The exclusion of never-married women from Chinese fertility surveys.

Never-married women have been regularly excluded in official national surveys of fertility in China, even in light of evidence of increasing premarital sexual activity. Likewise, never-married women in the United States were consistently excluded from national fertility surveys prior to 1982 because of the perceived sensitivity of questions about contraceptive use and sexual activities. Data on sexual and fertility behavior from all women of reproductive age, regardless of marital status, can provide direct measures of sexual activity and unintended pregnancies, as well as facilitate modeling of social networks underlying the sexual transmission of diseases. China's need for such information, however sensitive, will become more difficult to ignore given increasing pressures to attend to the health needs of their never-married but sexually active population.

PIP: It is argued that exclusion of the never married from Chinese fertility surveys eliminates consideration of unintended pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and factors that might indicate future changes in fertility or contraceptive use. Never married persons are important as providers of information on sexual activity and sexually transmitted diseases. Asia may replace Africa as a major transmission site for HIV infection by the year 2000. Official Chinese reports indicated 2594 HIV-infected persons in 1995, but actual numbers could be as high as 100,000 persons. Information about social networks and sexual activity can be helpful in predicting the potential for spread of HIV. Economic reforms are expected to impact on patterns of marriage and sexual behavior. Although the 1982 One-per-thousand Population Fertility Sampling Survey included married and unmarried women, it excluded women aged 15-19 years. Reproductive histories were not collected from unmarried women. The 1985 and 1987 In-Depth Fertility Surveys only collected reproductive histories among ever married women aged 15-49. The 1992 National Sex Civilization Survey of sexual behavior was limited to the currently married. The only survey of sexual activity among the never married was conducted among college students in Shanghai, but six universities refused to participate. There is no nationally representative fertility survey of the Chinese population that includes the never married. 1990 Census findings indicate that 25% of population aged 15 years or older were never married. There were 194 million never married persons aged 15-30 years in 1990, or 95% of the 205 million never married persons. The proportion of those never married is likely to increase. Lessons from Taiwan and the US indicate the difficulties in measuring premarital sexual behavior, but there are compelling reasons to collect information on sexual behavior and reproductive health.

Television viewing and adolescents' sexual behavior.

Over the past two decades the sexual content on television has increased in frequency and explicitness but has seldom included depiction of the use of contraceptives. Concurrently, the age of initiation of heterosexual intercourse has decreased and the number of teenaged pregnancies has remained high. Are these trends related? This survey of 391 adolescents found that those who chose heavier diets of sexy television shows were more likely than those who viewed a smaller proportion of sexual content on television to have had sexual intercourse. This relationship held regardless of perceived peer encouragement to engage in sex and across race and gender groups. While causal direction is not clear from these data, the relationship suggests that either sexual activity results in increased interest in sexual content in the media and/or that viewing such content leads to sexual activity. In either case, the finding points to the need for further research and increased discussion and portrayal of the use of contraceptives on television.

Parent-child communication and adolescent sexual behavior.

Data collected over a two-year period from more than 500 teenagers and their mothers indicate that neither parental attitudes toward premarital sex nor parent-child communication about sex and contraception appear to affect teenagers' subsequent sexual and contraceptive behavior. Teenagers are often ignorant of their parents' attitudes toward sex-related issues, and they and their parents often contradict one another in describing the kinds of sex-related conversations they have had. In only two cases was a significant relationship found between communication and adolescent behavior: Girls whose mothers reported that they had discussed sex with their daughters were less likely to subsequently initiate coitus; and girls who reported that their mothers had discussed birth control with them were more likely to use effective contraceptives. However, the former association disappeared when it was the daughters who reported the communication, and the latter disappeared when it was the mothers who reported it.

PIP: Interviews conducted in 1980 and 1982 among more than 500 teenagers and their mothers indicate that neither parental attitudes toward premarital sex nor parent-child communication about sex and contraception appear to affect teenagers' subsequent sexual and contraceptive behavior. In only 2 cases was a significant relationship found between communication and adolescent behavior: girls whose mothers reported that they had discussed sex with their daughters were less likely to subsequently initiate coitus; and girls who reported that their mothers had discussed birth control with them were more likely to use effective contraceptives. These associations disappeared, however, when it was the other party who reported the communication. The analysis clearly shows that teenagers are frequently ignorant of their parents' attitudes toward sex-related issues, and parents and teenagers frequently disagree about the kinds of sex-related conversations they have had. For example 73% of the boys and 77% of the girls believe that their mothers think that only married people should have sex, whereas only 45% of the mothers of sons and 49% of the mothers of daughters report holding that opinion. Similarly, 75% of mothers with sons, but only 33% of the sons, say mothers have taught their children "things about sex"; for mothers and daughters, the comparable figures are 87% and 62%. The reason the data reveal little effect of parental attitudes or parent-child communication on either the child's subsequent initiation of coitus or his or her contraceptive behavior may be that parental communication about sex is generally so vague or so limited as to have no impact.

Oral sex in an adolescent population.

The incidence of oral sex in an adolescent population is discussed. More girls have either given or received oral-genital stimulation than have had intercourse. More boys have had intercourse than have either given or received oral-genital stimulation. Oral sex is more common than intercourse for females because they are more likely to have received oral-genital stimulation than to have either had intercourse or given oral-genital stimulation. For both sexes, fellatio is less common than is either intercourse or cunnilingus. For both sexes, oral sex is considerably more frequently reported than was the case in the Kinsey surveys.

PIP: Using data from 2 surveys conducted in a US Southern city in 1980 and in 1982, this study concludes that the incidence of oral-genital contact among teenagers is increasing. This contact is seen as a way to give and receive sexual stimulation without the necessity of birth control or the risk of pregnancy. For both white sexes, contrary to Kinsey findings, cunnilingus is more frequently reported than is fellatio. Of the nonvirgins surveyed, 69% of each sex have both given and received oral-genital stimulation; of the nonvirgins, 80% have participated in either fellatio or cunnilingus. Slightly more teenagers have given or received oral sex than have had intercourse. Using a Goodman log-linear technique, no difference between the order in which boys and girls engage in giving and receiving oral sex is found, and, for girls, cunnilingus occurs no more often than does sexual intercourse. However, boys are more likely to have had intercourse than to have given or received oral-genital stimulation, probably due to the cited minority of boys who reported that they liked giving oral-genital stimulation, and the minority of girls who reported that they enjoyed receiving it.