Are You Ready to Have Sex?

Ask yourself these questions, and consider all the physical and mental possibilities before having sex.

• Is your decision to have sex completely your own (you feel no pressure from others, including your partner)?
• Is your decision to have sex based on the right reasons? (It shouldn’t be based on peer pressure, a need to fit in or make your partner happy, or a belief that sex is the only way to make your relationship with your partner better, or closer. If you decide to have sex, it should be because you feel emotionally and physically ready. Your partner should be someone you trust.)
• Do you feel your partner would respect any decision you made about whether to have sex or not?
• Are you able to comfortably talk to your partner about sex and your partner’s sexual history?
• Have you and your partner talked about what both of you would do if you became pregnant or contracted an STI?
• Do you know how to prevent pregnancy and STI’s?
• Are you and your partner willing to use contraception to prevent pregnancy and STI’s?
• Do you really feel ready and completely comfortable with yourself and your partner to have sex?

These questions were compiled by Young Women’s Health. Find this, and more information here.

Decrease in teenage sexual intercourse

According to research recently released from the CDC, teenagers are having sex at a lesser rate then they were in 2002. This data indicates that about 43 percent of teenage girls and 42 percent of teenage boys have had sexual intercourse at least once, while in 2002, those numbers were at 51.1 percent and 60.4 percent, respectively.

From the reasons that the surveyed participants gave as to why they had not had sexual intercourse, a significant change occurred among boys:

The most common reason both girls and boys gave for never having had sex was that doing so was against their religion or morals; that has always been the primary reason in previous surveys, too, Dr. Martinez said. But the second-most-common reason among boys in the current survey was that they had not yet found the right person, a distinct change from 2002, when the No. 2 reason was that they did not want to get a girl pregnant.

This social shift could be a result of increased discussion about sex, whether that be from comprehensive sex education or peer discussions, which is having a direct impact on making an informed decision to have sex at the right time with the right person. This is incredible sex positive news!

Download the entire CDC research here.