Reasons for having sex

The most common reasons given by sexually active learners for starting to have sex in the first place were wanting to find out what it was like, peer pressure and "We were going steady for a long time".

N=270	Other	Sapler
What it's like	51	48
Friends doing it	9.6	11
Going steady	32	33

⁴ The five possible responses summarized in cross-tabulations such as this one are "strongly agree", "agree", "not sure", "disagree" and "strongly disagree".

Covert and overt forms of sexual coercion also played a role. Due to difficult economic circumstances some learners are vulnerable to being persuaded by gifts, and 9.2% of learners at non-Sapler schools (but only 5.7% at Sapler schools) indicated that they found this acceptable.

***If a boy gives a girl presents and nice times, the girl should have sex with him***
N=394	Other	Sapler
Strongly	4.6	2.5
Agree	4.6	3.2
Not sure	8.9	12
Disagree	29	20
Strongly	53	62
chisq=7.; df=4; p=.151

Sexual relationships between learners and adults also often have an economic component, but very few learners (1.3% Sapler, 4.7% other) were willing to condone this.

***It is OK for girls to have sex with grown-up men***
N=390	Other	Sapler
Strongly	3.8	0
Agree	.9	1.3
Not sure	11	9.7
Disagree	15	14
Strongly	70	75
chisq=7.; df=4; p=.152

Learners are sometimes subtly coerced into sex through emotional blackmail, but again relatively few learners indicated that this had been their introduction to sex.

***I started having sex because my girlfriend/boyfriend said s/he would leave me unless I did***
N=270	Other	Sapler
Yes	5	6
No	95	94
chisq=.0; df=1; p=1

However, that coercion may be an important factor is indicated by the fact that between 11 (other) and 19% (Sapler) of learners felt that they had been overtly forced into their first sexual encounter by their partners. This was particular so for girls, with as many as 28% of girls at Sapler schools reporting that this was the case.

***I started having sex because I was forced by my girlfriend/boyfriend (figures for girls only in brackets)***
N=270 (164)	Other	Sapler
Yes	11 (15)	19 (28)
No	89 (85)	81 (72)
chisq=3.33; df=1; p=.068 (chisq=4.14; df=1; p=0.42

Worse still, up to 11% of learners’ introduction to sex was through rape.

***I started having sex because I was raped (figures for girls only in brackets)***
N=270 (164	Other	Sapler
Yes	7.2 (11)	6.8 (5.6)
No	93 (89)	93 (94)
chisq=0; df=1; p=1 (chisq=.689; df=1; p=.407)

A third or more of learners indicated that they have been forced into sex at some point in their sexual careers, with girls being the most frequent victims.

***Have you ever been forced to have sex? (figures for girls only in brackets)***
N=315 (196)	Other	Sapler
Yes	20 (27)	27 (35)
No	80 (73)	73 (65)
chisq=2.105; df=1; p=147 (chisq=1.438; df=1; p=.231

Thus coercion is a prominent theme in learners’ introduction to sex and continues to remain so in their later sexual careers.

Recommendation:

Sapler should continue to encourage open discussion of rape and other forms of sexual coercion among learners and should develop interventions aimed at counteracting coercive sex specifically aimed at learners in the lower grades who have not yet had sex.