Judging from the number of books and articles published in scientific journals, the United States (US) is the country where the bulk of studies on male sexual behaviour have been carried out. From the pioneering research of Exner (1915
Studies surveyed adolescent samples of varying sizes and age groups. Sample sizes ranged from a little under 100 to more than a thousand respondents. Adolescents interviewed were aged 15-24.
cited in Kinsey et al., 1948: 24) among American male college students in the early 20th century until the present, the US leads in terms of the num ber, the variety and the quality of investigations of adolescent male coital and
contraceptive experiences.
Other W estern countries such as Australia (Collins, 1973; Royal
Commission on H um an Relationships, 1977; Siedlecky, 1979; Triin et al., 1983; McCabe, 1987; Moore and Rosenthal, 1991a), Denmark (Wielandt et al., 1989), the former West Germany (Sigusch and Schmidt, 1973; Schoof-Tams et al., 1976; Schmidt et al., 1992), Great Britain (Schofield, 1965; Willmott, 1969; Anderson et al., 1978; Farrell, 1978; Turner et al., 1988; Ford, 1992), N orw ay (Traeen et al., 1992), Sweden (Lewin, 1982) and Canada (Hornick, 1978; King, 1989; Netting, 1992) have also investigated the sexual behaviour of single young men and, in m ost instances, their condom use. Unfortunately, the studies undertaken in these countries are too few, and their scope and coverage do not match those of m any American studies. Some researchers have been aware of these
limitations: N eubauer and Melzer (1989: 323), for example, have noted that in the then West Germany, adolescent sexuality and its developm ent has received scant attention, largely because of the higher importance given to young
people's schooling and careers. Similarly, W estern (1992:136) has identified the lack of familiarity of Australian sexuality studies w ith the more
sophisticated issues surrounding instrum entation, survey administration, depth and variety for w hich some of the American studies are well-known. Despite the varying levels of research activity in W estern societies, it needs to be em phasised that a great deal of data - albeit not adequate - has already been gathered describing the nature and extent of prem arital sexual experiences am ong unm arried young m en in the W estern setting.
societies of Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Africa, and in the non- Westem industrialised countries of Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore remains largely unstudied. It was only starting in the 1980s that adolescents' sexual behaviour, particularly their coital experiences, attracted some research attention, usually in the context of international and national recognition of teenage pregnancy and AIDS. Many developing societies have yet to come to grips with premarital sex. China, for instance, which puts a high premium on premarital virginity and labels fornication shameless and degrading, seems reluctant to recognise that the incidence of premarital sex among its citizens, although low, is increasing. It is thus unlikely that China will embark on sex research among single adolescents in the near future: sex remains a taboo subject. The first extensive survey of sexual activity has been conducted, but among married urban couples (Logue, 1992).
China is not alone: other Asian countries also have conservative research environments as far as studies of sexual behaviour are concerned.2 Indonesia, for one, has a dearth of adolescent sexuality studies (Utomo, 1993), but there are indications that in such large cities as Jakarta, Yogyakarta and Surabaya, for example, social values among the young are changing (Utomo, 1993) and young adults are increasingly engaging in premarital coital relationships
(Sarwono, 1981a; Hull et al., 1984). Indonesia's conservative values may also be gleaned not just from its policy of disallowing provision of contraceptives to single youth under 17 years of age, but from its classification of such provision as illegal (Senderowitz and Paxman, 1985). In the Philippines, Taiwan,
2Some conservatism towards sex research also exists in Western countries. In the US, the implementation of a national study on teenage sexual behaviour was first blocked by Health and Human Services Secretary Louis Sullivan, but eventually it was pushed through (McCammon et al., 1993). In Australia, there exists some reticence over the recognition of adolescent sexuality and there are pressure groups which fear that frank discussion of sexuality or education in contraception will encourage promiscuity among the young (Siedlecky, 1979). The resistance in Western societies may, however, be less pronounced than in Asia because prominent government and academic organisations are supportive of efforts towards understanding and addressing adolescent sexuality.
Malaysia and Korea, the number and extent of adolescent sexuality studies have been also influenced by the resistance and conservatism of government officials (Xenos, 1989). This conservatism may be reflective of the attitudes of the Taiwanese, Malaysian and Korean general populations. However, the Filipino population may be different, perhaps owing to a high degree of civil liberty, to the freedom of speech and of the press it enjoys under a democractic government, and to its exposure to liberal Western values which are commonly depicted in the local mass media.
One example illustrates this point. When Schindler's List, the multi- awarded movie by Steven Spielberg about the Holocaust, was shown in the Philippines early in 1994 there was widespread public uproar when the Movie and Television Classification Board censored a 30-second sexually explicit scene. The moviegoing public demanded that this scene be shown. Some members of the Senate were supportive of the public outcry, and with the intervention of President Ramos, the film was reshown uncut. In a 1991
nationwide survey of attitudes towards sexual relations, another indication that the Filipino population possesses relatively liberal sexual values was found. The study revealed that while respondents were not in favour of extramarital (85 per cent) or homosexual (82 per cent) relations, they showed more tolerance towards premarital coital relationships (41 per cent favoured sexual contact in this context) (Sandoval, 1992). Although the Philippines appears to possess differing sexual values from Taiwan, Malaysia and Korea, this is not reflected in the number of studies of adolescent sexuality completed. Like these three Asian societies, the Philippines has seen only a few studies on adolescent male sexual and contraceptive behaviour undertaken. These include the studies undertaken by the Child and Youth Research Centre (1977), Vancio (1977) and the Family Planning Organisation of the Philippines (1987). Lack of funding appears to be a core reason why the Philippines has not been able to carry out
more extensive investigations; in Taiwan, Malaysia and North Korea the barrier has been that these societies are largely conservative and authoritarian (Xenos, 1989).
In Asia, Thailand appears to be the country with the most numerous studies on adolescent sexuality conducted through the 1980s. Unlike other Asian societies, Thailand seems to have little political resistance to the family planning movement (Xenos, 1989) and, along with Hong Kong, is one of the rare Asian settings where contraceptive services are extended to unmarried adolescents (Senderowitz and Paxman, 1985). The impetus to Thailand's taking a strong interest in young men’s coital activity also emanates from the fact that the Kingdom is experiencing a staggering rise in the number of STD cases, notably HIV and AIDS. Hong Kong, on the other hand, despite its liberal policy of providing contraceptive services to young people and its acceptance of the value of rational consideration of sexual matters which had once been taboo, has produced fewer studies of male sexual behaviour than Thailand. Nevertheless, two extensive studies have been conducted in Hong Kong: the Family Life Education Survey in 1981 and the Adolescent Sexuality Study in 1986 (Family Planning Association of Hong Kong, 1986).
Little of the political resistance or conservatism that many Asian countries face with regard to the conduct of adolescent sexuality research confronts the developing region of Latin America and the Caribbean. This may be because early sexual initiation and high levels of non-marital adolescent childbearing have been standard features of Latin American and the Caribbean culture (Senderowitz and Paxman, 1985; Morris, 1988; Remez, 1989). In Jamaica, for instance, one-third of all live births in 1979 were to females aged 12-18
(Gilmour, 1986). However, the recognition of young people's premarital sexual experiences and their consequences has gained strength only in recent years
(Herold et al., 1992), presumably in response to international action against teenage pregnancy and AIDS. Although small-scale investigations have been undertaken in Colombia among students since 1977 (Useche et al., 1990), large- scale representative sample surveys were initiated only in the middle of the 1980s in seven Latin American cities and in Jamaica (Remez, 1989). These research efforts have tended to be uniform in design, orientation and topics, having been mostly patterned after the Johns Hopkins 1971-79 Surveys of Adolescent Sexuality in the US.
The largely underdeveloped region of Africa tends to be similar to Latin America and the Caribbean in that it is also confronted with a rising incidence of out-of-wedlock births, particularly among young urban women (Gyepi- Garbrah et al., 1985). Apart from non-marital teenage pregnancies, Africa also faces a rapid spread of HTV infection. Because of teenage pregnancies and HIV and their attendant consequences, coital activity among unmarried adolescents has been a focal concern of research in many African countries. Relevant
studies have been undertaken in Zambia (Mufune et al., 1993), Nigeria (Nichols et al., 1986; Orubuloye et al., 1991; Barker and Rich, 1992; Makinwa-
Adebusoye, 1992), Liberia (Nichols et al., 1987), Zimbabwe (Wilson et al., 1989; Boohene et al., 1991), Gambia (Kane et al., 1993), and in Kenya (Ajayi et al., 1991; Barker and Rich, 1992; Kiragu and Zabin, 1993). Like the majority of investigations in Asia and Latin America, most of these African studies have taken place only recently, most probably for the same reason that other regions have carried out their research activities: in consonance with international action against increasing and sustained growth of teenage pregnancies and HIV infections. Studies in Africa have not only tackled adolescents' coital experiences: two investigations by Owuamanam (1982; 1983), for example, explored both the precoital and coital activity of school-going adolescents in Nigeria.
Africa seems to be conservative with respect to adolescent premarital intercourse, a characteristic that perhaps more closely identifies it with Asia than with Latin America and the Caribbean. For instance, the Kenyan
government declared in 1989 that contraceptives should not be made available to unmarried youth (Barker and Rich, 1992). Similarly in Ibadan, Nigeria, existing government and private programs were not providing contraceptives to the young unmarried population (Nichols et al., 1986). With reference to the general population, it is believed that many Kenyans and other Africans are not comfortable with discussing issues concerning adolescent sexuality (Barker and Rich, 1992; Kiragu and Zabin, 1993). High levels of teenage pregnancy and HIV infection which are unparalleled anywhere else on the globe (Caldwell et al., 1993) may, however, force many African governments to adopt and
implement pragmatic steps to address these social problems. Subject to the availability of necessary resources, these actions may consist of extending contraceptives to single young males - a policy which Thailand and Hong Kong have been pursuing for quite some time, and which the Philippines should pursue.
Adolescent male sexuality has also been one of the subjects of ethnographic research conducted in Zawiya, a small town in Morocco (Davis and Davis, 1989); in an investigation in an Israeli kibbutz, a form of commune where the emphasis is on collective childrearing with the community as a whole taking over the tasks of the family (Antonovsky et al., 1980); and in Papua New Guinea (National Sex and Reproductive Research Team and Jenkins, 1994).