Sexual Behavior and Selected
Health Measures: Men and Women 15-44 Years of Age, United States, 2002
Advance Data
362.Sexual
Behavior and Selected Health Measures: Men and Women 15-44 Years of Age,
United States, 2002. 56 pp. (PHS) 2003-1250. View/download
PDF 1.2 MB
Objective:
This report is intended to
provide reliable national estimates of some basic statistics on certain
types of sexual behavior, sexual orientation, and sexual attraction for
men and women 15-44 years of age, based on data collected in the United
States in 2002. The data are relevant to public health concerns, including
efforts to prevent HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, and to
demographic and social concerns such as birth and pregnancy rates among
teenagers. The data are from the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG),
and are based on 12,571 in-person interviews with men and women 15-44
years of age.
Highlights of
findings
Teens
At ages
15-19, about 12 percent of males and 10 percent of females had had
heterosexual oral sex but not vaginal intercourse. (The male-female
percentages are not significantly different.) This percent drops to 3
percent for both males and females at age 22-24, when most have already
had vaginal intercourse. There are no trend data for females. Trend data
for males suggest that no large changes in these behaviors have occurred
since 1995.
Adults-heterosexual activity
Among
adult males 25-44 years of age, 97 percent have had sexual contact with an
opposite-sex partner in their lives; 97 percent have had vaginal
intercourse, 90 percent have had oral sex with a female, and 40 percent,
anal sex with a female. Among women, the proportions who have had sexual
contact with an opposite-sex partner were similar.
Males
30-44 years of age reported an average (median) of 6-8 female sexual
partners in their lifetimes. Among women 30-44 years of age, the median
number of male sexual partners in their lifetimes was about
four. The
findings appear to be similar to previous surveys conducted in the early
1990’s.
Same-sex activity
Three
percent of males 15-44 years of age have had oral or anal sex with another
male in the last 12 months (1.8 million). Four percent of females had a
sexual experience with another female in the last 12 months (tables A and
B).
The
proportion who had same-sex contact in their lifetimes was 6 percent for
males and (using a different question) 11 percent for females (figure 5).
About 1
percent of men and 3 percent of women 15-44 years of age have had both
male and female sexual partners in the last 12 months (table B).
Sexual orientation
In
response to a question that asked, “Do you think of yourself as
heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, or something else?” 90 percent of
men 18-44 years of age responded that they think of themselves as
heterosexual, 2.3 percent of men answered homosexual, 1.8 percent
bisexual, 3.9 percent “something else,” and 1.8 percent did not answer the
question (figure 8). Percents for women were similar. These findings are
similar to data collected in 1992 by Laumann et al.
Sexual attraction
Survey
participants were asked if they were sexually attracted to males, to
females, or to both. Among men 18-44 years of age, 92 percent said they
were attracted “only to females,” and 3.9 percent, “mostly” to females.
Among women, 86 percent said they were attracted only to males, and 10
percent, “mostly” to males. The percentage attracted “mostly to males” was
3 percent in a survey conducted in 1992, compared with 10 percent in the
2002 NSFG.
Selected health measures
29
percent of men who have ever had male-male sexual contact were tested for
HIV (outside of blood donation) in the last year, compared with 14 percent
of men with no same-sex sexual contact.
17
percent of men who ever had male-male sexual contact had been treated for
a non-HIV sexually transmitted infection (STI), compared with 7 percent of
those who had never had male-male sexual contact.
Among
men 15-44 years of age who had at least one sexual partner in the last 12
months, 39 percent used a condom at their most recent sex. Among never
married males, this figure was 65 percent, compared with 24 percent of
married males. Among males who had ever had sexual contact with another
male, 91 percent used a condom at their last sex, compared with 36 percent
of men who never had sex with another male.