From sexual debut to first union. Where do young people in France meet their first partners?

The “dating game”: age differences at first sex of college students in Italy

“…Instead, having the first sexual intercourse with a younger partner is much more frequent among men than among women. Similar patterns have also been observed in Scotland (Wight et al, 2008) and France (Bozon & Rault, 2012).…”

“…Moreover, data collected do not allow to analyze the characteristics of the partners' market or meeting places in which respondents have chosen their first sex partners. Being our sample limited to university students, the hypotheses of the life-history perspective might not hold because respondents are too young to be already searching for the partner with whom starting the own family, instead, they might be experiencing a long period of "sexual youth" before engaging in a more definitive relationship (Bozon & Rault, 2012). Therefore, we consider these theories as a useful framework to interpret the results of our analyses, but we have developed our research hypotheses based on the studies that considered specific aspects that our data allow to evaluate (as follows).…”

“…Some authors have examined some features of first sexual relationships in European countries (Henderson et al, 2002;Schubotz, Rolston, & Simpson, 2004;Wight et al, 2008;Bozon & Rault, 2012). They have shown that most young people has had their first sexual intercourse within a romantic relationship (Manning, Longmore, & Giordano, 2000;Henderson et al, 2002;Wight et al, 2008), but Schubotz et al (2004) have found that in Northern Ireland males were more likely than females to have had their first sexual experience when they first met their partner or shortly after.…”

“…On the contrary, women more frequently find their first partner in more private meeting places and in the context of family networks. Among women, the preference towards privatization of sociability increases their chances to meet older sexual partners, a strategy that could be aimed at establishing a future life couple (Bozon & Rault, 2012).…”

“…Consequently, from one sex to another, the feelings attached to "the first time" and the first sexual experience often appear at different ages and, especially, do not play identical roles in the transition to adulthood. As stated by Bozon and Rault (2012), the time elapsed between first sexual intercourse and first union formation (one of the most important markers of transition to adulthood) not only is becoming wider but also is gender related, being longer for men than for women.…”