Bat-wielding, ball-kicking, track-sprinting girls may have less commitment to a conventional "cultural script" of passive femininity, speculate the authors. For boys, however, sporting prowess may be associated with "a sexually aggressive ethic of masculinity".

Whatever the reasons, most programmes to reduce teenage sex and pregnancy risk "have yielded results that are disappointing at best." Says Miller: "While athletic participation is certainly not a quick fix, it may be a valuable tool in helping teenage girls make decisions about sex, decisions that can have far-reaching consequences in terms of health, pregnancy risk, and life chances." -->

3 June 1998

Sporty Girls Have Less Sex

There has always been something wholesome about Sporty Spice - and with good reason, according to new research. Adolescent girls who take after their back-flipping role model have less sex than their non-athlete peers, say scientists. They also lose their virginity later, and have fewer sex partners.

Reporting their findings in the June issue of the Journal of Health and Social Behaviour, the researchers suggest that high school sports may be an untapped resource for reducing sexual activity among teenage girls - thereby lowering their risk for unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. They base their conclusions on the results of surveys of 611 western New York adolescents aged 14 to 19 and their families.

"Female athletes had substantially fewer sex partners, engaged in less frequent intercourse ... and began having sex at a later age," writes Kathleen Miller of the State University of New York at Buffalo. "For boys, however, the effects were decidedly weaker ... To the extent that sports made a difference in boys' sexual behaviour at all, male adolescent athletes actually reported more partners, more sexual experience overall, and earlier sexual onset than did their non-involved peers."