Teen sex: girls more active

Teenage girls are now more likely to be sexually active than boys. New figures revealed today in a Department of Health survey into sexual behaviour suggest the trend is also mirrored among men and women aged between 20 and 24.

The survey reveals:

Almost half of teenage boys between 16 and 19 have not had any sexual partners in the last year, compared with 36 per cent of girls.

One in five young men aged between 20 and 24 were also celibate in the last year - compared with 10 per cent of women.

Women of all ages were more likely to have had one or more sexual partners within the last 12 months.

The government study into sexual health covered average number of partners, use of contraception and awareness of sexually transmitted diseases.

The results show that women between 16 and 24 are more likely to have had a sexual relationship within the last year than men of the same age.

Although men in their late twenties, thirties and forties are more likely to have multiple partners than women, overall, women appear to be more likely than men to have had at least one sexual partner within the last year.

The latest statistics show that 15 per cent of men aged between 16 and 69, and 12 per cent of women, had no sexual partners in the last 12 months.

A spokeswoman for the Family Planning Association reacted with surprise today.

But she added: "The number of women with sexual partners may be up, but the percentage using emergency contraception is down, so perhaps the messages about contraception and safe sex are hitting home."

The survey reveals that one in five women aged between 16 and 49 have used the morning after pill in the last 12 months, with one per cent admitting they were forced to use the emergency contraception twice, and a further one per cent admitting they used it more than twice.

Encouragingly for health chiefs, awareness of sexually transmitted diseases appears to be growing, with around a quarter of men and women saying they now use a condom more often than in the past.

The proportion of men and women who recognised the socalled " hidden" disease, chlamydia, as a sexually transmitted infection, has also risen dramatically, to 53 per cent of men and 80 per cent of women, compared with 35 per cent of men and 65 of women in the previous survey, in 2001.

It follows a series of government initiatives to increase public awareness.