National Survey of Teens: Teens Talk About Dating, Intimacy, and Their Sexual Experiences
Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and,
YM MAGAZINE
Introduction:
Teens are growing up in an extraordinarily complex and difficult world, facing a range of pressures to smoke cigarettes, drink, experiment with drugs, get involved in gangs? and have sex. Most teens today will have sexual intercourse by their eight-eenth birthday. Even though teens are doing a better job of using contraception, preg-nancy and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) remain major concerns: three million teens-about one in four sexually experienced teens-get an STD every year. One in four Americans newly infected with HIV is under 22 years old. And, almost one mil-lion teen girls become pregnant every year, and about half a million give birth.
The Kaiser Family Foundation paired up with a leading teen magazine, YM, to hear from teens themselves what kinds of sexual situations they face today, how they "ne-gotiate" dating, sex, and intimacy, and what kind of information teens need. The re-sult, an in-depth national survey of teens (650 boys and girls ages 13-18), will appear in a special guide for teens on sex in YM's May 1998 issue.
The joint Kaiser Family Foundation/YM survey found that teens today, even those as young as 13 and 14 years old, struggle with complex sexual situations, involving pressure, drinking and drug use, or relationships that are moving too fast, which they are often not prepared to handle. More than a third of all teens-36 percent-say they have done something sexual, or felt pressure to do something sexual, that they did not feel they were ready to do. Teenage girls are more likely to have these expe-riences than boys.
By the time a teen has sex for the first time, the survey finds that many are still not adequately prepared: a majority (58%) of those who are sexually experienced report not using contraception every time they have sex, and more than a third have never talked with a sexual partner about birth control (34%) or STDs (40%). About one in five of those who talked about either contraception or STDs did so only after having sex. Many teens who have not talked about contraception or STDs with a partner say they haven't because they know their partner so well. In general, a significant propor-tion of teens say they have had or would expect to have difficulty discussing topics like birth control, AIDS/HIV, other STDs, or what they feel comfortable doing sexually.
While intimacy appears to play a significant role in teens' relationships, deciding to wait to become sexually involved is viewed positively by most teens. The majority of the teens we interviewed say they are virgins. What's more, being a virgin is accept-able, and even admired, among teens. Three-quarters of teens in the survey say it is considered a "good thing to make a conscious decision not to have sex until some later time," and just as many teens say they know someone who has made such a decision. Almost half of all teens age 13 to 18 have made a conscious decision to delay inter-course. In addition, one in two teens say they have been in a situation when they could have had sexual intercourse with someone they liked but decided not to at the time.
Teens also report worrying a lot about pregnancy, HIV/AIDS, and other STDs. Whether or not they are sexually experienced, most teens say their peers are extremely worried about pregnancy, HIV/AIDS, and other STDs; very few say these are issues that do not concern them. At least four in ten teens say the teens they know are very concerned about pregnancy or about getting an STD. HIV/AIDS is one of the biggest sexual health concerns facing teens: over half of teens say the teens they know are very concerned about the disease.
Other interesting findings include:
- Dating is a part of most teens' social lives as early as age 13. The level of physi-cal intimacy couples are involved in and the incidence of "serious" relationships, however, increase as teens age. By age 17, intercourse is an accepted, if not an expected, part of dating relationships.
- As widespread as dating is among teens, it is acceptable to be unattached. Very few teens say most of their friends currently have a boy- or girlfriend and most say that, among their social circle, dating is not very important.
- Teen boys and girls share roughly the same perceptions about how teen girls think about sex-how important it is to them, and how much they worry about the negative consequences of having sex. But teen girls and boys do not agree about what's going on in teen boys' minds. Teen girls, especially older girls, think teen boys attach much greater importance to sex in a relationship than teen boys think their male peers do. Teen girls also think teen boys aren't as concerned about pregnancy, STDs, and HIV as teen boys say their male peers are.
- Teens age 13 to 18, particularly teen girls, believe their experience with sex is not typical. A significant percentage think they are less experienced than their friends, and less experienced than their sexual partners. However, few teens say their lack of experience actually worries them when they are in an intimate situa-tion with a member of the opposite sex.
- Teen girls are motivated to engage in sexual intercourse mainly because they are in love or plan to get married. Teen boys who haven't had intercourse also think love and marriage are top reasons why their peers decide to have intercourse for the first time. But, these reasons shrink in significance for teen boys who actually have had intercourse. These teens point to opportunity as the main reason a teen boy has sex the first time.
A summary of the key findings follows, prepared by Princeton Survey Research Asso-ciates and the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Findings
Dating And Relationships
Romantic attachments are a part of life for teens age 13 to 18, but not a necessary part, according to teens themselves. Serious relationships are not all that common, and what's more, it's OK to be unattached.
Nine in ten teens age 13 to 18 (89%) say they have had some romantic involvement with a member of the opposite sex. Dating starts early-those aged 13 to 14 are al-most as likely to have had a boy or girlfriend (82%) as older teens (93%). But, only 4% of all teens say it's very important among the group of friends they hang out with to have a boyfriend or girlfriend, and two-thirds (68%) say that fewer than half of their friends are going out with someone right now. Only 31% say most of their friends are attached now, and even fewer (19%) say most of them have ever had a "serious" relationship.
Though the amount of dating might not differ much between younger and older teens, expectations about what dating entails change considerably during the teen years. Most teens age 13 to 14 say it's typical for couples their age to kiss (72% say this usu-ally happens), but that other forms of physical intimacy are not the norm. Only 45% say French kissing is expected, and far fewer say petting (15%) or intercourse (4%) is typical. More than half of teens age 13 to 14 say couples their age go out on dates, such as to the movies (58%), but at this age couples don't necessarily spend a lot of their free time together (43% say this is typical), or say they are in love with each other (47%).
Among 15 and 16 year old teens, the physical intimacy of dating couples becomes more intense, and at the same time, the emotional aspects of the relationship become more important. Most teens age 15 and 16 say dating couples their age typically kiss (93%) and French kiss (71%), and just under half (48%) say they also engage in pet-ting. Only 28% say sexual intercourse is typical for dating couples their age. Most teens age 15 and 16 say couples their age go out on dates (79%) and spend a lot of their free time together (56%). Couples this age also say they are in love with each other (63%).
The most distinctive difference between younger teens and those age 17 and 18 is that for this older group petting and even intercourse appear to be the norm. More than half of teens this age say it's typical for couples they know to engage in petting (57%) and about half (52%) say couples typically have intercourse. Still, it's just a bare ma-jority of teens age 17 and 18 who say this type of intense physical intimacy is com-mon. Unfortunately, teens also tell us that couples this age who are having intercourse are not necessarily using birth control; though most (67%) teens age 17 and 18 say sexually experienced couples typically use birth control, almost a quarter (22%) say using birth control is not typical.
So-called "serious" relationships do not look all that different from other dating rela-tionships, at least with respect to two aspects of relationships we investigated. Ac-cording to teens themselves, the likelihood of having sexual intercourse is about the same for serious couples as it is for couples in general. And, "serious couples are about as likely to be characterized as "being in love" as couples in general are charac-terized as saying "I love you" to each other. Altogether, about half of teens say that love is part of serious or regular dating relationships.
Serious relationships are characteristically exclusive. Most teens (87%) say serious relationships among couples their age are exclusive relationships. However, teen boys age 13 to 16 are somewhat less likely than teen girls the same age to say a serious re-lationship entails exclusivity (78% of teen boys, and 92% of teen girls age 13 to 16).
Extent Of Sexual Activity
Physical intimacy
During the early teen years, the boyfriend/girlfriend relationships that are so common do not always include physical intimacy. About three-quarters of teens say they have had an intimate encounter (77%), an encounter where they were alone with someone of the opposite sex and there was at least the possibility of kissing or other intimate physical activity. These teens who have had an intimate encounter include:
- 63% of the 13 and 14 year old girls who have had a boyfriend,
- 73% of the 13 and 14 year old boys who have had a girlfriend, and
- 92% of 15, 16, 17 and 18 year old boys and girls who have had a romantic
relationship.
Many teens, especially teen boys, are starting to become physically intimate by age 13, but many still are not. Only about half of 13 year old boys (52%) and a third of 13 year old girls (30%) have been kissed. Only 42% of 13 year old boys and about half as many 13 year old girls (23%) have tried French kissing. By age 13, almost every teen who has had the opportunity to be physically intimate has actually been intimate in some way. Ninety-seven percent of teens who have been in an intimate situation, re-gardless of age, have been kissed.
Most teens have been kissed by age 14 (71%) and over half (59%) have been French kissed. By age 15, French kissing is common (69%), but petting is starting to be common only for teen boys (59% of boys age 15 and 45% of girls age 15 have en-gaged in petting). At 16, three quarters of teen boys (75%) and a slightly smaller ma-jority of teen girls (61%) have tried petting. By age 17 teen girls catch up; 76% of both teen boys and girls have engaged in petting.
Sexual intercourse
Only three in ten (31%) of the teens we interviewed said they were sexually experi-enced. Sexual intercourse starts to become common for teen boys once they hit age 16 (55% have had intercourse) and for teen girls at age 17 (51%, and only 40% of those age 16). The likelihood of having intercourse does not increase significantly for teens at age 18 (59% for boys and 51% for girls). Intercourse is rare among young teens (13% of boys and 3% of girls 13 to 14 have had intercourse).
- Of the teens who have already become sexually experienced, the average age of first intercourse for both teen boys and girls was 15.
- Of the teens who aren't sexually experienced yet, only 27% expect to have inter-course for the first time while still a teenager. Half (52%) think they'll be older, or married, and the rest (21%) have no idea how old they will be.
- Teen boys say boys start thinking about having sex on average at age 14, and then first have sex two years later, at age 16. Teen girls make the same estimates about the timing of the process for teen girls. Teen boys' views about what's typical seem to conform to reality, since just over half of the teen boys in the survey did have sex by age 16. But only 40% of the teen girls in the survey had sex by age 16, indicating the process works a little slower for teen girls than most girls think it does.
- A quarter (23%) of teen boys report their same-sex peers start thinking about sex at 12 or younger. Only a third as many teen girls (7%) think this about their same-sex peers.
- Among sexually-active teens, about half (46%) have had only one sexual partner, 18% have had two partners, 13% have had three, and the remaining 18% have had four or more. Over half (54%) of sexually experienced teens age 17-18 have had more than one partner, compared with just over four in ten (43%) of those 16 and under. Teen boys are more likely than teen girls to have had multiple partners (54% vs. 43%). Among sexually experienced teens age 17-18, one in ten (11%) say they have had seven or more partners.
How teens think they stack up against their friends
Almost half (44%) of teens say they know a lot about what's happening in their peers' love lives-that is, who they're interested in, what's going on in their relationships, and how much happens sexually. Another 38% say they have "some" knowledge of what's going on, while only 17% say they know little or nothing of this. Teen girls (50%) and older teens (50% of those 17-18) are especially likely to know a lot about what is going on in their friends' love lives.
Teens' characterizations of the amount of physical intimacy between teen boys and girls their age matches fairly well with what they say they are actually doing in their own relationships. Most teens who date at age 13 to 14 kiss, and most teens this age say their friends who date kiss. Most teens who date at age 15 and 16 French kiss, and most teens this age say their friends who date French kiss. Most teens who date at age 17 and 18 pet and have sexual intercourse, and most teens this age say their friends who date pet and have intercourse.
But, teens age 13 to 16 seem to underestimate some of their peers' sexual behavior. Specifically, those age 13 to 14 seem to underestimate their peers involvement in French-kissing, and those age 15 to 16 seem to underestimate their peers involvement in petting. Of course, it is impossible to know the actual behavior of each respon-dent's group of friends, so we cannot really conclude that any respondent is right or wrong in his or her assessment of what's going on in friends' relationships. But, these data suggest it's unlikely that teens have an exaggerated view of the sexual experience of their friends. By and large, they think their friends are doing what they themselves are doing.
How They Stack Up: Perception vs. Reality
| |
Perception of own experience compared with friends' |
 |
| Extent of actual experience |
Less (%) |
Same (%) |
More (%) |
Don't Know/Refused (%) |
|
 |
| Nothing yet |
63 |
34 |
1 |
2 |
100 |
|
| Only kissing |
43 |
52 |
2 |
3 |
100 |
|
| Up to petting Intercourse |
24 |
57 |
17 |
2 |
100 |
|
| Boys |
10 |
55 |
32 |
3 |
100 |
|
| Girls |
22 |
56 |
21 |
1 |
100 |
|
| Multiple Partners |
13 |
58 |
25 |
4 |
100 |
|
| Boys |
14 |
54 |
28 |
4 |
100 |
|
| Total |
35 |
49 |
13 |
3 |
100 |
Paradoxically, when teens were asked whether they think in general they have more sexual experience, about the same, or less than their friends, only about half of teens (49%) think their own behavior is typical, regardless of whether they date or not. Even more perplexing is the fact that 35% say they don't have as much sexual experience as the friends they hang out with have (only 13% say they have more experience). The data show they have more experience, on average, than what they think is typical for their group of friends. Yet, they feel they're "behind."
Until they actually have sexual intercourse, many teens feel less experienced than their friends. Teen girls, even after they've had intercourse, are as apt to feel less experi-enced as they are to feel more experienced than their friends.
Sexually experienced teen girls also feel inexperienced compared to the teen boys with whom they are involved. Six in ten (59%) sexually experienced teen girls say they felt less experienced than their first sexual partner, compared with half as many teen boys (28%). Conversely, the majority (58%) of teen boys felt they were as expe-rienced as their partner the first time, while only 38% of teen girls felt this way.
