About 27% of women between 16 and 24 had intercourse before they reached age of consent, according annual health survey
The Guardian reports: More than a quarter of young women today say that they first had sex when they were below the age of 16, a greater proportion than in any previous generation asked about underage sex in an official annual health survey.
Around 27% of women aged between 16 and 24 said they had sex before they reached 16, according to the Health Survey for England. Fewer men in the same age bracket – 22% – said they were under 16 when they first had sex.
The findings of the latest survey, for 2010, suggest that sexual behaviour has changed over the generations, according to the NHS Information Centre, which publishes the annual report, with the proportion of women having sex early growing over time – a trend that is not matched in men.
The median age at which both men and women became sexually active was 17. A substantial proportion of young people aged 16 to 24 had not yet had sex – 26% of young women and 32% of men.
One in five 16-to-24-year-olds reported having had 10 or more sexual partners – with substantially more men (27%) than women (13%) reporting 10 or more.
Men reported a mean of 9.3 sexual partners, while women reported a mean of 4.7. But 17% of women and 24% of men said they had had only one.
Women were more likely to have been diagnosed by a doctor with a sexually transmitted infection – 12% of women aged 16 to 69 said they had contracted an infection, compared with 9% of men of the same age. Equal proportions of men and women – 2% – had been diagnosed more than once.
Young people are more likely than those who are older to have been tested for the STI chlamydia (27% of men and 44% of women aged 16 to 24, compared with 6% of men and 12% of women aged 45 to 54).
More at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/dec/15/quarter-uk-women-underage-sex?newsfeed=true