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Juvenile delinquency lower in teens who have early sex21 November, 2007 This one is bound to shock those who advocate sexual abstinence during teenage. In a recent study, clinical psychologists in the United States found that teens who indulge in sex at an early age may be less inclined to display delinquency in early adulthood than their peers who waited till they were older to have sex. The study, by a team of clinical psychologists at the University of Virginia, the United States, also indicated that early sex might also help the teens develop better social relationships in early adulthood. These revolutionary findings, published in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence, contradict most of the notions that link sex in early teenage to drug use, criminality, anti-social behavior and emotional problems in later life. Researchers at Ohio State University, the United States, had found in February 2007 that youngsters who lose their virginity earlier than their peers are more likely to become juvenile delinquents. The researchers at the University of Virginia reached their “unconventional” conclusions after analysing data on 534 same-sex twin pairs in the United States gathered at three time points over a 7-year period. Twins were examined with a view to eliminating the genetic and socio-economic variables that otherwise might influence the behaviors of adolescents. The study found that identical twins, who have the same DNA, lost their virginity at pretty much the same age compared to fraternal twins, whose DNA patterns are only 50% the same. This led the researchers to postulate that it is genes that influence the age at which people lose their virginity. The same pattern for delinquency has been put forward by other studies. Kathryn Paige Harden, lead author of the study and a Ph.D. candidate in clinical psychology at the University of Virginia, said, “We got a very surprising finding, particularly that early sex seems to forecast less anti-social behavior a few years later, rather than more.” She added, “There is a cultural assumption in the United States that if teens have sex early, it is somehow bad for their psychological health. But, we actually found that teens who had sex earlier seem to have better relationships later. Now we want to find out why.” “Our hypothesis as a result of this finding,” according to Kathryn Paige Harden, “is that teens who become involved in intimate romantic relationships early are having sex early and more often, but that those intimate relationships might later protect them from becoming involved in delinquent acts later.” Kathryn Paige Harden said she is planning further studies that will examine closely the contexts of early-teen sexual activity, such as the types of relationships, whether they were casual or intimate, how old the partners were, where the sex occurred and why, and how long the relationships lasted. The data obtained would be then related to later behaviors and attitudes. Robert Emory, professor of
psychology at the University of
Virginia and Harden’s advisor and
co-author, explained, “What we may
have found is that strong
relationships encourage pro-social
instead of anti-social behavior. It
seems that if teens got married early,
they would be sexually active early,
but likely would engage in less
anti-social behavior later.”
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