Progression from sexual arousal to sexual debut and its influence on youth risk behaviour in urban slums of Mumbai

An individual's first sexual intercourse is embedded with multiple personal and social meanings. The present study is an attempt to find out the progression from sexual arousal to sexual debut among the youth in the urban... [ view full abstract ]

An individual's first sexual intercourse is embedded with multiple personal and social meanings. The present study is an attempt to find out the progression from sexual arousal to sexual debut among the youth in the urban slums of Mumbai and the influence of sexual debut on risk behavior using ASHRA (Alcohol Use, Sexual Health Risks and HIV Prevention among Young Men in Low Income Communities in Mumbai, India) data. ASHRA collected the data among 1239 men aged 18-29 years in selected three low income urban communities of Mumbai. A little less than one third of the respondents had their first sexual arousal at the age of 15 and one fifth had their first sexual arousal below the age of 15 years (9% at the age of 13 years). Three-fifths of the Mumbai males had premarital and extra marital sex while having their first sexual experience. More than half of youth had their arousal because of discussion about sex among friends. Among all the respondents, 975 (80%) had penetrative sex in their lifetime and 60 % were married. Author has used Namboodiri and Suchindran (1987) model life technique to analyse the progression of the youth from first sexual arousal to sexual debut. The probability of initiating first penetrative sex within one year of sexual arousal among the youth of low income communities of Mumbai was 0.803. Half of the youth with sexual debut at age 15 or below are having lower positive condom attitude and other half is having moderate condom attitude. It was not so surprising to find out that none of them had high positive condom attitude. High sexual satisfaction and relational satisfaction with girlfriend and wife is having a reverse relationship with decreasing age at sexual debut.
Keywords: Sexual Debut, Sexual arousal, urban slum, youth, risk behavior