Recently we’ve been hearing that fewer teens are having sex, but you haven’t forgotten the hysteria caused by reports of teen “rainbow parties,” have you? Good, because there’s a new teen sex problem that actually exists. Researchers found significant number of teen girls are having group sex, and it’s often non-consensual.
A new study conducted by the Boston University School of Public Health found that one in 13 girls ages 14 to 20 have engaged in “multi-person sex” (MPS). Of the 328 girls who had visitited Boston-area health clinics, 7.3 percent said they’d had group sex. Among the girls in that group, 45 percent said at least one male participant hadn’t used a condom, and the majority of the girls, “reported being pressured, threatened, coerced, or forced to participate in MPS at least once.” One third of the girls said they’d used alcohol or drugs during their last group sex experience, and half of those girls said they were forced to use the substances by their partner.
Though some of the participants were actually adults, it’s clear that most of the women in the study weren’t college freshmen having a consensual threesome. The average age of their first group-sex experience was 15.6 years old, and 54% of those studied had multi-person sex for the first time when they were younger than 16. The age of consent is 16 in Massachusetts, so the majority of these young women had been raped.
The sample size was fairly small and was limited to those who sought treatment for reproductive health issues at a health clinic, but the findings are still troubling. Despite the media’s focus on a variety of rumored teen sexual activity, there actually hasn’t been much research into group sex among adolescents. This study found the girls who had multi-person sex (which isn’t really the right term since much of it was non-consensual) were more likely to smoke, have STDs, and be subjected to dating violence.
Group Sex Among Adolescents A Public Health Concern, New Study Says [EurekAlert]
Earlier: Fickle Teens Are No Longer Interested In Having Sex
Image via artiomp/Shutterstock.
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