Premarital Sex: Almost Everyone's Doing It

Study Shows More Than 90 Percent Of Americans Have Had Premarital Sex, Even Older Generations

(AP)  More than nine out of 10 Americans, men and women alike, have had premarital sex, according to a new study. The high rates extend even to women born in the 1940s, challenging perceptions that people were more chaste in the past.

"This is reality-check research," said the study's author, Lawrence Finer. "Premarital sex is normal behavior for the vast majority of Americans, and has been for decades."

Finer is a research director at the Guttmacher Institute, a private New York-based think tank that studies sexual and reproductive issues and which disagrees with government-funded programs that rely primarily on abstinence-only teachings. The study, released Tuesday, appears in the new issue of Public Health Reports.

The study, examining how sexual behavior before marriage has changed over time, was based on interviews conducted with more than 38,000 people — about 33,000 of them women — in 1982, 1988, 1995 and 2002 for the federal National Survey of Family Growth. According to Finer's analysis, 99 percent of the respondents had had sex by age 44, and 95 percent had done so before marriage.

Even among a subgroup of those who abstained from sex until at least age 20, four-fifths had had premarital sex by age 44, the study found.

Finer said the likelihood of Americans having sex before marriage has remained stable since the 1950s, though people now wait longer to get married and thus are sexually active as singles for extensive periods.

The study found women virtually as likely as men to engage in premarital sex, even those born decades ago. Among women born between 1950 and 1978, at least 91 percent had had premarital sex by age 30, he said, while among those born in the 1940s, 88 percent had done so by age 44.

"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- to 29-year-olds," Finer said.

Under the Bush administration, such programs have received hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding.

"It would be more effective," Finer said, "to provide young people with the skills and information they need to be safe once they become sexually active — which nearly everyone eventually will."

Wade Horn, assistant secretary for children and families at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, defended the abstinence-only approach for teenagers.

"One of its values is to help young people delay the onset of sexual activity," he said. "The longer one delays, the fewer lifetime sex partners they have, and the less the risk of contracting sexually transmitted disease."

He insisted there was no federal mission against premarital sex among adults.

"Absolutely not," Horn said. "The Bush administration does not believe the government should be regulating or stigmatizing the behavior of adults."

Horn said he found the high percentages of premarital sex cited in the study to be plausible, and expressed hope that society would not look askance at the small minority that chooses to remain abstinent before marriage.

However, Janice Crouse of Concerned Women for America, a conservative group which strongly supports abstinence-only education, said she was skeptical of the findings.

"Any time I see numbers that high, I'm a little suspicious," she said. "The numbers are too pat."

Leslee Unruh, who runs a South Dakota-based organization promoting abstinence-only education, contended that increasing numbers of young people were open to remaining chaste until marriage.

[wamerritt]

This is really not news, it's to be expected. People who don't know GOD can't do anything but break his laws. And I guess it's no wonder either, that they would then turn around and say that since they're all doing it, there's no point in trying to do better. Narrow is our way, and few find it.

[frankbowers]

To all the parents lwho have signed statements from their childre n or just a pact theat *** is out. I would be the first to tell them in case it has not been said to them before, should you believe it you are the fool. They age premature grandparents. The best of good byes to those who admitts it the rest will some day own up to it or go to their grve just a common liar. the best of good days, from a bourn again Catholic.
;-)))))))))))) Frank Bowers in Austin, TX

[pseudotriton]

ANGRYliberal you talk like s*x is something invented by liberals. Whereever you got that idea. Just look at all the s*x scandals all the Republican politicians have been having lately. At least Bill Clinton didn't try to solicit from a male intern. S*x is the most basic, universal instincts of all animals, inlcuding humans. (Like it or not, we are evolved from lower animal forms.) S*x is something almost all humans with adequate IQ will explore sooner or later, without being taught. Having intimate relationship with whoever you want rather than being confined by prejudice disguised as high morals, I would definitely call that "progress".

[unknwnid42]

You know it amazes me how you people make every *** thing a politcal format get off you soap box and figure out how to teach your family something, seems we would all be better off with a few more family values and morals taught at home. too many people worship the almighty dollar, I have heard nothing more then "I got my kid this for Christmas , or I got my kid that and it cost this much. I got my kids one present each and we will all be together that is the way they have been taught. Christmas isn't what you get at our home it is love and family maybe if we weren't so busy working to get everything the neighbors has and spent more time with our kids they wouldn't be messing around to get the attention they are missing at home

[kpokey]

I think this study is simply saying it happens. It's natural. Attempts at abstinance only education are not going to work, because abstinance is not natural. You are only putting people's lives and health in danger when you allow abstinance only education.

[angryliberal-2009]

Thankyou liberals! Your agenda is really making America better! Now we are teaching are children to have *** with whoever they want, male, female, married or not, as long as you dont get aids. Ummmm, does that sound like progress? That sounds like ingorant caveman/animal activity to me. Oh yeah and if you get pregnant from your animalistic behavior, just go ahead and kill the baby if you dot want it. Survival of the fittest, right? Thnakyou to all the liberals who have helped contrivute to this "progressive" culture that we now live in. I applaud you.

[idunkwn41]

I have a 16 year old daughter who is beautiful and not just in a mothers opinion, she is a raining beauty queen. She has taken a vow of purity, of heart, mind, body and spirit.
She researched and studied this when she was 12 years old and we had a ceremony in which she signed a contract with her family to reamain pure
It isn't something other of her friends did or that has made her popular, on the dating scene but it is a conviction she believes in and stands by. There have been a few tears when a boy she likes tells her she either does or he is gone but she holds her ground and lets them know if they respect her as she does herself they will not push.
Amerigirl, the bottom line is this teach your daughters respect in themselves and respect for their bodies, that as parents it the best we can do the rest is up to them. However first we MUST respect ourselves, children learn what they see if you act the way you wish them to as they grow they will see and learn what your wishes are for them.

[fizzie319]

First off, I totally agree with Nikosk1...

I think that since we cant prevent people from having ***, might as well educate them as to how to practice having safe ***. As much as parents bicker and complain about how their youth is having *** at such a young age, their bickering and complaining is not changing anything.

Amerigirl28, I highly doubt skimpy clothes will have an effect on how soon they will start having ***. In my own opinion skimpy clothes are apart of "The Cute Factor." They will wear these types of clothes to fit in with the latest fashion styles of the other girls at their school. Them having *** will be the result of either peer pressure or shear desire to do so. Another thing to consider is the fact that if your girls want to have *** no rule or curfew that you set will stop them from having ***. They will become, if they haven't already, teenagers. If they want to do it, they will do it. Its your job as a parent to let them know your opinion on the subject, but make sure that you give them "Just in case" advise. The last thing you should do is give them an ultimatum.

[pseudotriton]

This great news should deal a blow to the Evagelicals. Now only if they fund a program to help those experiencing abstinence not by choice... Hahaha!

And to amerigirl28, if you think the notion "s*x sells" is an Aemrican phenomenom, you are so wrong. It's human nature, we are programs by millions of evolution to pursue s*x in every possible way. Only the self-righteous religious fanantics are trying to counteract this nature.

[churchof1000]

"The Bush administration does not believe the government should be regulating or stigmatizing the behavior of adults." [Horn said.]

-This is a complete falsehood. It's laughably untrue, in fact.

[blackchild4]

The Bible and Santa Claus once were the only weapons against premarital se*.
Now that we have killed them off..... Is this really News.

[godseyesore-2009]

Nikosk1 said:"Who f*****n cares who screws whom and when???"
Well, evidently repunicans and god squads. Don't have a clue as to why they are so paranoid about being human.

the word they took out was s*xy

my problem is my girls. I have two daughters: 5 and 6. A boy called my 6 year old *** in school, repeatedly. How do you explain to such young people to respect their bodies and love themselves alongside a country that tells them *** sells?

I try to be open and honest with my girls, but even so, they say "when they think I'm not listening" that they can't wait to wear 'inappropriate clothes'. I'm just scared of making the wrong decision and this contries morals are not helping! Nor do I want to leave. I don't hate being an american (though I understand the bad things we've done)

How do you raise non promiscuous, mentally sane girls!!!!!

[swiftyj1]

gslinger3 wrote, "Thanks to MTV and the Hollywood left wing radical hippie spot smoking kooks out there, premarital *** is now envogue!"

Maybe he should read the actual article...premarital relations have been going on well before the days of MTV or hippies...even before Elvis!

[bluestardad]

And we needed some study by some Pin Heads to tell us this? How much money did we waste on this one?

[brackattack]

who really cares i could care less if people are having *** with out being married..its their choice their lives...let them enjoy it

[gslinger3]

Thanks to MTV and the Hollywood left wing radical hippie spot smoking kooks out there, premarital *** is now envogue!

Oh and..........

MerryChristmas!!!!!
if that offends you....................too BAD!

[olebd]

I think this has always been common knowledge, we just do a very poor job these days of keeping quiet about it.

I also question if we are meant to be monogamous with the same partner for life. That seems like such a long time. If humans were at least allowed occasional vacations from marriage, I think the divorce rate would plummet.

[swiftyj1]

"Any time I see numbers that high, I'm a little suspicious," she said. "The numbers are too pat." Well of COURSE she's suspicious! She belongs to the Concerned Women for America! it's her JOB to poke her nose into everyone's bedrooms checking for wedding rings!