Tampa, FL, USA. Psychologists have tested the assumption that delaying sex reduces sexual risk-taking and bad consequences, finding that in the end it doesn’t really matter whether you delay sex or not.

Sex education has one common message whether it focuses exclusively on abstinence or provides instruction on contraception and other topics: wait. The problem has been that no one had tested this assumption.


In abstinence-only, students are exhorted to wait for sex until they’re married. In “comprehensive” or “abstinence-plus,” the idea is to delay sexual relations until ... later. “The underlying assumption is that delay reduces sexual risk-taking” — and with it unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases, says University of South Florida psychologist Marina A. Bornovalova. “If they just wait, then they’ll be less likely to have multiple partners or get pregnant early.”

Bornovalova and her colleagues tested the assumption and report their findings in the journal Psychological Science.

• The researchers looked at more than 1,000 pairs of identical and fraternal twins enrolled in the longitudinal Minnesota Twin Family Study (MTFS).
  
  
• These twins, aged 11, upon the time of enrollment, were questioned on biological, social, and psychological factors, from parental drug use to age of puberty to friendliness.
  
  
• Then, at age 24, they were asked about the risks they were taking in their sex lives.
  
  
• In some pairs, one twin had early sex and the other didn’t — and the two twins were compared on their sexual risk-taking in adulthood.

The researchers say what they found should spark serious rethinking wherever sex educators seek facts as their guide. Numerous runs of the data led to the same conclusion: “You take two twins who share 100 percent of their genes. One has sex at 15 and one at 20. You compare them on risk-taking at 24 — and they don’t differ.”

Yes, there’s a correlation between early sexual initiation (defined in this study as 16 or younger) and later sexual risk-taking. But, as a causal factor for sexual risk-taking — multiple partners, drug and alcohol use during sexual encounters, or unprotected intercourse — “it doesn’t really matter whether you delay sex or not.”

So why does someone end up sexually promiscuous? The researchers think it’s a combination of genetic factors — such as the strong inherited tendency to be impulsive or anti-social — and environmental ones, such as poverty or troubled family life. Most important, though — biology and life experience both give rise to early sexual initiation and risk-taking later on. The former does not cause the latter.

The psychologists aren’t advocating sex at a very early age. It very well might have other harmful effects on a teenager, such as depression or poor school performance. “But if our goal is to reduce sexual risk-taking, we need to be focusing on something else,” says Bornovalova. More study is needed to zero in on what that something else is. But for now, one thing should be clear to the people writing sex ed curricula: “Whatever is causing sexual risk-taking, it is not early sexual initiation.”

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<style type="text/css"><!--.quote {width:400px; padding: 6px; border: solid 1px #456B8F; font: 11px helvetica, verdana, sans-serif; color: #222222; background-color: #ffffff}.quote a {font: 13px arial, serif; color: #003399; text-decoration: underline}.quote a:hover {color: #FF9900; }//--></style><div style="float:left;padding:5px;"></div><div class="quote"><a href="../relationships/30334-do-or-did-delayed-sexual-relations-matter" target="_blank">Do (or Did) Delayed Sexual Relations Matter?</a><br/>Wednesday, 18 May 2011<div align="right" style="width:400px"><p style="text-align:right;"><a href="/" target="_blank">TS-Si.org</a></p></div></div>

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