Long-term benefits of delaying first sex appear to be limited.

Delayed initiation of intercourse is associated with reductions in the likelihood of some risky behaviors, but not necessarily with the kinds of physical and emotional health benefits that proponents of abstinence-only education suggest it is, according to analysts who examined data from a 1996 survey of U.S. adults. Respondents who had first had sex later than the norm for individuals of their gender and background had a reduced likelihood of reporting risky partners and of denying that they were at risk for STDs; associations between delayed sexual onset and reductions in other risky behaviors were found for men or women but not both. However, respondents who had begun having sex later than the norm were no more satisfied with their sexual relationships than were those who had started at a normative age and did not rate their general health any better; males reporting a late start had elevated odds of saying that they had erectile, sexual arousal or orgasm problems. The National Sexual Health Survey was conducted among Englishand Spanishspeaking individuals aged 18 or older who lived in the 48 contiguous states. In telephone interviews, participants answered questions about their background characteristics; sexual behavior and functioning; current relationships; and general physical health. Analysts categorized timing of first sex by examining distributions of age at first intercourse within subgroups defined by gender and racial or ethnic and educational background; ages in the top and bottom quartiles of each distribution were considered late and early for that subgroup, respectively, and those in the middle two quartiles were considered normative. To assess longterm correlates of the timing of sexual debut, the analysts used logistic regression to compare outcomes among respondents who had first had sex at an early or a late age for their subgroupwith those who had done so at the normative age. Data were weighted so that results can be generalized to all U.S. adults. Men and women were about equally represented among the 8,466 respondents; 74% of participants were white, and 55% had no more than a high school education. On average, male respondents were 43 years old, and females were 46. Some 65% and 59%, respectively, were involved in sexual relationships, and most of these were married. The overall and normative mean age at first intercourse was 18; the mean was 14 for participants who had begun sexual activity early and 22 for those who had begun late. For men, early intercourse was positively associated with reports of almost every behavioral risk examined and of erectile, sexual arousal and orgasm problems; it was negatively associated with participants’ assessments of their general health and was not related to their views of their sexual relationships. Among women, those who had started having sex early had an increased likelihood of reporting most risk-related behaviors, but not of other adverse outcomes. By contrast, both men and women who had started having sex late had reduced odds of reportingany riskypartners in theprevious year or in the previous five years (odds ratios, 0.6–0.7), andwere less likely than their peers with a normative start to deny their vulnerability to STDs (coefficient, –0.17 for each gender). Additionally, men who had first had sex late reported fewer partners in the past five years than those who had done so at a normative age (–0.16); women with a late start had reduced odds of saying that they had frequently had sex while under the influence of alcohol or drugs (odds ratio, 0.6) and that they had had an STD (0.5). Participants’ satisfaction with their sexual relationshipwas not associatedwith timing of first intercourse, but men who had started having sex late considered their relationships more solid than did their counterparts who had started at a normative age (coefficient, 0.07). Delayed intercourse was associated with reduced odds of problems with sexual arousal among women (odds ratio, 0.8), but with elevated odds of arousal, erectile and