KEVIN LALOR, Ph.D.
Madam, - Breda O'Brien (Opinion, January 18th) is right to question the proportion of teenagers who are sexually active. Popular wisdom has it that the "youth of today" are sexually mature and active beyond their years. This impression is assisted by the widespread commercialisation of sex throughout popular culture (music videos, magazines, teen-TV etc.). The reality, recent Irish research suggests, is different.
A sample of 247 college students (admittedly, a small, non-representative group) report that just over 12 per cent have had intercourse below age 16. Respondents living in rural areas are significantly less likely to have had intercourse before 16 (5 per cent, compared with 16 per cent of "urban" respondents). Rural girls under 16 are very unlikely to have had intercourse (1.5 per cent). Even by age 21, only 57 per cent of males and 48 per cent of females in the total sample report having had intercourse.
A significant minority of 20-year-olds (30 per cent) have not been in a sexually active relationship of any description.
Thus, as usual, empirical evidence rarely matches the popular stereotypes of sexual behaviour among adolescents. - Yours, etc.,
KEVIN LALOR, Ph.D.
Department of Social Sciences,
DIT,
Dublin 6.