Jim Liebelt's Youth Culture Watch

Pandemic Sent High School Sex to New Low

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by MedicalXpress.

The first years of the pandemic saw a huge decline in high school students having sex, according to a government survey. Teen sex was already becoming less and less common before COVID-19.

About three decades ago, more than half of teens said they'd had sex, according to a large government survey conducted every two years. By 2019, the share was 38%. In 2021, 30% of teens said they had ever had sex. That was the sharpest drop ever recorded by the survey.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released reports analyzing the latest findings from the survey that looks into risky youth behaviors, including smoking, drinking, having sex, and carrying guns. More than 17,000 students at 152 public and private high schools responded to the 2021 survey. Participation was voluntary and required parental permission, but responses were anonymous.

The CDC also noted declines in students who said they were currently having sex or who'd had at least four sex partners.

The declines clearly had a lot to do with the pandemic that kept kids isolated at home for long stretches and, often, under extended adult supervision, experts said.

Another finding: The proportion of high school kids who identify as heterosexual dropped to about 75%, down from about 89% as recently as 2015. Meanwhile, the share who identified as lesbian, gay or bisexual rose to 15%, up from 8% in 2015, when the survey began asking about sexual orientation.

Source: MedicalXpress
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-04-pandemic-high-school-sex-survey.html

1 in 10 Teens Have Sexted, Many See Porn by 6th Grade

[Editor note: it's been over three years since I've seen any new study data on teen sexting, and I was beginning to wonder if it was a case of culture creep, where a behavior that was once concerning and well-covered in research had lost researchers' interest as the culture no longer considers the behavior outside of the accepted norms. So, I'm glad to see the release of an updated study on sexting, finally. Spoiler alert: sexting and (no surprise) pornography are still challenging issues that today's teenagers face.]

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by HealthDay.

A high number of preteens and teens in the United States have viewed pornography and many have also sent or received nude or seminude photos -- sexting -- over their smartphones, a new study reveals.

"The prevalence rates we found in this study suggest that school counselors must be prepared to talk about sexting and pornography use with students, and to change the narrative about these behaviors," said Amanda Giordano, lead author of the study and an associate professor in the University of Georgia Early College of Education, in Athens.

"It's important that students know that sending a sext is not a new requirement for romantic relationships and that pornography does not reflect expectations for sexual activity," Giordano added in a university news release.

For the study, the researchers questioned 350 students, aged 12 to 17 years. The investigators found that 15% had sent a sext to someone. About 25% had ever received a sext. About 25% had ever been asked to send a sext. About 12% said they had felt pressure by someone to send a sext in the past year.

This pressure was concerning because of the unintended consequences of sexting, such as having the picture forwarded to others, put online or used as a form of blackmail to get the person to meet other demands, the researchers said.

About 50% of adolescents said they had been exposed to pornography. On average, kids were exposed to pornography for the first time at age 11.5 — typically the age of American 6th graders and younger than previous studies have suggested.

Increased smartphone access among teens and the ease of finding free internet pornography likely drove that age drop, Giordano said.

More than one in three of the participants said they had viewed pornography at least once in the previous year. And 8% of the students said they watched pornography about every day.

Pornography use was significantly more common among males, the study found.

The study was published online recently in Professional School Counseling.

Source: HealthDay
https://consumer.healthday.com/sexting-2658832421.html

Early Puberty in Girls Surged in the Pandemic, But Why?

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by SceinceAlert.

Among the laundry list of health problems COVID has inflicted on the world's population, one of the more perplexing could be an increase in the number of girls experiencing what is known as idiopathic precocious puberty – abnormally early onset of puberty.

Precocious puberty for girls is defined as signs of secondary sexual characteristics emerging before the age of eight. Just how many girls that encompasses is difficult to say with confidence as measures of the condition's prevalence vary considerably around the world.

More than one study has spotted the spike in numbers during the early months of the pandemic of what is typically a rare condition, highlighting a potential link between the virus and a trigger for early adolescence.

Now a study presented at the 60th Annual European Society for Paediatric Endocrinology Meeting in Rome suggests it might not have anything to do with the infection at all. Rather, the time spent during lockdowns scrolling through smart devices for hours on end could be to blame.

Researchers from Gazi University and Ankara City Hospital in Turkey exposed 18 immature female rats to a spectrum of light predominantly emitted by our LED screens for relatively short or long periods each day, finding those bathed in the blue-tinged light for longer bouts showed the hallmarks of maturity sooner than the rest.

"We have found that blue light exposure, sufficient to alter melatonin levels, is also able to alter reproductive hormone levels and cause earlier puberty onset in our rat model. In addition, the longer the exposure, the earlier the onset," says endocrinologist and lead author Aylin Kilinç Uğurlu from Gazi University.

The reasons for the early surge of hormones are also something of a mystery. Putting aside forms of cancer or other disorders of the nervous system, a good proportion are idiopathic, meaning there's just no obvious cause.

So when the number of girls reporting an idiopathic form of precocious puberty in Turkey jumped from 25 in April 2019 to 58 in March 2020, researchers were stumped, proposing anything from high-calorie foods to the fear of the pandemic might be to blame.

One intriguing possibility was the stark rise in the use of smart devices. Or, to be more precise, a significant increase in time spent exposed to the blue light emitted from our phones and tablets each day.

Using rats as a more convenient test subject, the team of researchers demonstrated this hypothesis could have a lot going for it.

Not only did the female rats exposed to double the duration of blue light each day undergo their rodent version of puberty at a relatively younger age than their peers, they also had lower melatonin levels and higher levels of the reproductive chemical signals oestradiol and luteinizing hormone.

"As this a rat study, we can't be sure that these findings would be replicated in children, but these data suggest that blue light exposure could be considered as a risk factor for earlier puberty onset," said Uğurlu.

This research was presented at the 60th Annual European Society for Paediatric Endocrinology Meeting.

Source: ScienceAlert
https://www.sciencealert.com/early-puberty-in-girls-surged-in-the-pandemic-and-we-may-finally-know-why

1 in 5 Parents Say They’ll Never Have ‘The Talk’ with Their Kids

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by StudyFinds.

For many parents, talking about the birds and the bees is a part of life for adolescents. For others, they’ll just leave it to their child’s school to teach them about human reproduction.

A recent OnePoll survey asked 2,000 parents with children between five and 18 to examine their own views about sex, including how they’ve addressed the topic with their kids. Fifty-eight percent of respondents have already spoken to their children about sex, and 21 percent plan to do so in the future. However, the same percentage (21%) don’t plan to bring up the “sex talk” at all.

Perhaps surprisingly, 58 percent of parents whose kis are 10 to 13 and 57 percent of parents with kids between five and nine have given them “birds and the bees” talk. Even half of parents of children under four also had those conversations with them (51%). Interestingly, men were more likely to discuss sex with their kids than women (61% vs. 56%).

Of the 42 percent of parents who haven’t talked to their kids about sex, 37 percent cited their child’s young age as the main reason. One in three reported that their kids are learning sex education in school, and one in four said the other parent is taking the lead.

One in four admit they would feel awkward while having conversations about sex with their children (26%). Regardless of those feelings, seven in 10 agree the “birds and the bees” talk should happen at an early age, specifically because of how often kids are exposed to similar topics on social media and in other parts of daily life.

Source: StudyFinds
https://www.studyfinds.org/parents-birds-and-the-bees-kids/

1 in 5 Americans Has an STI

*The following is excerpted from an online article posted on HealthDay

According to 2018 data, one in five people in the United States probably carries a sexually transmitted infection, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says.

On any given day in 2018, nearly 68 million people had a sexually transmitted disease, according to the new CDC report. There were 26 million new cases that year. The agency refers to these diseases -- such as HIV, syphilis, and gonorrhea -- as sexually transmitted infections, or STIs.

Nearly half of newly acquired STIs occurred in people aged 15 to 24 years, and new cases in 2018 would result in nearly $16 billion in direct medical costs, the report said.

People with STIs don't always have symptoms. Left untreated, some STIs can increase the risk of HIV infection or cause chronic pelvic pain, pelvic inflammatory disease, infertility, and/or severe pregnancy and newborn complications, according to the report published online in the journal Sexually Transmitted Diseases.

"The burden of STIs is staggering," said Dr. Jonathan Mermin, director of CDC's National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention.

At a time when sexually transmitted infections are at an all-time high, they have fallen out of the national conversation, he said.

"Yet, STIs are a preventable and treatable national health threat with substantial personal and economic impact," Mermin said in the news release. "There is an urgent need to reverse the trend of increasing STIs, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has affected many STI prevention services."

Source: HealthDay
https://consumer.healthday.com/b-1-26-1-in-5-americans-have-an-std-cdc-2650132054.html

Gay, Lesbian Teens at High Odds for Physical, Sexual Abuse

*The following is excerpted from an online article posted on HealthDay.

The warning stems from surveys of nearly 29,000 teens, aged 14 to 18, conducted in 2015 and 2017 by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Overall, LGBQ teens (lesbian, gay, bisexual and teens who are questioning their sexuality) face roughly twice the risk of physical violence compared with straight youth, the surveys revealed. And that risk can come from a romantic partner -- or anyone else.

Lead author Theodore Caputi said the study is the first to use a recent, nationally representative sample to gauge the scope of physical and sexual violence among LGBQ teens. He described the findings as "striking."

Caputi is a research consultant with the Health Equity Research Lab at Harvard Medical School in Boston.

"Unfortunately, physical and sexual violence are commonplace in the daily lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual and questioning adolescents," he said.

Over one in 10 LGBQ teens reported intimate partner violence in the past year, Caputi said. And more than one in five said they had been sexually assaulted.

"Given the severe physical, mental and emotional health consequences of violence victimhood, this high prevalence represents a public health crisis," he said.

In both 2015 and 2017, survey respondents were asked to indicate their sexual orientation, and whether they had experienced violence in the prior year at the hands of a partner or someone else. In 2017, participants were also asked if they had been sexually assaulted.

In total, about 87% of respondents identified as straight, just over 2% as gay or lesbian, 7% as bisexual and nearly 4% said they were unsure.

Lesbian and bisexual girls had nearly twice the risk for engaging in a physical fight, either at school or elsewhere, compared with straight girls, the surveys revealed.

Gay and bisexual boys, meanwhile, appeared to be particularly vulnerable to sexual violence. They faced nearly five times the risk for sexual assault or forced intercourse, compared to their straight peers, the findings showed.

Meanwhile, teens who identified as bisexual were found to face a high risk for both physical violence in an intimate relationship and sexual assault in general.

Caputi stressed that his team did not investigate the specific underlying causes.

The findings were published online as a research letter in JAMA Pediatrics.

Source: HealthDay
https://consumer.healthday.com/public-health-information-30/violence-health-news-787/gay-lesbian-teens-at-high-odds-for-physical-sexual-abuse-755616.html

Engaging in Sexual Intercourse in Early Adolescence Associated with an Increased Risk of Attempting Suicide

*The following is excerpted from an online article posted on PsyPost.

Adolescents who engage in sexual intercourse tend to face higher odds of suicide attempts, according to new research. The study, published in the journal Psychiatry Research, examined more than 100,000 participants who were between 12 and 15 years old.

“Suicide is a global issue inflicting the majority of global regions and has a high prevalence among adolescents,” said study author Lee Smith, a reader in physical activity and public health at Anglia Ruskin University.

“Sexual intercourse in early adolescence may increase risk for suicidal behavior via mental disorders, distress resulting from being too psychologically immature to handle sexual relationships, and sexual violence particularly among girls.”

The researchers examined data from 116,820 adolescents in 38 countries who had participated in the Global School-based Student Health Survey.

After controlling for gender, age, food insecurity, anxiety-induced insomnia, and alcohol consumption, the researchers found an association between sexual intercourse and suicide attempts in 32 of the 38 countries.

“Those adolescents who had sexual intercourse had more than double the odds of having attempted suicide in the past 12 months compared with those who had never had intercourse,” Smith told PsyPost.

Source: PsyPost
https://www.psypost.org/2019/11/engaging-in-sexual-intercourse-in-early-adolescence-associated-with-an-increased-risk-of-attempting-suicide-54782

Teen Birth Control Use Linked to Depression Risk in Adulthood

*The following is excerpted from an online article posted on MedicalXpress.

Women who used oral contraceptives during adolescence are more likely to develop depression as adults, suggests new research from the University of British Columbia.

In a study published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, researchers found teenage birth control pill users were 1.7 times to three times more likely to be clinically depressed in adulthood, compared to women who started taking birth control pills as adults, and to women who had never taken birth control pills.

The study is the first to look at oral contraceptive use during adolescence and its link with women's long-term vulnerability to depression. Depression is the leading cause of disability and suicide deaths worldwide, and women are twice as likely as men to develop depression at some point in their lives.

"Our findings suggest that the use of oral contraceptives during adolescence may have an enduring effect on a woman's risk for depression—even years after she stops using them," said Christine Anderl, the study's first author and a UBC psychology postdoctoral fellow. "Adolescence is an important period for brain development. Previous animal studies have found that manipulating sex hormones, especially during important phases of brain development, can influence later behaviour in a way that is irreversible."

The researchers analyzed data from a population-representative survey of 1,236 women in the U.S. and controlled for a number of factors that have previously been proposed to explain the relationship between oral contraceptive use and depression risk. These include age at onset of menstruation, age of first sexual intercourse and current oral contraceptive use.

While the data clearly shows a relationship between birth control use during adolescence and increased depression risk in adulthood, the researchers note that it does not prove one causes the other.

Source: MedicalXpress
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-08-teen-birth-linked-depression-adulthood.html

Teen Birth Control Use Up, But Still Too Many Unwanted Pregnancies

*The following is excerpted from an online article posted on HealthDay.

Today's teens are better at using birth control when they first become sexually active, but many unexpected pregnancies still occur, new research finds.

Teens who didn't use birth control during their first month of sexual activity faced nearly a fourfold increase in the risk of an unwanted pregnancy within three months, the study found.

Teens who didn't use birth control during their first month of sexual activity faced nearly a fourfold increase in the risk of an unwanted pregnancy within three months, the study found.

"Our findings suggest that early information about and access to contraception may help teenagers to avoid unwanted pregnancy," said study author Dr. Mara Murray Horwitz. She's a research fellow in Harvard Medical School's Department of Population Medicine.

Access to the full range of birth control options, such as birth control pills, implants and intrauterine devices (IUDs), increased more over time in white women and in women in higher income groups, according to Murray Horwitz.

Women between the ages of 18 and 24 see the highest rates of unintended pregnancy, according to background information in the study. Unintended pregnancies are also more common in Hispanic and black women, as well as in women in lower-income groups, the researchers said.

Unplanned pregnancies are associated with delayed pregnancy care, premature birth and low birth weight. Lowering the rates of unintended pregnancy rates is a national public health priority, the researchers added.

To see what effect birth control has had over the years, Murray Horwitz and her colleagues reviewed data from a nationally representative survey that occurred in stages, beginning in 1973. Answers from more than 25,000 women were included.

The average age at which female teens began having sex -- 17 -- didn't really change over the years.

But the use of birth control did improve. The initiation of contraception beforethe first sexual experience rose from less than 10 percent in the 1970s to more than 25 percent in the 2000s. The rate of birth control initiation during the first sexual experience was about 40 percent. The most common method used was the male condom, the study said.

Rates of timely birth control use (within the first month of sexual activity) were highest in white women, at around 85 percent. Hispanic women saw the most dramatic increase in early contraceptive use -- from 38 percent in the 1970s to 72 percent in 2010-2014.

Murray Horwitz said that while the study wasn't designed to tease out the reasons for improved used of contraception around sexual debut, she suspects that increased access to birth control methods, such as condoms, as well as more education and awareness, likely played a role.

She said pediatricians and parents can help by making sure teens are educated and have access to birth control methods.

Dr. John Steever, a pediatrician at Mount Sinai Adolescent Health Center in New York City, agreed that it's important for teens to have information.

"There's been an emphasis on talking to kids about abstinence and waiting to have sex, but when you look at the age of sexual debut, it hasn't changed in 40 years. Our children are going to be having sex, and probably before they're in a long-term monogamous relationship," said Steever, who wasn't involved in the study.

"Given that, the way to reduce the risk of unwanted pregnancy is to talk about birth control and healthy sexual relationships. Parents can talk about abstinence, too, but if you talk to them, kids will have a much better idea how to protect themselves," he explained.

And don't just have "the talk" with your child, Steever advised. "Start early and have multiple small conversations to help them learn about positive, healthy relationships," he said.

The study was published online in Pediatrics.

Source: HealthDay
https://consumer.healthday.com/women-s-health-information-34/birth-control-news-62/teen-birth-control-use-up-but-still-too-many-unwanted-pregnancies-741554.html

Parents Teach Firstborns About Sex, But Not Their Later Kids

*The following is excerpted from an online article posted on HealthDay.

Younger siblings are less likely than firstborns to hear about the birds and the bees from their parents, a new study suggests.

Instead, they may learn what's what from their older brothers and sisters, British researchers report.

"Although there has been much research into how the order in which children are born into a family may impact psychological or social outcomes, studies on the relationship between birth order and sexual health outcomes are limited," said Dr. Lotte Elton, who led the research.

The study also found that parents are less likely to teach their sons about sex than their daughters, according to Elton and colleagues at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

"Across all birth order categories, men consistently reported lower parental involvement in sex education than women," Elton said.

It's not known if learning the facts of life from Mom and Dad delays sex. But middle-born boys -- those less likely to have parental instruction -- had increased odds of sexual activity before 16, the researchers also found.

For the study, the researchers collected data on more than 45,000 people who took part in the third National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles in Britain.

The researchers focused on 5,000 individuals ages 17 to 29 who answered questions about the involvement of parents or siblings in sex education and early sexual experiences.

The study found that 48 percent of firstborn girls and 37 percent of firstborn boys had discussed sex with a parent at age 14. This compared with 40 percent of middle-born girls and 29 percent of middle-born boys.

Furthermore, middle-born and last-born boys were less likely than firstborns to say talking about sex with their parents was easy.

The report was published in the journal Sex Education.

Later-born children said siblings played a bigger role than their parents in teaching them about puberty and reproduction. This suggests brothers and sisters might be helpful in sex education programs, the researchers noted.

Source: HealthDay
https://consumer.healthday.com/pregnancy-information-29/love-sex-and-relationship-health-news-452/parents-teach-firstborns-about-sex-but-not-their-later-kids-738053.html