Depressing Sex

A Heritage Foundation study concludes that sexually active teens are more likely to consider suicide, even when the rainbow is enuf. The percentage differences between depression rates for players and non-players are not terribly striking.

Comments

[Jeremy Lott]

Enuf?

[SM]

Is that what the study found ?
Oh – the Heritage foundation … explains things nicely.

[Sean]

Then again, maybe depressed or depression prone teens are more likely to have sex. “Boy, I’m depressed, I feel like killing myself, might as well try sex first, hell, maybe it’ll make me feel better.” Behavioral correlation is a two way street, which way you go often depends on what conclusion you are trying to get to.

[Morpheus]

Well, from this study, I can see two obvious possibilities.

1) Having sex in your teenaged years makes you depressed.

2) Being depressed in your teenaged years makes you more likely to have sex.

Having been a depressed teenager, I can tell you that there were a lot of times when, had I had the opportunity, I’d have had sex, simply in the hope that I would find some simple, physical comfort.

It’s important not to read more into these studies than is actually there.

[Lazarus]

I found not getting laid in high school tended to bum me out.

[jordan]

your a homo

[Anonymous]

i’m sure when the parents tell their kids this, they’ll like totally believe them.

[david f]

yeah — not getting any in those years sure didn’t help my major depressive episodes, either.

this correlation/causation argument again. that breast cancer/abortion link was such bullshit i can hardly see straight.

drf

[Warren]

When I was a teenager, I was very depressed over the fact that I wasn’t having any sex. When I finally did have sex, I felt much better.
Come to think of it, not having sex is still very depressing, and hooking up can still make the sunshine.

[Brian]

Hey GUYS…the gender differences in this study are not trivial. Males and females (especially at that age) tend to have sex for very different reasons. Girls for acceptance, affection, etc.; guys because they can.

At least, I can vouch for the guys on this.

With that in mind, I would definitely lean towards Morpheus’ second interpretation.

[curious george]

“…even when the rainbow is enuf.”

Huh? Can anyone explain what that phrase means?

TIA

[jordan clarke]

means your a fagoooot

[jordan clarke]

means your a fagoooot

[Anonymous]

It’s a reference to a famous play:

http://www-tech.mit.edu/V119/N23/Colored_review.23a.html

[jordan]

http://www.redtube.com

[Jim]

Yeah, I can definately agree the gender difference thing needs to be accounted for. Someone did another one of these types of studies that concluded that girls who had high self esteem were less likely to have sex than girls with low self esteem, but the opposite was true of boys. If I may be allowed to speculate some based on personal experience, the modus for girls is that if they feel insecure or not worthy, they’re more likely to have sex because it makes them feel wanted or accepted. (They may also be more likely to consider suicide then based on this alone or the rejection that they feel when guys only want to have sex with them and not become further involved – who knows though). For guys, either a) they have higher self esteem because they’re getting sex, or b) having higher self esteem makes it easier to have sex. Probably both. I can also agree with the possibility that if you unable to find sex partners, guy or girl, this might cause depression and thoughts of suicide.

Another possible way to interpret this study is that folks who are sexually active may be more likely to suffer heartbreak because they experienced stronger emotions towards people they had sex with than those who did not have sex with anyone they dated. Could be something to that.

I can see how the Heritage Foundation may be searching for data to justify the ‘sex can wait’
position, but human behavior is complex so I doubt you’ll get much useful info for recommending individual behavior out of such aggregate information.

[Jeff Smith]

The cup can be viewed as either half empty or
half full here.

On the half full side, they have actually
looked at data, and actually picked the
right data set to look at. They even go so
far as to adjust the standard errors for the
complex sampling design.

On the half empty side, the only cites to
the scholarly literature are in regard to
the standard errors. The rest are to
reports from various institutes that I have
not even heard of, and whose titles suggest
strong prior interests in particular
conclusions. Oddly, there are papers out
there that provide some support for their
conclusions using better methods that they
do not mention.

In regard to the causality question, they
do condition on a handful of observables.
That’s good, and more than many of the
analsyses coming out of policy shops such
as Heritage. At the same time, there are
a lot more variables in the Adolescent
Health data that are plausibly related to
both having sex as a teen and being depressed
as a teen. They do not examine these variables.
They also rely solely on simply linear models
in their covariate adjustment.

Jeff Smith
(who does this sort of stuff for a living)

[Douglas Fletcher]

I find it hard to believe that anyone at the Heritage Foundation has actually had sex.

The Cato Institute, now that’s a different story.

[Jeff Smith]

I have to disagree with Doug. Nothing makes
sex more exciting than a strong belief that
you are not supposed to be doing it. I think
that is why so many televangelists seem to have
trouble with it …

Jeff

[Tommy_Grand]

The article claims the study links TEEN sexual intercourse with depression. So what % of sexually active MALE teens “say they are depressed all, most, or a lot of the time” & how does that figure compare to the overall male teen population? Why is this data missing? Here’s my guess: sexually active male teens are LESS depressed (happier) than their sexually inactive peers. Of course, the heritage foundation’s agenda is to promote teen abstinence, so they only present the portion of the findings suggesting that sex and depression are somehow “linked.” These losers hope stupid readers will mistakenly deduce that teen sex causes depression and support programs to reduce teen sex under a mental health rationale. But if male teens are less depressed, doesn’t teen sex cure depression? Should we create & fund programs to increase male teen sexual activity?

[Tommy_Grand]

18 and 19 year olds are teens.

[Joe Zwers]

There are two aspects in the report that make it seem specious to me right off the bat.

The first is the definition of sexually active as including anyone who has had sex even once, no matter how many days, weeks, months or years ago it occurred. If I went a single month without sex, I would consider myself inactive. And I certainly wouldn’t blame my present mental state on a one night stand from a few years ago.

The second element is the percentage of self-reported suicide attempts. The study says that one out of seven of the sexually active girls had attempted suicide in the past year alone. The Centers for Disease Control (http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/pdf/nvsr50_16t1.pdf) says that the suicide rate for teenage girls Age 15-19 in 2000 was 2.8 per 100,000 or roughly one out of 35,000. If both sets of data were correct, and assuming that each person only had one attempt, this would mean that the girls have to attempt suicide 5000 times in order to pull one off successfully. Even if you take the lower reported suicide attempt rate of the “non-sexually active” teenage girls (5 percent) it would still mean that they are only successful one out of about 1500 times. Something is definitely fishy about these stats.

[Gene Berkman]

In regard to gender differences, I did notice that all the posts on this topic are from males.

[Brian]

My point exactly…ladies, where are you?

[Douglas Fletcher]

You can’t say that for sure. There might be a George Eliot in here for all we know.

[Tommy_Grand]

If “18 and 19 year olds are teens” why do the newspapers insist on calling them men and women instead of boys and girls?”

Perhaps you should address your query to the newspaper(s) you read. While 18 & 19 year olds may or may not be men and women, they are indisputably teens. Here is the test: If you are less than 112 years old, and you age ends in the letters “T E E N” you are a teenager.

[Mona]

Here I am, guys! But I’m just listening. You all say it so well, there’s nothing else I could add.

Besides, just like Joe Zwers (4 posts up) I, too, am a statistician who works at an insurance company; and I find this entire study pathetically skewed.

The Sado-Masochist (2nd post at the very top) said it best. When you think of it, this whole affair is very, very depressing.

[Adonis]

In Greek mythology, Morpheus was the god of dreams.

“Having been a depressed teenager, I can tell you that there were a lot of times when, had I had the opportunity, I’d have had sex, simply in the hope that I would find some simple, physical comfort.”

That’s a good dream, Morpheus. Because the antidote for depression is action. And having sex definitely involves action.

You do your name justice.

[B.Maher]

Tommy Grand, if “18 and 19 year olds are teens” why do the newspapers insist on calling them men and women instead of boys and girls?

[David 2]

I think I’ll leave this one to the words of Simpsons creator Matt Groening:

“When authorities warn you of the sinfulness of sex, there is an important lesson to be learned. Do not have sex with the authorities.”

[Mr. Nosuch]

I may be lazy and/or stupid, but one interesting stat I couldn’t find in my cursory scan of the article is the percent of the 6,500 kids studied who are sexually active and the percent who are not.

Couldn’t the results be skewed because the sample sizes are dramatically different? If 80% of the kids fall into their extremely broad category of “sexual active,” the sample of non-sexually active teens is a lot smaller.

Wouldn’t it be more accurate to compare approximately equal sample sizes?

Keep in mind that I’m a moron.

[Joe Zwers]

To Mr. Nosuch: Per the first paragraph of one of the links(http://www.heritage.org/Research/Family/cda0304.cfm), 48% are sexually active. You can pick your own adjective to characterize yourself for having missed that.

To Mona: I’m actually a writer, rather than an insurance statistician, but in my job I do have to sort out the facts from the spin.

[Plutarck]

In case someone else hasn’t already said it:

Perhaps there is a third thing, C, which causes both depression and increased sexual activity. For girls, perhaps try divorce, sexual abuse, and lack of a father figure or a father figure who was…well, bad.

[Jim]

Another thing missing from this study – what about happiness? Perhaps the sexually active experience more depression (due to heartbreak, presumably) but they also get to experience the bliss of young love that the sexless miss out on. Clearly, most people choose to keep trying to have sex and/or find that ‘special someone’ after experiencing love’s loss, rather than deciding to become celibate so to never suffer the pain again. So no accounting is made for whether people consider their choices ‘worth it’ or not.

[jordan]

sex is good and thats that, so shutup homo noone cares about your emotions:)

[Librarian]

Well put, Tommy Grand. Except that I would have written, “If you are over 12 …” etc.

[jordan]

i have sex with 10year olds:),,

i no how u feal. add my email

[WolfmanRobichaud Sarah]

DATE: 12/10/2003 05:40:23
Don’t give up, you are close.

[jordan]

nice name faggot!

[Stern Caroline]

EMAIL: [e-mail]
IP: 62.213.67.122
URL: http://big-penis.nonstopsex.org
DATE: 12/20/2003 09:46:27
I would like to get more inofs about

[jordan]

its a nice website aye;)

[Robinson Michael]

EMAIL: [e-mail]
IP: 68.173.7.113
URL: http://www.drugsexperts.com
DATE: 01/09/2004 02:58:36
Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it..

[Deangelis Andrea]

EMAIL: [e-mail]
IP: 217.97.134.186
URL: http://preteen-sex.info
DATE: 05/19/2004 02:57:21
All sentences that seem true should be questioned.

[jordan]

can u send me that link via email please, its not working:(