How counter-intuitive

A new study, published in Lancet, seems to show that people aren't actually having sex at younger ages, promiscuity doesn't necessarily cause sexually transmitted diseases, and in fact married women may be at higher risk than unmarried:

Professor Kaye Wellings of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicines and her colleagues analysed data from 59 countries worldwide.

...

"We did have some of our preconceptions dashed," she said, explaining that they had expected to find the most promiscuous behaviour in regions like Africa with the highest rates of sexually transmitted diseases. That was not the case, as multiple partners were more commonly reported in industrialised countries where the incidence of such diseases were relatively low.

"There's a misperception that there's a great deal of promiscuity in Africa, which is one of the potential reasons for HIV/AIDS spreading so rapidly," said Dr. Paul van Look, director of Reproductive Health and Research at the World Health Organisation, who was unconnected to the study. "But that view is not supported by the evidence."

Wellings says that implies that promiscuity may be less important than factors such as poverty and education - especially in the encouragement of condom use - in the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases.

So... even if teaching people to use condoms did promote promiscuity, that doesn't necessarily mean it would increase the rates of STDs? That would seem to be another crutch knocked out from the abstinence-only plan of sex education.

The study also found that contrary to popular belief, sexual activity is not starting any earlier than previously believed. Nearly everywhere, men and women have their first sexual experiences in their late teens (aged 15-19 years), with younger ages for women than for men.

I kind of wonder how accurate this information is, though. I especially wonder how this breaks down by country--even if the trend is not for children to be having sex earlier, might it be true for, say, the United States?

In some instances, married women may be at more risk than single women.

"A single woman is more able to negotiate safe sex in certain circumstances than a married woman," says van Look, who points out that married women in Africa and Asia are often threatened by unfaithful husbands who frequent prostitutes.