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Sex Before Marriage - Assume Nothing
A recent North American study reviewed 530 studies of young people (a
total of 269,649 persons) and reports that young people's sexual attitudes
and behaviours have changed substantially between 1943 and 1999, with the
largest shifts occurring among girls and young women. (Wells, Brooke E.,
& Twenge, Jean M. Changes in Young People's Sexual Behavior and Attitudes,
1943-1999: A Cross-Temporal Meta-Analysis. Review of General Psychology,
2005, 9(3), pp 249-261). The study…
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concluded that both young men and women have become more sexually active
over time, as measured by age at first intercourse (decreasing from 19
to 15 years among young women) and percentage sexually active (increasing
from 13% to 47% among young women).
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found that attitudes toward premarital intercourse have also become more
lenient, with approval increasing from 12% to 73% among young women and
from 40% to 79% among young men.
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reported that feelings of sexual guilt have decreased.
These results probably come as no surprise to premarital educators in Australia
and the trends almost certainly parallel the experience of young people
in Australia. The implication for those of us working with PREPARE
and PREPARE-CC is that we need to be careful about making assumptions about
couples. We can easily make assumptions that are consistent with
our own experiences, expectations and values. We need to work with
couples on the basis of what couples are actually struggling with in their
lives.
For example, many couples may not be struggling with guilt over having
pre-marital sex, but they may still be struggling with associated issues
such as poor communication, conflicting expectations and lack of sensitivity
and care in their sexual relationship. Their answers to the items
in the Sexual Relationship category may provide a way into helpful discussions
on these issues.
To take another example: Since studies of social change suggest that
there are many more couples experiencing premarital sex we can tend to
assume that this is how it is for all couples. There continue to
be couples who go against the trend because of very strong personal convictions.
Their issues need to be identified and explored without stereotyping them.
Almost certainly, such couples take sex very seriously and how to move
from expectation to reality will be an important part of the PREPARE experience.
Past Hints Last Month : Past
experience of relationship and current concerns
News Update:
END-OF-YEAR CLOSING
Please note that the last processing day will be Wednesday 14th December
2005 and the office will re-open on January 3rd 2006.
PROCESSING FEE TO INCREASE ON FEBRUARY 1st 2006
This is an advance notice to let you know that we will be reluctantly
increasing the cost of processing to $44 (including GST) from February
1st next year. This will be the first increase in the base cost of processing
since 1999. The $35 processing charge was set then and the GST added
to this in June 2000, taking the GST inclusive charge to $38.50. Between
June 1999 and June 2005, our net costs have increased by almost 15% due
to constant increases in the expenses associated largely with wages, printing
and postage. Our aim is to maintain the new processing charge for a lengthy
period of time (as we have done before). We always aimed to make the processing
cost comparable to that of a modest meal for a couple – we feel sure that
$44 (for a couple) is still well and truly within those limits.
The June 2005 issue of the Newsletter, the Prepare Diary, is
available on this web site: To read, click on: June
2005 Diary The next newsletter will be posted in
mid-December.
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