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Coital debut: the role of religiosity and sex attitudes in the add health survey

Journal of Sex Research - November 1, 2003

Research on adolescent development has shown that an earlier coital debut is associated with increased health risks such as sexually transmitted diseases and early pregnancy and child-bearing. As a developmental milestone, however, 60.5% of high school seniors report that they have had sex (Brener et al., 2002), and fewer than 20% remain virgins until marriage (Sex Information and Education Council of the Unites States [SIECUS], 1999). While age is perhaps the most consistent predictor of coital debut, systematic variations in timing have been documented across gender, race, and social class. For instance, research indicates that 65.9% of African American males have had sex by the 9th grade as opposed to 46.7% and 35.4% of Hispanic and White adolescent males, respectively (Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System [YRBSS, 2002]). While adolescent boys engage in more sexual activity than girls (DeGaston, Weed, & Jensen, 1996), gender differences are more pronounced for African American than for Caucasian adolescents until late adolescence, when girls seemingly "catch up" to boys (Bearman & Bruckner, 2001).

One important context that influences the timing of this transition is a youth's religious context. In a review of over 250 studies conducted between 1980 and 1999, Kirby (1999) identified 13 clusters of antecedents of sexual risk-taking (e.g., initiation of sex, number of partners, frequency, contraceptive use) that ranged from community-level to individual-level factors. One of the clusters--attachment to religious institutions--described the protective nature of religiosity. Whether measured at the community level, family level, or individual level, religiosity was associated with delaying the initiation of sexual intercourse and with reporting fewer sex partners.

In spite of the importance of religious context to adolescent sexual decision making, a theoretically and methodologically rigorous empirical literature has been seemingly piecemeal and slow to develop (see Wilcox et al., 2001, for a critical review of published research on adolescent religiosity and sexual behavior). However, current interest in faith-based initiatives and the role of faith-based organizations in addressing social problems related to adolescent sexual behavior (e.g., teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease) suggests a need for serious, immediate, and focused empirical attention to the role of religiosity in the sexual decision making of adolescents. Therefore, the purpose of this project was to test a model based on social control theory (DeLamater, 1981, 1989) and sexual socialization theory (Reiss, 1989) that hypothesizes both direct and indirect effects of religiosity on adolescent sexual decision making. Specifically, we tested a hypothesis that individual-level religiosity influences adolescent coital debut via its impact on inhibitory sexual attitudes.

In the following section, we first summarize the few longitudinal studies that have examined the role of religiosity in delaying coital debut. Then, we locate our hypothesized model within the more general empirical literature on the correlates of adolescent coital debut. Finally, we discuss social control theory and sexual socialization theory as applied to sexual decision making. In this way, we lay the theoretical groundwork for testing the hypothesis that negative sex attitudes may account for some (if not all) of previously observed associations between religiosity and adolescent coital debut.

OVERVIEW OF LITERATURE

To date, a meager number of longitudinal studies indicate that religiosity, variously defined as religious affiliation, church attendance, self-reports of the importance of religion, or a composite of these, delays coital debut (see Rostosky et al., in press, for a more extensive review of these). When examined by gender, race, and social class, however, findings indicate that the association between religiosity and coital debut is far less straightforward. In a majority of studies, White adolescent girls who score high on religiosity (however defined) delay coital debut relative to their nonreligious peers. The associations for boys and for African Americans, however, are often inconsistent across studies. For instance, in a sample of low-socioeconomic-status (SES) adolescents from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, White and African American adolescents of both genders who participated in religious services and who had friends who attended church were more likely to delay coital debut (Mott, Fondell, Hu, Kowaleski-Jones, & Menaghan, 1996). Miller et al.'s (1997) analysis of three waves of the National Survey of Children, however, failed to find a relationship between religious participation and delayed coital debut for either boys or girls. In a recent analysis of the Add Health data, Bearman and Bruckner (2001) reported that religiosity delayed coital debut for White, Asian, and Hispanic middle and late adolescents, but had no effect on Black adolescents.

In terms of social status differences, previous findings suggest a positive association between parental education and occupational status and age of coital debut (Miller, 1998) for boys in some studies (e.g., Ku, Sonenstein, & Pleck, 1993) but only for girls in other studies (e.g., Bearman & Bruckner, 2001). Brewster (1994) reported that adolescent females whose mothers attended college were more likely to delay coital debut. Yet, in another sample of 926 high school students, parent education was not associated with the virginity status of boys or girls (Feldman et al., 1997). Taken together, the studies reviewed above lead us to formulate a model of the differential influence of religiosity on sexual attitudes and coital debut, varying by gender, race, and parental education status. Because much of the research has been atheoretical, our intent was to situate our model within the framework of social control and sexual socialization theories.

SEXUAL SOCIALIZATION AND SOCIAL CONTROL THEORIES AND ADOLESCENT SEXUAL BEHAVIOR

Religion--along with peers, parents, and the media--is a primary socialization agent of children and adolescents (Wallace & Williams, 1997). Traditional religious institutions in America promote particular sexual ideologies (abstinent, procreational, celibate, or perhaps relational in some less conservative religious traditions) that are intended to assert social influence and control over sexual behavior by prescribing and proscribing (rewarding and punishing) the who, what, when, where, and how (cultural scenarios and behavioral standards) of sexual activity. In contrast to these generally prohibitive sexual ideologies, American popular culture and mass media often are understood to actively promote a sexual ideology characterized by pleasure (DeLamater, 1989).

Reiss (1989) and DeLamater (1989) note that sexual ideology and sexual standards vary across subcultures. For instance, males and females have traditionally been socialized into different sexual ideologies, with females often sanctioned more severely for adopting pleasurable or recreational sexual ideologies. Reiss (1989) maintains that this double standard of sexual socialization and accompanying conflicted and anxious attitudes often work to prevent a positive approach to sexuality, interfering with the preparation of youth for responsible sexual choice. In sum, gendered power relations have often thwarted the acceptance of a fully equal sexual role for women, which "makes us much more likely to behave in ways that produce unwanted outcomes such as disease or pregnancy" (Reiss, 1989, p. 26).

Moreover, the religious institutions in some subcultures (e.g., African American) appear to constitute an even more powerful socialization agent. Thus, religious groups in subcultures with fewer resources and less power than more privileged groups may socialize members differently with respect to sexual ideologies and standards. Brown (1985), for instance, concluded that Black religious institutions are an important influence on Black adolescent girls' sexual behavior. One recent national survey reported that 55% of African American youth say that religion is very important to them, compared to only 24% of White youth (Johnston, Bachman, & O'Malley, 1999). Yet, 30% of African American boys reported having sexual intercourse before they were 13 years old, compared to 12% of White boys and 23% of Latino boys (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2000). The mechanisms that account for African American males being more religious yet more sexually active at earlier ages await closer empirical examination.

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