December 14, 2022 • 24 mins
In this episode Dr Jennifer Power talks about the 2022 National Survey of Australian Secondary Students and Sexual Health from Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society (ARCSHS) at LaTrobe University.
Dr Power talks through some key statistics from the survey as well as providing perspective on why we are so keen to know how much sex young people are having.
Resources:
See Dr Jennifer Power, LaTrobe University profile. See lots of research from Australian Research Centre in Sex Health and Society. See 7th National Survey of Australian Secondary Students and Sexual Health. For more information about SHV @ shvic.org.au.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
This podcast contains discussion about adult topics.
Use your judgment If there are little ears around,
Welcome to doing it.
This is a podcast made by sexual health victoria.
We run a whole lot of education programs for communities and medical professionals across victoria.
We also run sexual health clinics in the city and Box Hill in Melbourne.
(00:21):
My name is Anne and I'm part of the sexual health victorious schools and community team.
We go to schools and run the everybody education program for all year levels on bodies growing up,
puberty,
sex consent,
reproduction and relationships.
This podcast is for parents and carers of school aged Children so we can share what goes on in a relationships and sexuality education class and help support those sorts of conversations at home.
(00:48):
Today,
I'm going to be talking to DR jennifer Power.
Jennifer is an associate professor and principal research fellow at the Australian Research Center in Sex Health and Society,
or arches for short at La Trobe University.
Every five years since 1992,
arches has run a large study into the sexual activity of secondary school students across Australia.
(01:14):
This helps us understand what sort of information young people need and want from their sexuality education programs and how this might have changed over time.
In December 2022,
the findings from the 7th National Survey of Australian Secondary Students and Sexual Health will be released.
(01:34):
Dr.
Jennifer Power is going to give us some insights into the study notes that Jennifer uses the Shorthand Sash for the study,
jennifer.
Thank you so much for speaking with me about the new national survey,
Thank you.
Thanks for having me,
my first question,
(01:55):
can you provide a quick overview of the study and how you approach recruiting students?
So as you mentioned,
this is a survey of secondary school students.
We talk,
we ask young people about sexual health but approaching it in really broad terms.
So we are interested in sexually transmissible infections and some of the conventional approaches to sexual health that we hear a lot about condom use and so forth.
(02:20):
But we're also really interested in sexual experiences and how young people are going with respect to um,
guess what we might call safe and respectful and pleasurable sexual experiences.
So the survey broadly covers those topics.
We collect the data for the survey through an online form.
(02:41):
Um,
and we recruit or promote the survey through social media advertising predominantly.
It's not always how it's been done.
So in the past,
really before the Internet,
we used to go through schools and so we would ask teachers to actually administer the survey in a class in a classroom environment.
And this was really popular in the 1990s when everyone was really scared Still,
(03:05):
really that young people would be vulnerable to HIV or that we'd see a kind of new wave of HIV among young people in Australia.
So schools were really keen to be part of it when the survey first started in the 90s,
but then we kind of found moving into the 2000 schools were getting more reluctant to administer the survey in classroom time because they're busy.
(03:27):
Um and because once the sort of immediate fear of HIV had subsided a little bit,
and people were pretty confident that it wasn't going to spread widely among young people in Australia.
It's sort of,
I think,
started to feel more risky to be running a sex survey in schools.
So over time,
we had to shift away from schools and move entirely to this online recruitment.
(03:51):
But then were kind of mindful increasingly that that's not actually reaching a whole bunch of young people as well,
that,
you know,
the young people opting into that probably the ones that are a bit more in tune with some of these issues online or networked in particular ways.
So I think we'll look towards a kind of hybrid approach to promoting the survey somehow work with schools a bit more again in the future,
(04:13):
but this one was all online and the students who recruited as 15 plus,
so 14 to 18 cohort.
So that's years +932 year 12,
Although we did have some early school leavers who were 18,
17 or 18,
we had more people identifying as non binary or identifying their gender in other terms that we've had in the past and more people identifying as bisexual or pansexual or other non mono sexual sexualities.
(04:43):
So how much sex or students having,
that's really what people want to know,
I think it is always what people want to know.
And I'm going to answer that.
But I really think when we get asked this question,
we should push back a little bit and really question why people want to know that so much.
Because often I think that question gets asked because there's this kind of underlying belief that young people shouldn't be having sex or this discomfort in the idea that young people are having sex.
(05:13):
And so asking how much sex are young people having?
Sometimes it's kind of asking have we succeeded,
you know,
if young people having too much sex,
have we failed as a society or as a bunch of educators,
it's an interesting question and I'm going to answer it,
but I have a bit of a background to it first,
if that's okay.
I think for a survey like sash or any sort of youth sexual health surveys,
(05:37):
you know,
the fundamental questions we really grapple with when we design these surveys around what are the outcomes we're interested in?
You know,
what are we looking for?
What do we want to know is happening for young people as a kind of indicator of sexual health.
And quite often people jump straight to S.
T.
I rates use of condoms,
unwanted pregnancies or other kind of risk factors.
(06:00):
People call it,
risk behaviors,
risk practices and I know why I like that.
That's because often these surveys are funded by health or they're funded with these kind of concerns about sexual health in mind,
but at the same time,
sometimes that amounts to this idea that more sex equals more risk.
And so when we ask a question like how much sexy young people having and we say they're having more than ever before,
(06:26):
it kind of translates into all.
There's more risk out there.
It's problematic and sex becomes seen as it's inherently dangerous or problematic thing.
But if you think about sex or sexual health in more comprehensive terms,
then some of the questions I think we should be asking in these surveys or some of the outcome measures,
(06:48):
we should be oriented around a kind of more around our young people having sexual experiences in which they feel safe in which they feel respected in which they're enjoying themselves,
you know,
positive sexual experiences.
So if we make that as the outcome measure our young people having positive,
respectful,
(07:08):
enjoyable sexual experiences.
It's kind of a better question,
I think,
than how much sex our young people having.
But as you point out,
everyone always wants to know everyone always wants to know how much sex young people are having.
So I'm going to tell you,
I've got it written down here in Sash,
we surveyed close to 7000 young people.
So it was 6,841.
(07:30):
Um,
so these were all young people aged 14 to 18 years living in all states and territories of Australia.
Around 60% of these young people told us that they were sexually active,
which we defined as a young person who had at least one experience of oral vaginal or anal sex.
We changed that definition from previous years.
(07:53):
So previously,
um,
the definition of sexually active was people who were having penetrative sex.
So oral was not included in that definition,
but because young people these days tend to have a more comprehensive fluid idea of sex and sexuality,
that the definition has kind of changed For young people.
(08:15):
So we've come on board with that,
the average age at which most young people had sex was 15 and that has changed a little bit over the years.
I think that's really interesting because in my experience of talking to young people often they don't count oral sex as sex.
So really interesting that that's included now in the stats and overall that actually hasn't increased the number of young people saying they have had a sexual experience.
(08:45):
Yeah,
no,
it hasn't substantially.
So there is a little bit of an increase,
but actually,
overall the oral sex hasn't necessarily taken the numbers right up.
So,
I think often when people are at the point,
I'm guessing,
I guess people are at the point of having oral sex,
they're moving into other forms of sex pretty quickly.
I think the definition of oral sex and absolutely,
(09:06):
I don't think all young people count oral sex or sex,
but I do think as sexuality has become more fluid,
more young people are identifying as lesbian or gay or bisexual sex is also meaning different things to different people.
And you know what people understand to be sexually active is a little bit different.
(09:28):
So it's kind of coming in line with that as well.
So what stuck out for you with this survey?
Well,
lots of things,
Firstly,
I think it's worth noting that a lot of young people in this survey told us they were having pretty good sexual encounters,
pretty good sex.
Um so when we asked people about their most recent sexual encounter,
(09:49):
over 60% said that it was pretty Good.
It was extremely or very pleasurable,
and over 60% said that it left them feeling excited or satisfied.
So on the whole,
I think a lot of young people reported that the sex they were having was good,
it was pleasurable,
it was enjoyable,
it was wanted.
But I think the thing that really stood out for me was the number who reported an experience of unwanted sex at least one experience.
(10:17):
So overall around 40% said they'd experienced unwanted sex at least once.
Um and this not surprisingly was slightly higher among young women and quite a bit higher among trans and non binary people.
So for most young people,
this experience of unwanted sex was a result of verbal pressure they felt verbally pressured into having sex or they agreed to have sex because they were concerned about negative consequences of saying no In a blunt survey instrument like this,
(10:49):
we can't necessarily get all of the details.
And so there may be different ways in which people are defining unwanted sex.
It's a little bit hard to know,
but I still think that figure of 40% saying that they had at least one experience of this is quite shocking and certainly points to the importance of consent education and focusing on kind of what it means to what unwanted sex means in Nrsc.
(11:15):
I think there needs to be more conversations.
The other thing that stood out and that I think is worth talking about is condoms.
Um condoms.
Like I think we're at an interesting time with condoms because so much of the condom promotion over the years has been linked to HIV prevention.
You know,
over the last 10 years we've certainly seen an increase in these,
(11:37):
particularly among young people in Australia.
So gonorrhea and syphilis which is concerning.
Um So condoms s Ci testing is important,
and what we found in this survey really is that young people were pretty positive about condoms,
they thought they were good,
they recognized that they were really effective in preventing S.
(11:58):
C.
I.
S preventing unwanted pregnancy,
but that didn't necessarily mean they were using them.
So around 30% said they used condoms all the time.
Um and just under half had used a condom last time they had sex bearing in mind there's probably context around that.
It could have been the last time people had sex.
It was with a partner where they've both been tested,
(12:19):
where they had some sort of longer term agreement around not using condoms.
So we can't we need to take that,
you know,
with a bit of caution.
But the use of condoms among people in this survey was far from consistent and I remember that being alarming in the last survey as well,
That's not a new trend.
It's not a new trend.
I think it's been around for a long time.
(12:41):
It's just probably timely.
I think for us to talk more about condoms and To look more about what's going on for young people when it comes to condoms.
I was looking recently for recent research sort of qualitative research on how young people felt about condoms,
what the kind of culture was around condom use.
And I think there was some really,
really great research around this in the 90s.
(13:04):
Again,
when HIV was really predominant.
More recent research and there is there is little pockets of it,
there's just been less research on what's going on for young people when it comes to condoms.
Do they feel it's comfortable acceptable?
Normal to initiate condom use.
Is it is it around in the same way as it perhaps it used to be or perhaps it needs to be,
(13:26):
not just that they exist,
but how to negotiate their use.
Yeah,
that's right.
Yeah.
And feel comfortable doing that.
The other thing that stood out for me,
sorry,
there's many things.
But,
you know,
of course,
the other thing that stands out these days is online sex or digital sex.
And this survey just affirmed what we know that sexting is absolutely a thing,
(13:48):
whether or not you call it sexting,
but sending and receiving nude or sexual images is very,
very common.
70% of young people had sent an image,
I think about 80% had received an image.
Um and online porn is a thing,
85% had watched online porn at least once.
So whatever adults think about it,
(14:11):
whatever the sort of policy perspectives are on this particular set of practices,
it's very common.
It's not going anywhere.
It's irrelevant for us to say young people shouldn't be doing it.
It needs to be part of the conversation about young people,
sex and sexuality education.
So what's been different from previous years.
So in some ways,
not a lot,
(14:31):
but I think that's a story in itself.
I don't think apart from the online sex,
which is increasing to some extent,
although not hugely since 2018,
but certainly over the last two decades,
that's a massive change.
But apart from that,
I don't think a huge amount has changed.
I think about the same proportion of young people having sex around about the same age that shifted a little bit,
(14:56):
but on the whole,
I think the story continues.
It's not radically different to what it's been before.
The number of young people reporting unwanted sex has increased.
I don't think we can tell whether that's due to an increase in unwanted sexual sex or experiences of unwanted sex or if it's reflective of greater awareness of that,
(15:19):
which hopefully it is in a way because I think certainly in the open text questions,
there were a few young people actually who commented on,
they didn't recognize that the sex they had was not wanted,
they didn't have language to express that.
So I do wonder if perhaps with greater awareness in public in the media about consent,
(15:40):
sexual violence,
unwanted sex,
if that's shifting the way people understand their experiences and possibly people are more inclined to articulate unwanted sex.
So that's changed a bit interestingly,
young people are less likely in this survey than they have been in the last couple of iterations to say that they feel pressure to have sex from other friends or a partner.
(16:03):
Theres a few quirky changes,
like young people today are much less likely,
like substantially less likely to know that HIV can be transmitted by mosquitoes.
And I think that question is a bit of a hangover again from many years ago when there was the big myth that HIV could be transmitted by mosquitoes,
which I can't,
it's just not just not talked about.
(16:24):
Yeah,
it's a sort of relic of history.
So I imagine young people fill in this survey and think,
why are you even asking me that?
Maybe it's true.
So it's probably time to go that for that question to go.
If we look all the way back to 1992 by year 12,
around 50% of students were sexually active back then,
we only counted sexually active as penetrative sex.
(16:45):
So vaginal or anal sex.
And it's just about the same now.
So around 50% of young people in 2021.
So in all that time,
it's really not changed all that much about the same numbers of young people are having sex.
I really think that's the most shocking thing for a parent to hear that.
(17:05):
I think parents have this idea that kids are more sexualized.
They're seeing all this sexual stuff and they're experimenting earlier because they're getting all this information and really it's actually not any different to when they're at school.
No.
And in fact,
if you look at other trends,
so young people these days are less likely to be drinking a lot to be using drugs,
(17:27):
They're more likely to stay in possibly more social life is happening online than it used to,
which explains that trend to some extent.
But yeah,
I don't think,
I mean if anything young people are probably I'm a bit loath to say this,
but Maybe they're safer in some ways than than than our generation.
Yeah.
And more awareness of what consent is and what pressure might be.
(17:50):
Absolute.
And also more awareness about sexuality and gender.
I think young people have a language for talking about these issues,
these experiences,
these practices than people did even 10 years ago but certainly 2030 40 years ago,
young people are much more articulate.
It was my prediction that these this latest round of statistics would show that young people are having less sexual experiences because of Covid.
(18:15):
So you're saying that's not really the case,
it's kind of the same.
But how do you think Covid impacted these results?
Look,
to be honest,
it's hard to know because we ask about lifetime sexual experiences.
So we could probably drill down in some detail and try and work out if we looked at different age cohorts,
we might be able to see a covid effect.
(18:36):
But apart from that,
I don't I don't think it's easy to tell from these data if young people have had less sex,
but we did ask them how Covid has affected their lives.
And quite a few young people actually,
66% felt that their social interactions had decreased because of Covid and 50% felt that Covid brought negative changes to their life and this included both their social and romantic lives.
(19:02):
So I do think people felt that their dating lives have been negatively affected by Covid and that possibly include sex lives as well,
interestingly,
I was just looking at the Western Australian cohort,
and the effect was less there,
so they didn't have extended lockdowns in the way that other states did.
So,
young people in that state were less likely to say that Covid negatively affected their life.
(19:25):
The other effect that Covid possibly had was that RSC,
so relationships and sexuality education in schools got canceled for quite a few people,
particularly those who are in year 12.
And again,
I assume that because schools were just Overloaded Managing Home School,
trying to get students through year 12 in that particular circumstance,
(19:46):
so,
RSC just got pushed down the agenda.
So what do the funding say to you about what students need from relationships and sexuality education?
The number one finding,
which I don't think changed much,
and it's probably what you hear all the time.
Young people want to talk about sex and the absence of sex.
Nrsc is kind of astounding to a certain extent.
(20:07):
So,
the theme that we hear consistently is Rs.
C doesn't actually include conversations about how to have sex,
how sex feels,
how I talk about sex.
How do I talk to a partner about sex?
What do I ask for?
Um what do I suggest?
What do I do?
So,
young people really want to talk about sex and want to learn about sex?
They want to know about the mechanics of sex,
(20:29):
the emotions of sex,
which I think is interesting,
but also it's completely understandable.
I think these are hard conversations to have anywhere,
let alone for a teacher or any educator in a classroom situation.
I think they're often explicit conversations.
They're complex conversations,
probably difficult conversations to navigate within a group as well with different students,
(20:54):
students with different experiences and different backgrounds and different ideas about what they want to hear.
So these are complex conversations.
So while I'm saying here,
this is what young people want.
It's probably what young people need.
I think it's a whole different conversation about how this could or should happen in a classroom environment.
Yeah,
absolutely.
And we know from going into classes that we can say a whole lot of things in a short space of time as sort of external experts coming in and running a class.
(21:23):
And our biggest message is that those young people can find the support where they need it.
So if it is having those more detailed explicit conversations,
that they should find someone who can have that with them,
and do you think they do sometimes?
Yeah,
I mean,
that's the hope that they have that language that they can seek help when they need it.
(21:44):
In another study we did,
which was a smaller qualitative study,
that's really what young people going online to do as well.
They were looking for more explicit information.
Learning engagement conversations about sex about how to have sex,
jennifer thank you so much for speaking with me.
(22:05):
Thanks to dr jennifer Power for all that information,
not just giving us some of the key statistics about the study,
but also some of the background and reflections on how this study is completed.
Some key things that stood out for me in this discussion.
Ah people are often interested in risk based activities as a marker for success or failure of society.
(22:30):
Perhaps we should be seeking indicators of pleasure or safety as markers of health.
60% of young people surveyed had had at least one experience of oral anal or vaginal sex,
the average being 15 years old,
Over 60% of young people said that their last sexual experience was extremely or very pleasurable.
(22:56):
Over 40% of students reported at least one experience of unwanted sex,
85% of young people have watched pornography at least once.
There are lots of things that haven't really changed since the 1990s.
(23:17):
I'll put a few links in the show notes for this episode,
including Dr jennifer Powers,
La Trobe University profile.
I'll also link to the Australian Research Center in sex health and Society that have lots of great research available.
I'll also provide a link to the seventh national survey of Australian secondary students and sexual health.
(23:40):
For more information about sexual health victoria go to S H Vic dot org dot au.
You can follow us on instagram facebook twitter or linkedin contact me directly at doing it at S h vik dot org dot au.
Subscribe to the podcast like it if you like it.
This is the last one for this year.
Thank you so much.
(24:01):
Hope to be back in 2023.
Thanks for listening.
This podcast contains discussion about adult topics.
Use your judgment If there are little ears around,
Welcome to doing it.
This is a podcast made by sexual health victoria.
We run a whole lot of education programs for communities and medical professionals across victoria.
We also run sexual health clinics in the city and Box Hill in Melbourne.
(00:21):
My name is Anne and I'm part of the sexual health victorious schools and community team.
We go to schools and run the everybody education program for all year levels on bodies growing up,
puberty,
sex consent,
reproduction and relationships.
This podcast is for parents and carers of school aged Children so we can share what goes on in a relationships and sexuality education class and help support those sorts of conversations at home.
(00:48):
Today,
I'm going to be talking to DR jennifer Power.
Jennifer is an associate professor and principal research fellow at the Australian Research Center in Sex Health and Society,
or arches for short at La Trobe University.
Every five years since 1992,
arches has run a large study into the sexual activity of secondary school students across Australia.
(01:14):
This helps us understand what sort of information young people need and want from their sexuality education programs and how this might have changed over time.
In December 2022,
the findings from the 7th National Survey of Australian Secondary Students and Sexual Health will be released.
(01:34):
Dr.
Jennifer Power is going to give us some insights into the study notes that Jennifer uses the Shorthand Sash for the study,
jennifer.
Thank you so much for speaking with me about the new national survey,
Thank you.
Thanks for having me,
my first question,
(01:55):
can you provide a quick overview of the study and how you approach recruiting students?
So as you mentioned,
this is a survey of secondary school students.
We talk,
we ask young people about sexual health but approaching it in really broad terms.
So we are interested in sexually transmissible infections and some of the conventional approaches to sexual health that we hear a lot about condom use and so forth.
(02:20):
But we're also really interested in sexual experiences and how young people are going with respect to um,
guess what we might call safe and respectful and pleasurable sexual experiences.
So the survey broadly covers those topics.
We collect the data for the survey through an online form.
(02:41):
Um,
and we recruit or promote the survey through social media advertising predominantly.
It's not always how it's been done.
So in the past,
really before the Internet,
we used to go through schools and so we would ask teachers to actually administer the survey in a class in a classroom environment.
And this was really popular in the 1990s when everyone was really scared Still,
(03:05):
really that young people would be vulnerable to HIV or that we'd see a kind of new wave of HIV among young people in Australia.
So schools were really keen to be part of it when the survey first started in the 90s,
but then we kind of found moving into the 2000 schools were getting more reluctant to administer the survey in classroom time because they're busy.
(03:27):
Um and because once the sort of immediate fear of HIV had subsided a little bit,
and people were pretty confident that it wasn't going to spread widely among young people in Australia.
It's sort of,
I think,
started to feel more risky to be running a sex survey in schools.
So over time,
we had to shift away from schools and move entirely to this online recruitment.
(03:51):
But then were kind of mindful increasingly that that's not actually reaching a whole bunch of young people as well,
that,
you know,
the young people opting into that probably the ones that are a bit more in tune with some of these issues online or networked in particular ways.
So I think we'll look towards a kind of hybrid approach to promoting the survey somehow work with schools a bit more again in the future,
(04:13):
but this one was all online and the students who recruited as 15 plus,
so 14 to 18 cohort.
So that's years +932 year 12,
Although we did have some early school leavers who were 18,
17 or 18,
we had more people identifying as non binary or identifying their gender in other terms that we've had in the past and more people identifying as bisexual or pansexual or other non mono sexual sexualities.
(04:43):
So how much sex or students having,
that's really what people want to know,
I think it is always what people want to know.
And I'm going to answer that.
But I really think when we get asked this question,
we should push back a little bit and really question why people want to know that so much.
Because often I think that question gets asked because there's this kind of underlying belief that young people shouldn't be having sex or this discomfort in the idea that young people are having sex.
(05:13):
And so asking how much sex are young people having?
Sometimes it's kind of asking have we succeeded,
you know,
if young people having too much sex,
have we failed as a society or as a bunch of educators,
it's an interesting question and I'm going to answer it,
but I have a bit of a background to it first,
if that's okay.
I think for a survey like sash or any sort of youth sexual health surveys,
(05:37):
you know,
the fundamental questions we really grapple with when we design these surveys around what are the outcomes we're interested in?
You know,
what are we looking for?
What do we want to know is happening for young people as a kind of indicator of sexual health.
And quite often people jump straight to S.
T.
I rates use of condoms,
unwanted pregnancies or other kind of risk factors.
(06:00):
People call it,
risk behaviors,
risk practices and I know why I like that.
That's because often these surveys are funded by health or they're funded with these kind of concerns about sexual health in mind,
but at the same time,
sometimes that amounts to this idea that more sex equals more risk.
And so when we ask a question like how much sexy young people having and we say they're having more than ever before,
(06:26):
it kind of translates into all.
There's more risk out there.
It's problematic and sex becomes seen as it's inherently dangerous or problematic thing.
But if you think about sex or sexual health in more comprehensive terms,
then some of the questions I think we should be asking in these surveys or some of the outcome measures,
(06:48):
we should be oriented around a kind of more around our young people having sexual experiences in which they feel safe in which they feel respected in which they're enjoying themselves,
you know,
positive sexual experiences.
So if we make that as the outcome measure our young people having positive,
respectful,
(07:08):
enjoyable sexual experiences.
It's kind of a better question,
I think,
than how much sex our young people having.
But as you point out,
everyone always wants to know everyone always wants to know how much sex young people are having.
So I'm going to tell you,
I've got it written down here in Sash,
we surveyed close to 7000 young people.
So it was 6,841.
(07:30):
Um,
so these were all young people aged 14 to 18 years living in all states and territories of Australia.
Around 60% of these young people told us that they were sexually active,
which we defined as a young person who had at least one experience of oral vaginal or anal sex.
We changed that definition from previous years.
(07:53):
So previously,
um,
the definition of sexually active was people who were having penetrative sex.
So oral was not included in that definition,
but because young people these days tend to have a more comprehensive fluid idea of sex and sexuality,
that the definition has kind of changed For young people.
(08:15):
So we've come on board with that,
the average age at which most young people had sex was 15 and that has changed a little bit over the years.
I think that's really interesting because in my experience of talking to young people often they don't count oral sex as sex.
So really interesting that that's included now in the stats and overall that actually hasn't increased the number of young people saying they have had a sexual experience.
(08:45):
Yeah,
no,
it hasn't substantially.
So there is a little bit of an increase,
but actually,
overall the oral sex hasn't necessarily taken the numbers right up.
So,
I think often when people are at the point,
I'm guessing,
I guess people are at the point of having oral sex,
they're moving into other forms of sex pretty quickly.
I think the definition of oral sex and absolutely,
(09:06):
I don't think all young people count oral sex or sex,
but I do think as sexuality has become more fluid,
more young people are identifying as lesbian or gay or bisexual sex is also meaning different things to different people.
And you know what people understand to be sexually active is a little bit different.
(09:28):
So it's kind of coming in line with that as well.
So what stuck out for you with this survey?
Well,
lots of things,
Firstly,
I think it's worth noting that a lot of young people in this survey told us they were having pretty good sexual encounters,
pretty good sex.
Um so when we asked people about their most recent sexual encounter,
(09:49):
over 60% said that it was pretty Good.
It was extremely or very pleasurable,
and over 60% said that it left them feeling excited or satisfied.
So on the whole,
I think a lot of young people reported that the sex they were having was good,
it was pleasurable,
it was enjoyable,
it was wanted.
But I think the thing that really stood out for me was the number who reported an experience of unwanted sex at least one experience.
(10:17):
So overall around 40% said they'd experienced unwanted sex at least once.
Um and this not surprisingly was slightly higher among young women and quite a bit higher among trans and non binary people.
So for most young people,
this experience of unwanted sex was a result of verbal pressure they felt verbally pressured into having sex or they agreed to have sex because they were concerned about negative consequences of saying no In a blunt survey instrument like this,
(10:49):
we can't necessarily get all of the details.
And so there may be different ways in which people are defining unwanted sex.
It's a little bit hard to know,
but I still think that figure of 40% saying that they had at least one experience of this is quite shocking and certainly points to the importance of consent education and focusing on kind of what it means to what unwanted sex means in Nrsc.
(11:15):
I think there needs to be more conversations.
The other thing that stood out and that I think is worth talking about is condoms.
Um condoms.
Like I think we're at an interesting time with condoms because so much of the condom promotion over the years has been linked to HIV prevention.
You know,
over the last 10 years we've certainly seen an increase in these,
(11:37):
particularly among young people in Australia.
So gonorrhea and syphilis which is concerning.
Um So condoms s Ci testing is important,
and what we found in this survey really is that young people were pretty positive about condoms,
they thought they were good,
they recognized that they were really effective in preventing S.
(11:58):
C.
I.
S preventing unwanted pregnancy,
but that didn't necessarily mean they were using them.
So around 30% said they used condoms all the time.
Um and just under half had used a condom last time they had sex bearing in mind there's probably context around that.
It could have been the last time people had sex.
It was with a partner where they've both been tested,
(12:19):
where they had some sort of longer term agreement around not using condoms.
So we can't we need to take that,
you know,
with a bit of caution.
But the use of condoms among people in this survey was far from consistent and I remember that being alarming in the last survey as well,
That's not a new trend.
It's not a new trend.
I think it's been around for a long time.
(12:41):
It's just probably timely.
I think for us to talk more about condoms and To look more about what's going on for young people when it comes to condoms.
I was looking recently for recent research sort of qualitative research on how young people felt about condoms,
what the kind of culture was around condom use.
And I think there was some really,
really great research around this in the 90s.
(13:04):
Again,
when HIV was really predominant.
More recent research and there is there is little pockets of it,
there's just been less research on what's going on for young people when it comes to condoms.
Do they feel it's comfortable acceptable?
Normal to initiate condom use.
Is it is it around in the same way as it perhaps it used to be or perhaps it needs to be,
(13:26):
not just that they exist,
but how to negotiate their use.
Yeah,
that's right.
Yeah.
And feel comfortable doing that.
The other thing that stood out for me,
sorry,
there's many things.
But,
you know,
of course,
the other thing that stands out these days is online sex or digital sex.
And this survey just affirmed what we know that sexting is absolutely a thing,
(13:48):
whether or not you call it sexting,
but sending and receiving nude or sexual images is very,
very common.
70% of young people had sent an image,
I think about 80% had received an image.
Um and online porn is a thing,
85% had watched online porn at least once.
So whatever adults think about it,
(14:11):
whatever the sort of policy perspectives are on this particular set of practices,
it's very common.
It's not going anywhere.
It's irrelevant for us to say young people shouldn't be doing it.
It needs to be part of the conversation about young people,
sex and sexuality education.
So what's been different from previous years.
So in some ways,
not a lot,
(14:31):
but I think that's a story in itself.
I don't think apart from the online sex,
which is increasing to some extent,
although not hugely since 2018,
but certainly over the last two decades,
that's a massive change.
But apart from that,
I don't think a huge amount has changed.
I think about the same proportion of young people having sex around about the same age that shifted a little bit,
(14:56):
but on the whole,
I think the story continues.
It's not radically different to what it's been before.
The number of young people reporting unwanted sex has increased.
I don't think we can tell whether that's due to an increase in unwanted sexual sex or experiences of unwanted sex or if it's reflective of greater awareness of that,
(15:19):
which hopefully it is in a way because I think certainly in the open text questions,
there were a few young people actually who commented on,
they didn't recognize that the sex they had was not wanted,
they didn't have language to express that.
So I do wonder if perhaps with greater awareness in public in the media about consent,
(15:40):
sexual violence,
unwanted sex,
if that's shifting the way people understand their experiences and possibly people are more inclined to articulate unwanted sex.
So that's changed a bit interestingly,
young people are less likely in this survey than they have been in the last couple of iterations to say that they feel pressure to have sex from other friends or a partner.
(16:03):
Theres a few quirky changes,
like young people today are much less likely,
like substantially less likely to know that HIV can be transmitted by mosquitoes.
And I think that question is a bit of a hangover again from many years ago when there was the big myth that HIV could be transmitted by mosquitoes,
which I can't,
it's just not just not talked about.
(16:24):
Yeah,
it's a sort of relic of history.
So I imagine young people fill in this survey and think,
why are you even asking me that?
Maybe it's true.
So it's probably time to go that for that question to go.
If we look all the way back to 1992 by year 12,
around 50% of students were sexually active back then,
we only counted sexually active as penetrative sex.
(16:45):
So vaginal or anal sex.
And it's just about the same now.
So around 50% of young people in 2021.
So in all that time,
it's really not changed all that much about the same numbers of young people are having sex.
I really think that's the most shocking thing for a parent to hear that.
(17:05):
I think parents have this idea that kids are more sexualized.
They're seeing all this sexual stuff and they're experimenting earlier because they're getting all this information and really it's actually not any different to when they're at school.
No.
And in fact,
if you look at other trends,
so young people these days are less likely to be drinking a lot to be using drugs,
(17:27):
They're more likely to stay in possibly more social life is happening online than it used to,
which explains that trend to some extent.
But yeah,
I don't think,
I mean if anything young people are probably I'm a bit loath to say this,
but Maybe they're safer in some ways than than than our generation.
Yeah.
And more awareness of what consent is and what pressure might be.
(17:50):
Absolute.
And also more awareness about sexuality and gender.
I think young people have a language for talking about these issues,
these experiences,
these practices than people did even 10 years ago but certainly 2030 40 years ago,
young people are much more articulate.
It was my prediction that these this latest round of statistics would show that young people are having less sexual experiences because of Covid.
(18:15):
So you're saying that's not really the case,
it's kind of the same.
But how do you think Covid impacted these results?
Look,
to be honest,
it's hard to know because we ask about lifetime sexual experiences.
So we could probably drill down in some detail and try and work out if we looked at different age cohorts,
we might be able to see a covid effect.
(18:36):
But apart from that,
I don't I don't think it's easy to tell from these data if young people have had less sex,
but we did ask them how Covid has affected their lives.
And quite a few young people actually,
66% felt that their social interactions had decreased because of Covid and 50% felt that Covid brought negative changes to their life and this included both their social and romantic lives.
(19:02):
So I do think people felt that their dating lives have been negatively affected by Covid and that possibly include sex lives as well,
interestingly,
I was just looking at the Western Australian cohort,
and the effect was less there,
so they didn't have extended lockdowns in the way that other states did.
So,
young people in that state were less likely to say that Covid negatively affected their life.
(19:25):
The other effect that Covid possibly had was that RSC,
so relationships and sexuality education in schools got canceled for quite a few people,
particularly those who are in year 12.
And again,
I assume that because schools were just Overloaded Managing Home School,
trying to get students through year 12 in that particular circumstance,
(19:46):
so,
RSC just got pushed down the agenda.
So what do the funding say to you about what students need from relationships and sexuality education?
The number one finding,
which I don't think changed much,
and it's probably what you hear all the time.
Young people want to talk about sex and the absence of sex.
Nrsc is kind of astounding to a certain extent.
(20:07):
So,
the theme that we hear consistently is Rs.
C doesn't actually include conversations about how to have sex,
how sex feels,
how I talk about sex.
How do I talk to a partner about sex?
What do I ask for?
Um what do I suggest?
What do I do?
So,
young people really want to talk about sex and want to learn about sex?
They want to know about the mechanics of sex,
(20:29):
the emotions of sex,
which I think is interesting,
but also it's completely understandable.
I think these are hard conversations to have anywhere,
let alone for a teacher or any educator in a classroom situation.
I think they're often explicit conversations.
They're complex conversations,
probably difficult conversations to navigate within a group as well with different students,
(20:54):
students with different experiences and different backgrounds and different ideas about what they want to hear.
So these are complex conversations.
So while I'm saying here,
this is what young people want.
It's probably what young people need.
I think it's a whole different conversation about how this could or should happen in a classroom environment.
Yeah,
absolutely.
And we know from going into classes that we can say a whole lot of things in a short space of time as sort of external experts coming in and running a class.
(21:23):
And our biggest message is that those young people can find the support where they need it.
So if it is having those more detailed explicit conversations,
that they should find someone who can have that with them,
and do you think they do sometimes?
Yeah,
I mean,
that's the hope that they have that language that they can seek help when they need it.
(21:44):
In another study we did,
which was a smaller qualitative study,
that's really what young people going online to do as well.
They were looking for more explicit information.
Learning engagement conversations about sex about how to have sex,
jennifer thank you so much for speaking with me.
(22:05):
Thanks to dr jennifer Power for all that information,
not just giving us some of the key statistics about the study,
but also some of the background and reflections on how this study is completed.
Some key things that stood out for me in this discussion.
Ah people are often interested in risk based activities as a marker for success or failure of society.
(22:30):
Perhaps we should be seeking indicators of pleasure or safety as markers of health.
60% of young people surveyed had had at least one experience of oral anal or vaginal sex,
the average being 15 years old,
Over 60% of young people said that their last sexual experience was extremely or very pleasurable.
(22:56):
Over 40% of students reported at least one experience of unwanted sex,
85% of young people have watched pornography at least once.
There are lots of things that haven't really changed since the 1990s.
(23:17):
I'll put a few links in the show notes for this episode,
including Dr jennifer Powers,
La Trobe University profile.
I'll also link to the Australian Research Center in sex health and Society that have lots of great research available.
I'll also provide a link to the seventh national survey of Australian secondary students and sexual health.
(23:40):
For more information about sexual health victoria go to S H Vic dot org dot au.
You can follow us on instagram facebook twitter or linkedin contact me directly at doing it at S h vik dot org dot au.
Subscribe to the podcast like it if you like it.
This is the last one for this year.
Thank you so much.
(24:01):
Hope to be back in 2023.
Thanks for listening.
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