Association of sexual abstinence in adolescence with mental health in adulthood

Sexuality, sexual well being, and intimacy during COVID-19 pandemic: An advocacy perspective

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)-CoV-2, has emerged as a global public health threat. The implications are much beyond just health crisis, and it has long-lasting psychosocial and economic implications. Although the psychological offshoots such as depression, anxiety, posttraumatic stress, and sleep disturbances are being studied in-depth, there is a dearth of literature on the sexual well-being and sexual practices during this pandemic. Considering the physical distancing; travel restrictions; the high human-human transmission rate; misinformation and uncertainty about the sexual routes of transmission for SARS-CoV-2; and fear about intimacy, sexuality, and safe sexual practices have increased significantly. This is more prominent in newly settled or distanced couples and the frontline health workers, with increased risk exposure to the virus. For them, guilt and distress associated with sexual relationships might increase primary psychiatric and sexual disorders. This, in turn, impacts relationships and emotional bonding in couples and affects healthy coping during the pandemic crisis. Although sexual abstinence is the safest practice to prevent transmission, it is not practically feasible in all cases. Risk reduction counseling, sex with quarantined partners, and digital sex are other options that are worth exploring. There are additional concerns of digital safety, unhealthy use of technology, cyber-crimes, and online extortion. Keeping this in the background, this advocacy article glances through the effects of past outbreaks on sexuality, reviews the current recommendations, and proposes methods and approaches for sexual well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic, which is vital for overall public health.

Vaginal and Oral Sex Initiation Timing: A Focus on Gender and Race/Ethnicity

OBJECTIVES

Most previous studies on sexual initiation timing have examined its effects on a variety of subsequent outcomes without first examining the correlates and predictors of these timing categories. Studies that do exist often do not utilize samples through young adulthood, leading to a misclassified set of sexual timing categories. In addition, the literature does not adequately address the issues of oral sex timing. Therefore, the objectives of this study were 1) to explore age-cutoffs that mark the "normative" and "non-normative" entry into vaginal and oral sex among young women and men in the U.S., creating sexual four sexual initiation timing categories - "early," "normative," "late," and "inexperienced," and; 2) to examine the association between race/ethnicity and sexual initiation timing by gender.

METHODS

The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) was used in both descriptive and multivariate contexts to determine the net association of gender and race/ethnicity with vaginal and oral sex initiation timing.

RESULTS

Age-cutoffs for vaginal sex timing were similar for women and men, yet differed by gender for oral sex timing. Women were more likely than men to initiate vaginal sex (20% vs. 18%) and oral sex (19% vs. 16%) at an early age and less likely than men to initiate these behaviors at a late age (18% vs. 19% for vaginal sex, and 15% vs. 16% for oral sex). Although most respondents initiated these two behaviors by young adulthood, a considerable proportion remained inexperienced, with men more likely than women to report inexperience with vaginal sex (7% vs. 5%), and women more likely than men to report abstaining from oral sex (8% vs. 6%). Race/ethnic differences in sexual initiation timing remained robust in the face of controls for both women and men.

CONCLUSIONS

Understanding the timing at which adolescents and young adults transition to first vaginal and first oral sex is critical for sex education curriculum and policy makers.

University students' definitions of sexual abstinence and having sex

We asked 298 heterosexual Canadian university students about their definitions of the terms abstinence and having sex. For both terms, students were provided with a list of 17 sexual behaviors and indicated whether they would include each in their definition. The majority of both male and female students included activities that did not involve genital stimulation in their definition of sexual abstinence and did not include these activities in their definition of having sex. Conversely, most students did not include bidirectional sexual stimulation (penile-vaginal intercourse or penile-anal intercourse) in their definitions of sexual abstinence but did include them in their definitions of having sex. Students were quite mixed in whether activities involving unidirectional genital stimulation (e.g., oral sex, genital fondling) constituted abstinence, having sex, or neither abstinence nor having sex. However, they were more likely to see these behaviors as abstinent than as having sex. Students were more likely to rate a behavior as abstinence if orgasm did not occur. A canonical correlation analysis was used to examine the patterns of association between a number of predictors and inclusions of behaviors involving no genital stimulation, unidirectional stimulation, and bidirectional genital stimulation in abstinence definitions. The results indicated that male participants who were more involved with their religion and sexually conservative, less sexually experienced, and who had not received sexual health education at home were more likely to define bidirectional genital stimulation and less likely to define no genital stimulation and unidirectional sexual stimulation as sexual abstinence. The research and health promotion implications of these results are discussed.

Who is the 40-year-old virgin and where did he/she come from? Data from the National Survey of Family Growth

INTRODUCTION

Little is known about young and middle aged adults who have never engaged in sexual intercourse. Individuals who have not engaged in sexual activity may theoretically have diminished overall quality of life, as recent evidence suggests that sexual activity may be related to overall health status in adults.

AIM

We sought to identify factors related to sexual abstinence in young and middle-aged adults.

METHODS

We analyzed data from the male and female sample of the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth to examine sexual abstinence among unmarried participants aged 25-45 (men: N = 2,469; women: N = 5,120). Main Outcome Measures. Multivariable logistic regression modeling was used to test for independent associations between demographic, medical, and anthropometric variables and abstinence while adjusting for confounding and mediating variables.

RESULTS

A total of 122 (13.9%) men aged 25-45 reported never having had sex, representing approximately 1.1 million American men in this age cohort. Among female participants, a total of 104 (8.9%) women aged 25-45 reported never having sex, representing approximately 800,000 American women in this age cohort. Both men and women who reported that they attend religious services one or more times per week were more likely to be sexually abstinent, independent of their specific religious beliefs. Virgin status was also significantly associated with drinking alcohol within the past year. While a college degree in women predicted virginity, education was not associated with virginity in men. Men showed lower rates of sexual abstinence if they reported having spent time in prison or serving in the military.

CONCLUSIONS

Amongst young adults, sexual abstinence does not appear to be mediated by health status, anthropometric measures, or age. Attending religious services and avoidance of alcohol consumption are associated with virginity in adults. Other factors associated with abstinence differ between genders and merit further study.