Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. Casual sex is often associated with the young adult stage in the life course. Most recent research on the prevalence, motives, and consequences of heterosexual casual sex has relied on samples of college students, yet students are only a small and advantaged subset of the young adult population. We moved beyond prior work by examining both frequency and type of heterosexual casual sex: lifetime vaginal, lifetime oral, and recent vaginal sex.
We found that young adults enrolled or who graduated from 4-year educational institutions reported fewer casual sex partners on all three measures compared to participants with-out a high school degree and those with some college experience. Sexual attitudes were key factors mediating the association between educational status and casual sex behavior. These results indicate that programs aimed at encouraging healthy sexual behavior should target individuals who are at risk of not graduating high school because they are at greatest risk of frequent casual sex partners.
Most single young adults in the U. Some of these sexual experiences have occurred outside of committed, intimate relationships and typically are referred to as casual sex. Although there is a growing body of research that suggests casual sex encounters of heterosexual college students is common e. Census Bureau, We examined whether higher education status and other predictors were associated with the number of heterosexual casual sex partners using a diverse sample of young adults.
Focusing on college students has limited the representativeness of such studies because the majority of young adults are not enrolled in 4-year college programs U. In a recent book that examined how the university experience has changed in recent times, Bogle argued that the higher education environment was conducive to casual sex.
The Bailey et al. They reported that college attendance was negatively related to reports of ever having casual sex. Bailey et al. Eisenberg et al. However, one limitation of these studies is the measurement of casual sex; neither study assessed number of casual sex partners. The number of casual sex partners rather than whether casual sex ever occurred e. Thus, the current study contributed beyond prior work by focusing on the number of casual sex experiences reported by young adults.
