Teens tap Rutgers Web site with questions on sex; site visitors pegged at 60,000 per day.(Gynecology)

LOS ANGELES -- If one goes to Google on the Internet and types in the word "sex," the first Web site listed is the place where about 60,000 adolescents a day go for their sex information, with the kinds of questions they are not likely to want to ask their parents.

The site is called Sex, Etc., and it is written by adolescents, under the supervision of experts at Rutgers University.

Sex, Etc. started as a newsletter in 1994, and 2.2 million copies of the newsletter are still distributed annually. But, because some of the topics touched on have included masturbation, lesbianism, and even French kissing, the newsletter has been banned by some school districts, which is one of the reasons why the Web site was started.

And, it is on the Internet that Sex, Etc. is now having its biggest impact, Nora Gelperin said at the annual meeting of the Society for Adolescent Medicine.

The number of daily visitors to the Sex, Etc. Web site has grown from an average of a little more than 10,000 a day in December 2002 to an average 60,000 a day now, 70% of whom are individuals aged younger than 21 years.

The fact that so many young people turn to this source is evidence of its need, said Ms. Gelperin, director of training and education for the Network for Family Life Education at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, Piscataway.

Adolescents today live in a confusing culture, where sex is freely discussed, but much basic information is scarce. Sexual content appears on television, at the same time that an increasing number of school districts are adopting abstinence-only sex education programs, Ms. Gelperin said.