Early teen sex, less delinquency later

by Bev Sklar (Subscribe to Bev Sklar's posts)
Nov 14th 2007 8:15AM

Categories: Healthy Relationships, Motivation, Nutrition & Supplements

Sex became a big topic in high school. Among my various groups of girlfriends, losing virginity was kept secret, whispered to a few trusted friends or more overtly shared. Virgins reacted with a flock of emotions ranging from excitement, moral disgust, envy, shock, happiness and even cynical judgment that the de-virginized were headed down a disastrous life path.

Well, a new study says teens who have sex at an early age may be less likely to engage in antisocial/delinquent behavior down the line, than teens who waited. Researchers examined surveys of 534 same-sex pairs of American twins, which immediately took genetic and socio-economic variables out of the mix. Results question the common assumption that early sex is associated with future delinquency. Rather, the study suggests early sex may even help teens form positive social relationships in early adulthood.

Hmmm -- taking a look at three girls I knew in high school -- the two who were sexually active before graduation were definitely less delinquent in early adulthood than the one who had her first sexual encounter in college!

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Comments (5)

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

nikkicookers 11-14-2007 @ 9:41AM

Interesting article Bev. However, don't you think it's the good social skills that might have led toward being an attractive person that men would attempt to woo the girl that might have actually been the cause for success? Are men having sex with other men?

nikki
nikkicookers@aol.com
http://www.fitconnect.com

Bev Sklar 11-14-2007 @ 9:52AM

Nikki,

Excellent point. Do the teens who engage in early sex possess better social/relationship skills to begin with? Do they have higher self-esteem? Do they learn more about relationship-building through their earlier (positive or negative) sexual experience?

The researchers are not stopping with this study. According to lead author, Dr. Kathryn Paige Harden, "There is a cultural assumption in the United States that if teens have sex early, it is somehow bad for their psychological health, but we actually found that teens who had sex earlier seem to have better relationships later. Now we want to find out why."

Bev

Lee 11-14-2007 @ 10:59AM

When I grew up in the 60's the "popular" girls were all having sex, but no one talked about them, because it might have made them mad and then some guy wouldn't have gotten anymore off them. I always thought waiting to get married as a Virgin was the stupidist idea in the world.

Sky Siegel 11-14-2007 @ 12:57PM

Be that as it may, am I the only guy alive who thinks that sex should be something intimate between two people not just some activity?

Paul 11-15-2007 @ 9:32AM

Interesting article, but the quoted news story is leaving out some important details. Most notably, it doesn't specify what age ranges they are referring to as "early" and "late."

Point being, I highly doubt that there's a positive correlation of good social behavior to kids (boys or girls, mind you) having sex at age 13, 14, or 15 years old (that's not to say I would've agreed at that age ;)).

If, however, the study was looking at teenagers 17-19, that might be a different story.

I'm not trying to put my own bias here; I just think that there's a significant difference between the maturity of most 13-15 year olds, and their respective 17-19 year old counterparts. It's just that this study (or the reporting of it), doesn't mention these ages.