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December 20, 2006
Nearly all Americans have pre-marital sex
A new study, “Trends in Premarital Sex in the United States, 1954–2003,” says pre-marital sex is nearly universal among Americans.
The study, published in the January/February 2007 issue of Public Health Reports, reports that by age 44, 99% of respondents had had sex, and 95% had sex before marriage.
From The Guttmacher Institute:
...Further, contrary to the public perception that premarital sex is much more common now than in the past, the study shows that even among women who were born in the 1940s, nearly nine in 10 had sex before marriage.“This is reality-check research. Premarital sex is normal behavior for the vast majority of Americans, and has been for decades,” says study author Lawrence Finer, director of domestic research at the Guttmacher Institute. “The data clearly show that the majority of older teens and adults have already had sex before marriage, which calls into question the federal government’s funding of abstinence-only-until-marriage programs for 12–29-year-olds. It would be more effective to provide young people with the skills and information they need to be safe once they become sexually active—which nearly everyone eventually will.”
Yeah, but what fun would that be?
Posted by Jessica at December 20, 2006 11:12 AM