Adolescent sex

Handheld Computer Study Captures Emotional State Of Sexually Active Adolescents

Through a unique and innovative data-gathering method, researchers at Children's Hospital Boston have gained new insight into adolescents' sexual behavior and how sex affects their moods. Their findings appear on-line in the Journal of Adolescent Health.

Using handheld personal digital assistants (PDAs), the researchers closely tracked 67 sexually active youth, aged 15 to 21, from an adolescent medicine clinic at an urban children's hospital. Each participant was given a PDA that beeped them at random, four to six times a day, asking them a series of questions about any recent sexual activity and their emotional state and feelings.

Kind of surprising that kids these days are so open about their sex lives. That's a good sign.

The 67 adolescents reported on a total of 266 unique sexual intercourse reports, 94 percent of which were with a main partner and only 49 percent involved the use of a condom.

Don't tell this to the Pope. He might croak. Then again, that wouldn't be such a bad idea... However, he might just be ecstatic that fewer than half the reports involved a condom...

The findings suggest adolescents of both sexes tended to feel more positive and less negative after engaging in sex than at times after they had not.

What's amazing is how much trouble social scientists will go to in order to document the obvious... But I suppose this finding will disappoint those who think sex with a "main partner" should be an occasion for anything but positive feelings.

Tags: adolescent sex