A study of 1551 high school students in four midwestern states showed that more girls than boys reported "some" or "a lot" of encouragement to abstain from having sex. More boys than girls reported societal pressure to become sexually active. The sources of encouragement for abstinence were mother, father, and teacher. The largest difference reported between boys and girls was for friends; more than twice as many girls as boys reported that friends encouraged abstinence. Virgin vs nonvirgin comparisons showed similar results, with mother and father chosen most frequently, but nonvirgins chose guest speaker instead of teacher for third place. Regarding important decision-making factors, both boys and girls selected own feelings, health, future, boy- or girlfriend, and parents' feelings. Girls considered parents' feelings more while boys rated boy- or girlfriends' feelings higher. It was concluded that society exerts a strong influence through the media, but parents have the strongest influence on adolescents' sexuality.
In a study of 1,844 suburban and rural students in Grades 7 and 8 in public schools in Washington, Oregon, California, and Idaho, sexual activity was much lower than that reported by the popular media and in some scholarly journals. The difference was in part related to using measures other than asking the adolescents whether they had ever had sexual intercourse. The estimates based on those who have had sex more than just once decreased to 16% the number of adolescents who would be classified as sexually active. If the definition of sexually active is further limited to only those who have had sex recently (within the past 4 weeks), only 9% are sexually active. Further restrictions to those who have had sex 5 or more or 10 or more times reduce the percentage of sexually active adolescents to 6% and 2%, respectively. Over-all, the percentage of "sexually active" adolescents depends on the empirical definition of "sexually active," and there are many indications why "ever had sex" is not an adequate measure.
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