ABSTRACT
This chapter summarizes the variables associated with young people initiating premarital sex. It describes how people's personal experiences and characteristics relate to premarital sexual intercourse. The widening puberty-marriage gap allows more time for premarital sexual intercourse to occur, leading logically to the prediction of a higher rate. In some cases, intercourse was coercive—date rape is not a new phenomenon, only newly recognized. Social class is negatively related to the likelihood of premarital sexual intercourse. In any case, the mass media provide ways for young people to learn about sexual activity vicariously and, on occasion, to understand its consequences. Feminism, of course, fits with the widening puberty-marriage gap, the increasing autonomy of the young, and the rise of the mass media. But feminism depends upon the ability to control fertility. Historically, such control required advances in medical technology and legal changes, issues subject to huge political battles.
