Premarital Sex 3: Who Has Sex the Most?

Yesterday we looked at which unmarried young adults were likely to be virgins. Today we look at the opposite end of the spectrum in the same group.

Regnerus and Uecker start with a bit of bracing realism: “Men report more sexual partners than women do. Period. Everywhere.” This is not a false stereotype, nor a construct of our culture. How is this mathematically possible? Because some women have sex with many men.

They present the figures on how many sex partners these young adults, 18 - 23, have had, broken out by sex, ethnicity, education level, religiosity, parents' marital status, drinking habits, risk-taking habits, and other characteristics. Since real people are combinations of these categories, they also make a list of some common combinations. They then ask, what proportion of this group has had five or more sex partners?

The lowest category was not surprising to me:

Hispanic women who have gone to college, attend Mass, and have married parents: 0.6%

The second highest category was not a big surprise, either:

Black men, not in college, who first had sex before 16, and like risks: 58%

The highest category - the group most likely to have had five or more sex partners before age 23 - did surprise me:

White women who drink regularly and have had an abortion: 73%