Wellings K, Collumbien M, Slaymaker E, Singh S, Hodges Z, Patel D, Bajos N. Sexual behaviour in context: a global perspective. Lancet 2006;368:1706-1728.
It is important to study Human sexual behavior not only for academic reasons, but to imply this knowledge in attempts to intervene and protect sexual health at the beginning of the 21st century. This interesting survey presents original analyses of sexual behavior from 59 countries for which data was available.
Important Outcomes:
- Trends towards earlier sexual experience are less pronounced and less widespread than sometimes supposed (in many developing countries the trend is towards later onset of sexual activity for women), but the trend towards later marriage has led to an increase in the prevalence of premarital sex.
- Most people are married and married people have the most sex. Sexual activity in young single people tends to be sporadic, but is greater in industrialized countries than in developing countries.
- Monogamy is the dominant pattern in most regions; but reporting of multiple partnerships is more common in men than in women, and generally more common undeveloped countries than in developing countries.
- Striking differences between men and women in sexual activity are explained in part by a tendency for men to over-report and women to under-report.
- Marriage does not reliably safeguard sexual-health status. Married women find negotiation of safer sex and use of condoms for family planning more difficult than do single women. Very early sexual experience within marriage can be coercive and traumatic.
- Condom use has increased in prevalence almost everywhere, but rates remain low in many developing countries.
- The evidence from behavioral interventions is that no general approach to sexual-health promotion will work everywhere and no single-component intervention will work anywhere.
