The maxim says that ‘everything is bigger in Texas’, and that holds true for the percentage of kids having sex in the Lone Star state.
A recent study shows that the number of kids having sex while they are still in middle school, with one in ten sixth graders having already had sex by the age of 11 or 12 years old.
The numbers jump from there, with 22 per cent of seventh graders having had sex, and increasing by roughly ten per cent every year after that.
The study comes from research compiled by the Centers of Disease Control and the University of Texas, and examines the state’s sexual standing compared to the national averages.
Texas has historically done poorly when it comes to issues of sexual education and teenage pregnancies: the state has the third highest birth rate in the country- almost double the national average- with 6.31 per cent of girls getting pregnant between the age of 15 and 19, compared to a national average of 3.9 per cent.
The country as a whole isn’t doing well either, with the U.S. leading in the rates of sexually transmitted infections among developed countries.
‘Texas youth are disproportionately represented in these numbers,’ the report reads.
Starting in sixth grade when one in 10 of the young girls and boys having had sex, the number goes up to 22 and then 29 per cent in seventh and eighth grades respectively.
In high school, the percentage starts at 32 in ninth grade when the students are 14 or 15 years old, and goes up by roughly ten per cent each year.
