Rome's early intercourse with the Greek cities of Italy is reflected in the Romano-Campanian coinage.
Fossilised features of antiarch fish suggest that early intercourse was not the smoothest of affairs, with males faced with the task of steering their bony L-shaped organs between twin genital plates that adorned the females like tiny cheese graters.
It is, therefore, important to extend studies of the relationship between early intercourse and psychosocial factors associated with adolescent development to include examinations of youth from various cultures.
Recent work by Armour and Haynie (2007) utilized a longitudinal design to examine the direction of the relationship between early intercourse and delinquency.
Macrosystemic factors, like social cultures (e.g., national, religious, or cultural beliefs and or practices), may also influence the relationship between early intercourse and psychosocial development (Krieger, 2001).
Other longitudinal studies utilizing psychosocial data to predict early sexual debut have also been conducted (Laflin, Wang, & Barry, 2008; Santelli et al., 2004), allowing further insight into the order of the relationship between early intercourse and psychosocial factors.
Various researchers have argued that although early sexual intercourse is potentially harmful due to its association with future sexual risk behaviors (Greenberg, Magder, & Aral, 1992; Smith, 1997), there are important differences between early intercourse and the problem behaviors to which it is linked.
Sexual practices in the world indicate that very early intercourse might be occurring in adolescents with 44, 45 and 52% of girls between the ages of 13 19 years reporting being sexually experienced in Argentina, Botswana and Nigeria, respectively (Brown et al, 2001).
Reports on sexual practices in the world indicate that very early intercourse might be occurring in adolescence, with median age of sexual debut in the mid-teens in many countries (e.g., Singh et al, 2000).
The fact that younger age at first intercourse is associated with risky (sexual) behavior is corroborated by other studies that have shown that early intercourse is associated with higher numbers of sexual partners, bisexual experience, smoking and early pregnancy later in life [ 22– 25].
