Young Australians Assume Peers Having More Sex: Study

In a survey of almost 450 people ages 16-29, participants tended to overestimate the sexual experience of their peers, according to a new Melbourne-based study. Participants had a mean 5.5 lifetime partners, while believing peers typically had 6.6 lifetime partners. Teenage women were likeliest to overestimate.

"We can make an observation that young people seem to think other people are having more sex than they are," said Margaret Hellard, associate professor of the Burnet Institute's Center for Population Health. "It's worth investigating further whether or not this feeling changes how they think they ought to be behaving."

"What it all comes down to is we don't have clear conversations with young people [about sex]," Hellard said, explaining the misperception. Young Australians should be told it is OK to delay having sex, or abstain for periods, and that it is "not always the case" their peers have had multiple sexual partners, she said. In fact, the 5.5 lifetime partners reported in the survey is high in comparison to other, similar surveys, Hellard said.

Another study by adolescent health specialist Dr. Rachel Skinner involved 68 females ages 14-19. Although the youths were aware of the consequences of unprotected sex, they lacked the negotiating skills to resist peer pressure, the study found. Most of the sexually experienced respondents said they regretted their first sexual experience and reported being not ready or prepared for their sexual debut, Skinner said.

"Many of the teenagers said how sex education was something that was too little too late in their schooling years," Skinner told ABC radio. The findings were presented to the recent Royal Australasian College of Physicians conference in Sydney.

The study by Hellard and colleagues, "Discrepancies Between Young People's Self-Reported Sexual Experience and Their Perceptions of 'Normality,'" was published in Sexual Health

(2009;6(2):171-172).

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