American Sexual Practices

[HendryTan]

On 16 Sep 2005, The New York Times (a respected mainstream newspaper) published an article summarizing the results of a comprehensive survey of American Sexual Practices done by the National Center for Health Statistics (a US Government Agency) The data comes from the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth, a survey of 12,571 men and women ages 15 to 44.

Some findings of interest to the gay community:

- About 4% of men and women described themselves as homosexual or bisexual.

The report offers new information about homosexuality in the US.

Among male adults ages 15 to 44

- in the past year almost 3% had gay experiences

- over their lifetimes, 6% had gay experiences

- nearly 6% have oral sex with another man at some time in their lives

- nearly 4% reported having anal sex with another man

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By TAMAR LEWIN, New York Times

Published: September 16, 2005

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/16/national/16sex.html

The National Center for Health Statistics released the government's most comprehensive survey of American sexual practices and reproductive health yesterday, delving for the first time into such sensitive areas as the prevalence of oral sex among teenagers and same-sex activity among adults.

Oral sex among teenagers has in recent years become a topic of rampant speculation and little solid data, apart from a 1995 Urban Institute study of adolescent boys. The new statistics confirm that study's findings that oral sex is very much part of the teenage sexual repertory. According to the survey, more than half of all teenagers aged 15 to 19 have engaged in oral sex - including nearly a quarter of those who have never had intercourse.

Among the findings in the new study, "Sexual Behavior and Selected Health Measures," were the following:

- Men age 30 to 44 have had a median of six to eight sexual partners in their lifetimes; women's median was about four.

- Among both men and women age 15 to 44, about two-thirds have had only one sexual partner in the last year. Ten percent of the men and 7 percent of the women have had three or more partners in that time.

- About 4 percent of men and women described themselves as homosexual or bisexual, but in a finding that surprised the researchers, 14 percent of the women aged 18 to 29 reported at least one homosexual experience, more than twice the proportion for young men.

The report offers new information about homosexuality in the United States. Among adults ages 15 to 44, almost 3 percent of men and 4 percent of women reported having a sexual experience with a member of the same sex within the past year, and over their lifetimes, 6 percent of men and 11 percent of women had such experiences. About 1 percent of men and 3 percent of women had had both male and female sexual partners in the previous 12 months.

Nearly 6 percent of all men ages 15 to 44 reported having oral sex with another man at some time in their lives, and nearly 4 percent reported having anal sex with another man.

The data comes from the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth, a survey of 12,571 men and women ages 15 to 44. The survey contractor was the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research, which trained more than 200 women to collect the data by having the subject answer sensitive questions on a computer, without revealing the answers to the interviewer.

Although the National Center for Health Statistics has periodically conducted that survey among women for 32 years, the 2002 version was the first to include both sexes, and to move beyond fertility and child-bearing into broader questions of sexual behavior and sexual orientation.

The new findings on teenagers and oral sex have been of special interest to health experts.

"After years of provocative headlines and breathless stories based mostly on anecdote, we finally have some solid data," said Sarah Brown, director of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy. "The news is probably not as bad as adults might have been led to believe, but it is likely not as good as most parents might wish."

The proportion of teenagers who have given or received oral sex was slightly higher than the proportion who have had intercourse, the survey found, with 55 percent of the boys and 54 percent of the girls having given or received oral sex, while 49 percent of the boys and 53 percent of the girls have had intercourse.

"One thing that surprised me is that we expected, based on anecdotal evidence, that girls might be more likely to give oral sex and boys more likely to receive it, but we didn't find that at all," said Dr. Jennifer Manlove, of Child Trends, which, like Ms. Brown's group, released an analysis of the data, "There's more gender equality than we expected."

The government data does not provide any indication of the age at which oral sex first occurred, how often it occurred, or how many partners a teen had had. But the survey found that nearly all teenagers who have had sexual intercourse have also had oral sex: 88 percent of the boys and 83 percent of the girls.

"A very significant proportion of teens has had experience with oral sex, even if they haven't had sexual intercourse and may think of themselves as virgins," Dr. Manlove said. "We're not sure whether these teens who have not had sexual intercourse are engaging in oral sex because they view it as a way to maintain their technical virginity or even because they regard it as an easy method of birth control."

While many of the findings in the government report parallel those of the last large-scale study of American sexual behavior, a 1992 study of 18- to 59-year-olds by the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center, the lead author of the new study said it found a new and unexpected increase in lesbian activity among young women. It may not be such a surprise among those of college age, who speak of LUG's - lesbians until graduation.

"There are signs of change among 15- to 29-year-old women, a group of women too young to have been be included in the 1992 study," said William Mosher, the lead author.

When asked, "Have you ever had any sexual experience of any kind with any female?" 14 percent of the 18- to 29-year-old women said yes, compared with slightly under 10 percent of the 30- to 44-year-olds. That difference was surprising, Dr. Mosher said, since on questions about lifetime experience, older people usually report more than younger ones.

The study also asked about sexual attraction. Among men 18 to 44, 90 percent said they thought of themselves as heterosexual, 2 percent as homosexual, 2 percent as bisexual and 4 percent as "something else," findings similar to those in 1992.

Among women, 86 percent said they were attracted to only men and 10 percent "mostly to males." In the 1992 survey, only 3 percent said they were "mostly" attracted to males.

[HendryTan]

Found the web site for the original research quoted in the above articles.

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

National Center for Health Statistics

The Survey : http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/pubs/pubd...1-370/ad362.htm

The Report (PDF) : http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/ad/ad362.pdf

As stated on CDC's web site

Objective: This report is intended to provide reliable national estimates of some basic statistics on certain types of sexual behavior, sexual orientation, and sexual attraction for men and women 15-44 years of age, based on data collected in the United States in 2002. The data are relevant to public health concerns, including efforts to prevent HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, and to demographic and social concerns such as birth and pregnancy rates among teenagers. The data are from the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG), and are based on 12,571 in-person interviews with men and women 15-44 years of age.

Highlights of findings

Teens

- At ages 15-19, about 12 percent of males and 10 percent of females had had heterosexual oral sex but not vaginal intercourse. (The male-female percentages are not significantly different.) This percent drops to 3 percent for both males and females at age 22-24, when most have already had vaginal intercourse. There are no trend data for females. Trend data for males suggest that no large changes in these behaviors have occurred since 1995.

Adults-heterosexual activity

- Among adult males 25-44 years of age, 97 percent have had sexual contact with an opposite-sex partner in their lives; 97 percent have had vaginal intercourse, 90 percent have had oral sex with a female, and 40 percent, anal sex with a female. Among women, the proportions who have had sexual contact with an opposite-sex partner were similar.

- Males 30-44 years of age reported an average (median) of 6-8 female sexual partners in their lifetimes. Among women 30-44 years of age, the median number of male sexual partners in their lifetimes was about four. The findings appear to be similar to previous surveys conducted in the early 1990’s.

Same-sex activity

- Three percent of males 15-44 years of age have had oral or anal sex with another male in the last 12 months (1.8 million). Four percent of females had a sexual experience with another female in the last 12 months (tables A and B ).

- The proportion who had same-sex contact in their lifetimes was 6 percent for males and (using a different question) 11 percent for females (figure 5).

- About 1 percent of men and 3 percent of women 15-44 years of age have had both male and female sexual partners in the last 12 months (table B ).

Sexual orientation

- In response to a question that asked, “Do you think of yourself as heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, or something else?” 90 percent of men 18-44 years of age responded that they think of themselves as heterosexual, 2.3 percent of men answered homosexual, 1.8 percent bisexual, 3.9 percent “something else,” and 1.8 percent did not answer the question (figure 8). Percents for women were similar. These findings are similar to data collected in 1992 by Laumann et al.

Sexual attraction

- Survey participants were asked if they were sexually attracted to males, to females, or to both. Among men 18-44 years of age, 92 percent said they were attracted “only to females,” and 3.9 percent, “mostly” to females. Among women, 86 percent said they were attracted only to males, and 10 percent, “mostly” to males. The percentage attracted “mostly to males” was 3 percent in a survey conducted in 1992, compared with 10 percent in the 2002 NSFG.

Selected health measures

- 29 percent of men who have ever had male-male sexual contact were tested for HIV (outside of blood donation) in the last year, compared with 14 percent of men with no same-sex sexual contact.

- 17 percent of men who ever had male-male sexual contact had been treated for a non-HIV sexually transmitted infection (STI), compared with 7 percent of those who had never had male-male sexual contact.

- Among men 15-44 years of age who had at least one sexual partner in the last 12 months, 39 percent used a condom at their most recent sex. Among never married males, this figure was 65 percent, compared with 24 percent of married males. Among males who had ever had sexual contact with another male, 91 percent used a condom at their last sex, compared with 36 percent of men who never had sex with another male.