Premarital Sex

1. Introduction

Premarital sex is having sex at least one time before getting married. Do you have premarital sex? Do any of your friends? Should we be allowed to have sex at any age, or free to experiment from any religion? What is your opinion? There are many risks to having premarital sex, including sexually transmitted diseases if you don’t know your partner well enough, injuries, and unwanted pregnancy. Nevertheless, huge amounts of young people are having sex at early ages, before marriage. Some governments recommend having safe sex. Some religions strictly ban premarital sex; however, a lot of people don’t follow these religions. Too much constriction on premarital sex from religion is not good because some people break the rules. Some people who are restricted from having sex by their parents or their religions use it as a reason to go ahead and give it a try. “More than nine out of ten Americans, men and women alike, have had premarital sex...” (Premarital Sex, 2006, para.1). Premarital sex is widely done, it seems, even if it is not accepted.

2. Purpose

Our group, J. Piao, J. Yoo, M. Alsharif, and I decided to find out what Americans think about premarital sex. I wanted to examine the relationship between gender and when people start having sex. Also, I wanted to know the relationship between religion and premarital sex. Moreover, I wanted to examine the relationship between gender and who influenced their opinion about premarital sex.

3. Hypothesis

I had three hypotheses about having premartial sex in America. First, I believed that females started having sex earlier than males. Next, parents gave females influence on their opinion about having sex before marriage. Third, I believed that most Americans disagree with religions that ban sex before marriage.

4. Methods and Procedures

Our group asked thirty-nine people who are different gender, age, and religion in Carbondale to get a different opinion. Our intention was to ask the same amount of men as women, but unfortunately a group member misplaced one male survey participant’s data. In addition, we were looking for both people who have had sex and have not because we wanted to know how differently they are thinking about premarital sex. We prepared a survey that has ten questions. Those questions were almost all yes or no questions, so it was easy for respondents to answer the questions.

5. Data

Here is the result of survey http://eap1.blogspot.com/2008/03/practice-survey-results.html

6. Result

Actually, women started having sex earlier than men. 2 out of 15 males (13%) and 4 out of 12 females (33%) started having sex at under 15 years old. Also, most Americans, 10 of 15 males (67%) and 9 out of 12 females (75%), started having sex before 19 years old. Only 9 out of 19 (47%) males said that they agree with religions that ban premarital sex; on the other hand, 12 out of 20 (60%) females said so. Friends have the most influence on both male’s (37%) and female’s (40%) opinion about premarital sex.

7. Conclusion and Discussion

I believed that females started having sex earlier than males, and my prediction was correct because our survey showed almost the same number as my prediction. I wasn’t surprised at that fact, because I thought girls grew up earlier than boys in both ranges, physically and psychologically. However, I was surprised at the fact that friends have the greatest influence on Americans’ opinions about premarital sex. I expected that parents had more influence than friends for females, but it was not true. Also, our survey surprised me about the relationship between religion and premarital sex, because almost half of males and over half of females agreed with religions that ban premarital sex. I thought that most Americans disagreed with religions that ban sex before marriage.

If I can do this survey another time, I would like to ask a lot of older people, because most respondents were 19 to 25-year-old people. Also, if I ask older people, I will be able to get different opinions from younger people’s opinion about premarital sex. Some of our survey’s results couldn’t be used because some respondents checked none of the alternatives and some respondents checked more than two. Therefore, next time I would like to tell them to please check on ONE choice for each question, before giving the paper to respondents.

8. Reference

Premarital Sex: Almost Everyone's Doing It. (2006, December 19). CBS NEWS. Retrieved February 29, 2008, from http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/12/19/national/main2282940.shtml

9. Appendix
Copy of Survey at http://eap1.blogspot.com/2008/03/having-premarital-sex_03.html