It’s not a massive shift, but new data released from the National Center for Health Statistics indicates that in the past five years, teens are waiting longer before having their first sexual encounter. Among all teens 15-24, 27% of men and 29% of women say they’ve never had a sexual encounter, up from 22% for both in 2002 (the current data is from 2006-2008). Of course that still means nearly ¾ of them are, but it’s a start. Most promising, I guess, is that among 15-17 year olds (15-24 is a large spectrum) the number of “no contact yet” increased among males from 46% to 53% and among females from 49% to 58%. 7% and 9% respectively is a pretty good gain, even if it still puts the number just over half. It’s not the end of the tunnel on teen sexuality just yet, but it’s certainly a very good sign of progress. Buried at the bottom of the story is that self-reported homosexuality and bisexuality combined is only 4.6% of women and 2.8% of men, far, far beneath Kinsey’s wildest exaggerations.
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