E-Mail This Article to a Friend HEALTH REPORT A shift in the teen-sex landscape BY DEIRDRE FULTON

In a historic first, teenage girls are having sexual intercourse at higher rates than boys of the same age, according to a December report issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), an arm of the US Department of Health and Human Services. While the percentage of 16-to-19-year-old males who have had sex has plummeted since 1995, the study found, the percentage of females has dropped much less dramatically.

Which leaves some experts scratching their heads as they try to figure out how these numbers relate to things such as sexual education, pregnancy prevention, and changing social norms. "The most honest answer is, no one is really sure why," says Bill Albert, spokesman for the National Campaign To Prevent Teen Pregnancy.

The CDC report, Teenagers in the United States: Sexual Activity, Contraceptive Use, and Childbearing, 2002, shows that teenagers overall are having safer sex — and less of it — and that teen-pregnancy rates are continuing a 30-year decline. And realistically, it makes sense that the boys’ sexual-intercourse rates might go down faster than the girls’ rates, because the numbers had further to fall.

But the discrepancy is remarkable. Take this statistic: in 1995, 53 percent of 17-year-old boys reported that they were not virgins; by 2002, that number had been reduced by a quarter, to 39 percent. On the other hand, 17-year-old girls dropped from 47 percent to 43 percent — a decline, yes, but a smaller one, and one that leaves them cumulatively reporting more sex than their male counterparts.

This could be because boys no longer feel the pressure to "overreport" their activity, says Julie Childers, director of education and research at Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts (PPLM). Or, they might simply be engaging in more oral sex.

Perhaps the decline reflects the fact that teens have more to worry about these days when it comes to being sexually active, Albert says. "Teen pregnancy was basically viewed as a girl’s problem," he says of history’s most-cited reason for delaying sexual intercourse. "We didn’t focus much attention on guys." But now, he explains, boys know the dangers of sexually transmitted diseases, especially HIV: "AIDS is an equal-opportunity employer. It gets guys’ attention in a way that pregnancy doesn’t."

From 1995 to 2002, the number of 16-to-19-year-old girls who have had sex dropped an average of about six percent, compared with boys’ 23 percent average drop in the same age bracket. However, the incidence of teen pregnancy fell by 16 percent. Those statistics could mean that comprehensive sexual education, which teaches young people about their sexual and contraceptive options, is working in two ways: by educating boys about the risks of having sex too soon, and by educating girls about how to have sex safely.

"We see this study in the context of a 30-year commitment to comprehensive sex ed in schools," says Childers. "Those programs are having an effect. That’s because of increased education and also access to contraception."

In other words, it may be odd — and worrisome — that girls aren’t getting the same message that guys are. But on the flip side, these numbers could be encouraging, not only because they show an overall decline in sexual activity, but because they could indicate girls are being more careful, even if they’re not remaining abstinent.

The most effective sex ed combines two approaches, Albert and Childers agree. "[The CDC study] suggests a strategy that encourages abstinence, but that also provides young people with information about contraception," Albert says.

PPLM has teamed up with the Massachusetts Alliance on Teen Pregnancy and NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts to lobby the state legislature for this kind of education in schools. Their efforts will be especially important this year: state funding for comprehensive sex education is slated to drop below $1 million, down from $5.5 million in 2001. In Massachusetts, there is now more federal and state money for abstinence-only education than there is for comprehensive sex ed, says Patricia Quinn, director of policy for the Alliance on Teen Pregnancy.

Considering recent positive trends in teen sexual behavior, "do we really want to spend money on programs that promote ambivalence about contraceptive use?" she asks. "Seems like pretty risky business to me."