Levels of Sexual Activity Among Adolescent Males in the United States.

Summary

Although three-fifths of adolescent males aged 15-19 say they have had sexual intercourse, analyses of data from the 1988 National Survey of Adolescent Males indicate that their level of sexual activity is relatively moderate. The data show that among sexu-ally experienced young men the mean number of partners in the last 12 months is 1.9, and the mean frequency of intercourse in the last four weeks is 2.7 times. Black males have had more partners than white or Hispanic males; however, after the number of years since first intercourse are controlled for, these differences disappear. On average, sexually experienced youth spent six out of the last 12 months with no sexual partner, and only 21 percent of sexually active males had more than one partner in any month in the last year.

Comparisons with 1979 data suggest that proportionately more adolescents were sexually experienced in 1988, but fewer nonblack males had first intercourse before their 15th birthday. The number of partners since first intercourse and in the past four weeks appears to have decreased, as has the frequency of intercourse in the last four weeks.

Introduction

In spite of a growing public awareness of the problems of unintended pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the proportion of sexually active teenagers in the United States appears to have risen during the 1980s. Among young women aged 15-19, the number claiming to have had sexual intercourse grew from 47 percent in 1982 to 53 percent in 1988; among young urban men aged 17-19 the proportion rose from 66 percent in 1979 to 76 percent in 1988. (1) Understandably, these increases--representing proportionately more teenagers at risk of pregnancy and disease--have been viewed with alarm.

If successful strategies are to be developed to reduce exposure to these risks among young people, information beyond simple estimates of the exposed population is needed, including information about such teenage sexual behavior as frequency and types of intercourse, numbers and types of sexual partners, and consistency and types of contraceptive methods used.

There is already evidence that a shift in contraceptive behavior among teenagers may have occurred. The reported use of condoms at first heterosexual intercourse appears to have more than doubled among females between 1982 and 1988, and among urban males between 1979 and 1988. In 1988, just under one half of females and just over one half of males aged 15-19 reported using a condom at first intercourse. (*) Conversely, the incidence of unprotected first intercourse has declined. (2)