Owned and operated by 65-year-old Spence Dickinson, the farm hosts after-school and summer camp programs for kids ages 5 to 16, offering van service from 19 schools in Durham and Orange counties. Billed as an authentic agrarian experience for children, the farm also espouses self-growth principles like empowerment, communication and respecting boundaries.
teens having sex on the farm
However, one day, Dickinson brought to the farm a copperhead snake, enclosed in a glass case. As the children peered inside, Dickinson surprised them by reaching into his jacket and removing a long, nonvenomous black snake.
This chapter focuses on the initiation of sexual intercourse among teenagers. Because of potential differential interest in teens at different ages, ages are divided, where possible, into the three age groups most commonly used in the data: less than 15, 15 to 17, and 18 to 19. Unfortunately little information is available for the under 15 age group, but data will be presented when available.
According to a nationally representative sample of women in 1982, 43 percent of never married women 15 to 19 said they had had sexual intercourse Pratt et al., 1984). The proportion of all never married teens who report being sexually experienced rises from a low of 18 percent for 15 year olds to 66 percent for 19 year olds. Blacks are more likely to report sexual experience than whites. These percentages are shown in Table 1.3. Experience rises almost linearly with age. National figures for 1983 on the sexual experience of teen men show that by age 18 two-thirds have experienced intercourse (Table 1.4). Using 1983 data to compare rates of intercourse among men and women (Table 1.4), it is clear that a higher proportion of males than females of a given age report having experienced sexual debut, although the differences decline with age.
Unfortunately, only one national data set, the NLS provides data on the sexual activity of teens under age 15 (Table 1.4). Most data we have come from a variety of small area studies; as a consequence the samples vary considerably from study to study. Table 1.5 shows estimates of sexual activity among males and females in several of these small studies. The estimates for young white male and female teens and for black females are consistently lower than estimates for older teens, as one would expect. The estimates for black males, in contrast, are very high, in some cases higher than those of older teens, which suggests low data reliability or unusual samples (e.g., low SES), among this group.
Of course, having had intercourse once does not necessarily mean the youth has intercourse frequently or regularly. However, it appears that, lacking data on frequency of sexual activity, a measure of ever having had intercourse is a relatively good proxy.
One issue of importance is the extent to which initiation of sexual intercourse is voluntary or involuntary, such as a result of rape or incest. This is especially important for the very youngest teens. Unfortunately we have no reliable information at the national level.
International differences. One underresearched area is that of international differences in the initiation of sexual intercourse. The major reason for lack of research is the lack of data in other countries on sexual activity and age at first intercourse. Two studies have focused on the fertility of teenagers in developed nations. Westoff et al. (1983) found substantial differences across developed nations in levels of childbearing among teenagers. A recent study (Jones et al., 1985) examined data for five countries (Canada, England and Wales, France, Netherlands and Sweden and found that at similar ages rates of sexual intercourse, among women are somewhat higher in Sweden than in the United States, quite similar in France, the Netherlands, England and Wales, and among older Canadians, but slightly lower among Canadian women in their early teens. To fully explain the range of differences in teen fertility, differences in sexual activity are crucial to ascertain. At the present time it is not possible to study the initiation of sexual activity in more than a handful of nations across even the developed countries. The chance of obtaining estimates of sexual activity for developing countries is even smaller. Information on age at initiation of sexual intercourse was not included in the World Fertility Survey, for example.
Regional differences (U.S.). The data show that, net of other factors, few regional diffferences in the probability of sexual activity are found. One study found black women 15 to 19 living in the south were more likely to have had intercourse than those living in other regions (Devaney and Hubley, 1981), but this does not appear to be replicated in other studies. The most important regional dimension is urban-rural. However, the direction of the effect is not always clear. Although several studies have shown those living in metropolitan areas to be much more likely to say they have had sexual intercourse, compared to those living in non-metropolitan areas or on a farm (Devaney and Hubley, 1981), more recent studies do not find this to be significantly associated with ever having had intercourse (Mott, 1984). In fact, one recent analysis of nationally representative data collected by Kantner and Zelnik in 1976 (Billy, 1984) found that once a number of factors relating to sexual activity were controlled, young women in larger communities were less likely to report having experienced intercourse than those in smaller communities. Until it is better understood what urban-rural or community size represent, the relationship between this dimension and sexual intercourse among teens will remain ambiguous.
In recent years a newly revived Protestant fundamentalism has gained a reputation for promoting very strong and often controversal, but always conservative stands on moral issues. Thus Catholicism may no longer be a good indicator of a conservative religious affiliation. In fact, one study of sexual activity among teenagers (Thornton and Camburn, 1983) found that adherents of fundamentalist Protestant denominations were significantly less likely to report having had sexual intercourse, compared to those affiliated with other denominations.
There is evidence of some important differences in attitudes between blacks and whites. Blacks appear to be more sexually permissive than whites (i.e., greater tolerance for sexual activity outside a marital relationship), they rate marriage as less important than whites; they perceive a greater tolerance in their neighborhood for an out-of-wedlock birth (Moore et al., 1986: Chapter 7). Several studies (Moore et al., 1986; Clark, Zabin and Hardy, 1984) show that black teens also indicate a preference for a younger age at first birth than age at first marriage. Whites report just the opposite; they prefer an age at first marriage younger than age at first birth (Moore et al., 1986: Chapter 7). Moore et al. point out that although such attitudes do not cause teen pregnancy, they do not discourage it either. However, such attitudes may simply be a result of the prevalence of teen pregnancy in the black community, rather than a cause of it. One interesting, though dated, study, shows that in elementary school black boys and girls have attitudes similar to those of whites about marriage; however, these attitudes become less positive as time goes by; other race-sex groups do not show this decline (Broderick, 1966).
Ethnicity. Although ethnicity is an important dimension, little research has been conducted on the experience of ethnic subgroups. Hispanics are a particularly important subgroup on which data have only recently become available. Table 1.4 provides national estimates of the proportion of Hispanic teens sexually active in 1983. Note that Hispanic teens are apparently more likely than whites but less likely than blacks to be sexually active at each age. However, Hispanic teens are also more likely to be married than either white or black teens. In 1982 12 percent of Hispanic versus 6 and 3 percent of non-Hispanic white and non-Hispanic black teens were currently married, and 20 percent of Hispanic versus 8 percent of non-Hispanic white and 4 percent of non-Hispanic black teens had ever been married.
Most research has focused on the effects of the portrayal of violence on television on aggression and violence in children. Very little research has focused on the relationship between sexual content in television programming and the early initiation of sexual activity among young teenagers. The major problems with conducting this research are two: first, to obtain some idea whether television affects behavior, a researcher would have to have information on viewing and sexual behavior at two time points to be able to infer whether viewing at the early time point resulted in a change in behavior between the two time points. An association between viewing behavior and sexual behavior at one time point alone could indicate that those who are sexually active become more interested in programs with more sexual content, rather than the other way around. Second, assuming even that two time points are available, a more serious problem with attributing any change to television is that of demonstrating a change in television programming or viewing habits strong enough to cause a change in behavior. That is, children have been watching television with sexual content for a substantial number of years before becoming sexually active. Why all of a sudden would watching the same types of programs cause teens to become sexually active? On the other hand, if there were a change of programming or a change of viewing habits there might be cause for a change of behavior. This would necessitate substantial long term documentation of viewing habits, a very difficult research problem. Television's broad reach makes rigorous scientific reseach as to its effects both important and extremely problemmatic. 2ff7e9595c
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