The diverse but common definitions of sex for young people in Australia

Relationships and sexuality education is a key strategy for promoting safe sex and respectful relationships during adolescence. Understanding the ways in which young people define sex is critical to ensuring a shared understanding between sexual health educators and students. Young people aged 14–18 years (N = 6,043) who participated in a large-scale cross-sectional Australian study were asked to indicate whether various sexual practices (e.g. vaginal, anal or oral sex, genital rubbing, mutual masturbation) were included in their definition of ‘sex’. Associations between demographic characteristics, sexual experiences, and definitions of sex were identified using multiple logistic regression. Content analysis further examined open-text responses from 63 participants who expanded on their definitions. Almost all participants (99.1%) included vaginal sex in their definition of sex, 83.7% included anal sex and 59.7% included oral sex. Young people also included a diverse range of sexual practices that did not consistently align with common definitions used in sexuality education and sexual health promotion campaigns. Definitions of sex differed by gender and sexuality suggesting that when discussing sex with young people, educators and health professionals need to consider sexuality and gender diversity and take care to check common understanding of terminology.