{"id":1144,"date":"2009-01-27T06:28:00","date_gmt":"2009-01-27T06:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2009\/01\/are-teenagers-having-less-sex.html"},"modified":"2009-01-27T06:28:00","modified_gmt":"2009-01-27T06:28:00","slug":"are-teenagers-having-less-sex","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/01\/are-teenagers-having-less-sex.html","title":{"rendered":"Are teenagers having LESS sex?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It seems that way, according this surprising piece from the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2009\/01\/27\/health\/27well.html?8dpc=&amp;_r=1&amp;pagewanted=print\">New York Times<\/a>: <\/p>\n<blockquote><p> <a href=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/SX7wzVWxISI\/AAAAAAAAFAc\/KMOy56u8cWc\/s1600-h\/teen+sex1.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"float:left;margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer;cursor:hand;width: 320px;height: 240px\" src=\"https:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/SX7wzVWxISI\/AAAAAAAAFAc\/KMOy56u8cWc\/s320\/teen+sex1.jpg\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a>Parents have worried for generations about changing moral values and risky behavior among young people, and the latest news seems particularly worrisome.<\/p>\n<p>It came from the National Center for Health Statistics, which reported this month that births to 15- to 19-year-olds had risen for the first time in more than a decade.<\/p>\n<p>And that is not the only alarm being sounded. The talk show host Tyra Banks declared a teen sex crisis last fall after her show surveyed girls about sexual behavior. A few years ago, Oprah Winfrey warned parents of a teenage oral-sex epidemic.<\/p>\n<p>The news is troubling, but it\u2019s also misleading. While some young people are clearly engaging in risky sexual behavior, a vast majority are not. The reality is that in many ways, today\u2019s teenagers are more conservative about sex than previous generations.<\/p>\n<p>Today, fewer than half of all high school students have had sex: 47.8 percent as of 2007, according to the National Youth Risk Behavior Survey, down from 54.1 percent in 1991.<\/p>\n<p>A less recent report suggests that teenagers are also waiting longer to have sex than they did in the past. A 2002 report from the Department of Health and Human Services found that 30 percent of 15- to 17-year-old girls had experienced sex, down from 38 percent in 1995. During the same period, the percentage of sexually experienced boys in that age group dropped to 31 percent from 43 percent.<\/p>\n<p>The rates also went down among younger teenagers. In 1995, about 20 percent said they had had sex before age 15, but by 2002 those numbers had dropped to 13 percent of girls and 15 percent of boys.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s no doubt that the public perception is that things are getting worse, and that kids are having sex younger and are much wilder than they ever were,\u201d said Kathleen A. Bogle, an assistant professor of sociology and criminal justice at La Salle University. \u201cBut when you look at the data, that\u2019s not the case.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2009\/01\/27\/health\/27well.html?8dpc=&amp;_r=1&amp;pagewanted=print\">Read on<\/a> for more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It seems that way, according this surprising piece from the New York Times: Parents have worried for generations about changing moral values and risky behavior among young people, and the latest news seems particularly worrisome. It came from the National Center for Health Statistics, which reported this month that births to 15- to 19-year-olds had&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":365,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-links-r-us"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Are teenagers having LESS sex? - The Deacon&#039;s Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/01\/are-teenagers-having-less-sex.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Are teenagers having LESS sex? - The Deacon&#039;s Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It seems that way, according this surprising piece from the New York Times: Parents have worried for generations about changing moral values and risky behavior among young people, and the latest news seems particularly worrisome. It came from the National Center for Health Statistics, which reported this month that births to 15- to 19-year-olds had&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/01\/are-teenagers-having-less-sex.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Deacon&#039;s Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-01-27T06:28:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/SX7wzVWxISI\/AAAAAAAAFAc\/KMOy56u8cWc\/s320\/teen+sex1.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"deacon greg kandra\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Are teenagers having LESS sex? - The Deacon&#039;s Bench","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/01\/are-teenagers-having-less-sex.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Are teenagers having LESS sex? - The Deacon&#039;s Bench","og_description":"It seems that way, according this surprising piece from the New York Times: Parents have worried for generations about changing moral values and risky behavior among young people, and the latest news seems particularly worrisome. It came from the National Center for Health Statistics, which reported this month that births to 15- to 19-year-olds had&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/01\/are-teenagers-having-less-sex.html","og_site_name":"The Deacon&#039;s Bench","article_published_time":"2009-01-27T06:28:00+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/_0DySLTT4PWo\/SX7wzVWxISI\/AAAAAAAAFAc\/KMOy56u8cWc\/s320\/teen+sex1.jpg"}],"author":"deacon greg kandra","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/01\/are-teenagers-having-less-sex.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/01\/are-teenagers-having-less-sex.html","name":"Are teenagers having LESS sex? - The Deacon&#039;s 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