Knight Ridder Washington Bureau
September 27, 2002, Friday

Sexual intercourse among teens is declining, survey shows

BYLINE: By Seth Borenstein

      WASHINGTON _ Sexual intercourse among high school students has dropped significantly in the past decade,
      a federal health survey reported Thursday.

      The number of teens who remained virgins rose 16 percent in the past decade. In 2001, virgins outnumbered
      those who say they have had intercourse 54 percent to 46 percent. In 1991, the ratio was just the
      opposite. The number of students who have had at least four sex partners dropped 24 percent, according to
      studies just released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2001, only 1 in 7 teens _ or
      14 percent _ had had at least four sex partners, down from 19 percent in 1991.

      "This is good news. However, there are still too many kids that are at risk," said Laura Kann, research chief
      for the CDC's division of adolescent and school health, and a co-author of the study. "At least kids are
      heading in the right direction."

      As part of a study to track risky behavior among youths, since 1991 the CDC has asked more than 10,000
      high school-age students to anonymously answer questions about their sexual activity.

      Previous sex studies _ not by the CDC _ indicated that sexual intercourse by teen-age females rose steadily
      from about 30 percent in 1971 to 53 percent in 1988. That would suggest that sex in high schools peaked in
      the late 1980s and early 1990s and then declined, Kann said.

      Even though the CDC results are "hopeful," the reliance on self-reporting has Richard Evans, a prominent
      psychologist at the University of Houston, questioning how accurate they are. Kann said they were
      accurate. The decrease in teen-age sexual intercourse mirrors decreases among teens in sexually
      transmitted diseases, including HIV, she said.

      "Things are different, dramatically different," said Dr. Patricia Sulak, a Temple, Texas, gynecologist and sex
      education director for the abstinence program Worth The Wait. "I'm seeing more and more teen-agers
      coming in that are high schoolers, and they're not having sex. This is awesome news."

      CDC officials can't say why abstinence is on the rise. They didn't ask students in the surveys.

      "Just-say-no" abstinence programs may be working, but it also may be that students are finding alternatives
      to intercourse _ usually oral sex _ Evans said. He and Kann said anecdotal evidence showed an increase in
      oral sex among youths.

      "In some parts of the country, oral sex is in," Evans said. "It's become almost a less morally contemptuous
      behavior to engage in oral sex."

      The percentage of blacks teens in the CDC study who reported having had sexual intercourse dropped from
      81 percent in 1991 to 61 percent in 2001. Whites who have had sexual intercourse dropped from 50 percent
      to 43 percent.

      Male teens who said they had had sexual intercourse fell from 57 percent to 48 percent. The percentage of
      girls having had sexual intercourse dropped from 51 percent to 43 percent.

      Eleventh-graders who said they had had sex dropped from 62 percent to 52 percent.

      Condom use among those having sexual intercourse increased since 1991, then started leveling off around
      1999. Now, 57.9 percent of those teen-agers use condoms, up from 46.2 percent in 1991 but about the
      same as in 1999.

      The study also found a small but steady increase in the relationship of alcohol or drug use to high school
      students' last instance of sexual intercourse. Now, 26 percent of teens who have had sex said it was after
      drinking or using drugs _ up from 22 percent in 1991.

(c) 2002, Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.