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The numbers indicate that "teen sexual activity overall is declining and more teens are delaying sexual activity, compared with a decade ago."
Girls in their first and second years of college are coming to me with difficult questions regarding sexuality," said a women's counselor for a college near my home. "They feel enormous pressure to have sexual experience—they don't want to be thought of as the last virgin on campus—yet from talking to other girls, they also know that their hearts are going to be broken after even just a one-time experience. They don't know what to do."
This conversation with a fellow passenger on a recent airplane flight alerted me to an issue researchers have recently confirmed: Sex creates an emotional bond.
The emotional aspect of sex also affects youth in high school. A team of University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) researchers reported that they had studied ninth and tenth graders at two California high schools between 2002 and 2004.
Of the 618 students surveyed, 44 percent reported having had oral sex or intercourse by the end of the 10th grade. The numbers indicate that "teen sexual activity overall is declining and more teens are delaying sexual activity, compared with a decade ago."
The researchers also found that approximately 40 percent of those who had sex felt bad about themselves or felt guilty (Ilene Lelchuk, "UCSF Explores Teens' Post-Sex Emotions," San Francisco Chronicle, Feb. 15, 2007). Other studies have shown even higher percentages.
In addition to feeling bad about having had sex, almost the same percentage felt that they had been manipulated. Again, what these young people discovered is that there are often emotional consequences that accompany sex.
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