studies

Guttmacher Institute

Advancing sexual and reproductive health worldwide through research, policy analysis and public education.

How Do We Science?

Both a love letter and a starter guide to the bare basics of how science works.

Did abortion make me unable to orgasm?

poonamdeshmukh
asks:
I had to go through an abortion at the age of 18 of a 20 week fetus. I had experienced orgasm just once in my life before the abortion. I have not experienced orgasm after my abortion through any sexual activity or masturbation. Have the abortion made me unorgasmic?...

Pump Up the Vole-ume: Talking Oxytocin

The more young people are told - usually by adults who know from their own experience it's not true -- that sex outside of marriage, outside long-term, monogamous relationships, or with any more than one partner in a lifetime, will always do them terrible, irreparable harm and make them damaged goods forevermore, the more we get questions about oxytocin, one common staple in that messaging. So, around a year ago, I started excavating.

In which we're reminded, again, that abstinence pledges don't work.

Patient Teenagers? A Comparison of the Sexual Behavior of Virginity Pledgers and Matched Nonpledgers, Janet Elise Rosenbaum, PhD, AM; Health Policy PhD Program, Harvard University:

Five years after the pledge, 82% of pledgers denied having ever pledged. Pledgers and matched nonpledgers did not differ in premarital sex, sexually transmitted diseases, and anal and oral sex variables. Pledgers had 0.1 fewer past-year partners but did not differ in lifetime sexual partners and age of first sex. Fewer pledgers than matched nonpledgers used birth control and condoms in the past year and birth control at last sex.

Am I behind the curve with sex compared to other teens?

Maya
asks:
It seems as if girls at my school are very experienced sexually. They all talk about hooking up, giving head, getting head, getting fingered, and all that sort of thing. I, having never even kissed a boy or had a boyfriend, feel a bit left behind. I wanted to know if most girls my age, 15 (like on average), have had sexual experience like this. ...