More Australian teenagers are sexually active and for one-third it’s unwanted

More young Australians are sexually active than in previous years and, while many of them report positive experiences, a national survey of high school students found condom use is falling and there are still high rates of unwanted sex.

The seventh federally funded national survey of Australian secondary students and sexual health on Thursday published findings of its survey of 6,841 students from years 9 to 12 in government, Catholic and independent schools throughout 2021.

More than half (60.6%) of those surveyed reported they had a sexual experience or were sexually active, defined as having experienced oral, vaginal or anal sex. This included 58.5% who reported having had oral sex, 52% who reported vaginal sex and 15% who reported anal sex.

Of the year 10 students surveyed, 43% reported being sexually experienced or active, compared with 68.9% of those in year 12. This compared with 34.3% and 55.8% respectively in 2018, and 22.9% and 48.8% in 1992.

More than one-third (39.5%) young people said they had experienced unwanted sex during their life. Trans and non-binary young people (55.4%) and young women (44.5%) were more likely to report that they had experienced unwanted sex than young men (21.3%).

The average age at which young people first experienced unwanted sex was 14.9 years. For 60.1% of young people who had experienced unwanted sex, this occurred for the first time in the context of an intimate relationship. One in five young people (20.7%) had experienced unwanted sex in the context of a familial or friendship relationship, while 9.9% had experienced unwanted sex that was perpetrated by someone known to them but not a friend or family member.

When asked about their latest experience of unwanted sex, 65.2% reported that they had experienced verbal pressure, 40.7% said they agreed to sex because they were worried about negative outcomes if they didn't, 31.9% were physically forced to have sex and 28% reported that they were too drunk or high at the time to consent.

The lead researcher at La Trobe University's Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society, Assoc Prof Jennifer Power, said most young people experienced positive feelings about their last sexual experience, including feeling excited (59.5%) and satisfied. Heterosexual young men were more likely to report positive emotions than people of other genders or LGBTQ+ young people.

But she is concerned that even though 94% of those surveyed thought young people should use condoms with a new partner, only 57% thought condom use with a new partner was common among people their age. Meanwhile, 10.3% did not know where to get condoms, 19.6% thought condoms were expensive and only 38.3% of young people reported always using them. Fewer than half (48.6%) reported using a condom during their latest sexual experience.

Power is also worried about the high rates of unwanted sex, which has risen over time.

"That finding points to the significance of the change in laws this year to make consent education mandatory from 2023," Power said. "There's a long way to go in terms of sex education and certainly what we would want young people to say in this survey is that they weren't very impressed with the education that they're receiving at school."

The director of the Australia Institute's Centre for Sex and Gender Equality, Chanel Contos, drove the petition that led to reforms to make consent a mandatory part of sex education.

She described the national survey as "comprehensive" and like Power is concerned about the high number of reports of unwanted sex. Contos said while these incidents were more accurately described as rape, sexual coercion and sexual violence, some people found that language difficult in describing their experience, especially if it was perpetrated by a partner. "But sexual violence is a spectrum and unwanted sex falls on that spectrum and needs to be treated just as seriously," Power said.

"I think unwanted sex is a national health crisis and we need to be really interrogating those figures and the normalised violence that is occurring."

Contos said she also believes the increased consumption of pornography among young people has led to high rates of anal sex reported among the survey respondents.

"While theoretically, 16 is the age of consent, the reality is one in three young people are experiencing unwanted sex," she said. "Anal sex is now a thing on the bucket list for young boys to try because they see it in porn and quite often it is something they want to brag to their friends about. That can sometimes be the case for girls as well. And if young people are having anal sex for that purpose, it's not a good thing whether you are consenting or not."

The average age for viewing pornography was 13.6 years and for experiencing anal sex 15.6 years, the survey found. Young men were more likely to have viewed pornography (95.5%) than people of other genders and LGBTQ+ young people were more likely to have viewed pornography than heterosexual young people.

Contos said it was concerning that sex education in schools stopped at the age of 16.

"We need to continue to have sex education after that time. And it can't just be education that makes sex appear negative, such as about preventing sexual assault, preventing STIs and preventing unwanted pregnancy. It has to be about also addressing the positives and teaching young people what healthy intimacy looks like.

"I think especially for girls and young women, they often have no idea that sex is meant to be pleasurable. And if you go into something with the expectation it won't be pleasurable, it can be very hard to distinguish between consensual and nonconsensual experiences."