What is it about?
Risky sexual behaviors can lead to unexpected pregnancies, infections, and diseases. Teenagers who have early sex, compared to peers, also tend to be riskier as young adults. We show that there are genetic and environmental factors that lead to early sex and later risk behaviors, which challenges the assumption that early sex is a gateway for other risky sexual behaviors.
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Why is it important?
One goal of abstinence-only education is to delay sex, with the hope that people will be safer sexual choices when they are an adult. Our results suggest that delaying sex might not reduce risky behaviors in adulthood.
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This page is a summary of: Testing the Role of Adolescent Sexual Initiation in Later-Life Sexual Risk Behavior, Psychological Science, June 2011, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/0956797611410982.
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