoking and use of alcohol or certain other drugs are associated with the likelihood of sexual activity, but the specific type of behavior involved differs by subgroup: Cigarette smoking is related to an increased likelihood of sexual activity just among white females, while alcohol consumption is associated with sexual experience among black females and white males only. Use of drugs other than marijuana or alcohol is linked to a 5--9 times greater risk of sexual activity among whites, but not to any significantly increased risk among blacks, whereas living in a town (rather than in the country) is significantly associated with the likelihood of sexual intercourse among both white and black males, but not among females of either race. Frequent cruising (driving aroun d with no particular destination) has an important impact on the likelihood of intercourse among all whites and among black males, but not among black females.

Introduction

The initiation of sexual intercourse during the early teenage years is known to be associated with increased risks of teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. Much of the research on adolescent sexual behavior has focused on populations seen to be at greatest risk, primarily minority women in large urban centers. [1] Less is known about the factors that influence early sexual activity among male and female adolescents who live in small towns and rural communities.

Racial and gender differences in the timing and prevalence of coital behavior are well established. [2] Despite a decrease since the 1970s in black-white differences in the age at first intercourse, black females are still likely to have intercourse at younger ages than white females. [3] Findings from a survey of a nationally representative sample of never-married women conducted in 1982 indicated that 28 percent of blacks had experienced sexual intercourse by age 15, compared with 18 percent of whites; over 40 percent of black females were sexually active by age 16, compared with 27 percent of whites. [4] Like their female counterparts, black males are more likely than whites to engage in sexual activity at a young age. In the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, nearly 60 percent of black male respondents reported having had sexual intercourse by age 16, and 90 percent reported first intercourse to have occurred by age 20. [5] Overall, males were more likely than females to be sexually active, and black males reported greater sexual activity than white males.

A number of theories have been advanced to explain racial and gender differences in adolescent sexual behavior. Some social scientists have classified early coitus as a kind of problem behavior--that is, "behavior that is socially defined as a problem, [as] a source of concern or as undesirable by the norms of conventional society... [such that] its occurrence usually elicits some kind of social control response." [6] Problem behavior, such as sexual activity or substance use, is thought to be a consequence of limited involvement with social institutions such as school, family and churches, poor academic motivation and rebellion against authority. Sexually active, young adolescents are seen to have strong allegiances to peers and weak ties to conventional groups (including family and schools), and are more likely than their peers who are not sexually active to engage in other problem behavior (for example, alcohol and drug use). [7]