Christy Mbithi
Soc 101
Research Paper
April 14, 2015
Appropriate age for sex. Every kid is scared of the day when their parents will want to have the talk. Nothing strikes fear more than parents talking to you about sex. As we grow we get to understand how the topic of sex is extremely controversial because of cultural beliefs, religion, gender and politics. In this essay, I will be looking at the different opinions towards when it is right for one to engage in sexual behavior. Mostly, how gender, age and religion affects people’s opinions on sex. I chose to look at sex because it’s a very controversial topic and people feel the most uncomfortable discussing and that is why I chose a method that would make the participants very comfortable. My data collection method was survey research. I made up ten questions to which I uploaded to a website called survey monkey. The questions were based on religion, age, gender and opinion on topic. The survey taker would have to click on a link that I created which leads to the survey. The survey takers do not put their names which makes them more comfortable when taking the survey. I chose to build my survey online because people spend most of their time on the internet plus behind the computer screen one feels is more truthful because there is no audience to judge. Also, because my topic is very uncomfortable and a little personal, the survey taker has the trust that their answers will be still personal and not spread around. This method was very inexpensive because I didn’t need any materials. The website I used was free and all it needed was for me to make an account with them. Not only was this method easy to administer but it was also very fast. I could get a lot of people to take the survey at the same time at their own pace without handing the papers out or picking the papers up when they were done. On the other had the information that the survey takers give could be inaccurate and just want to mess around. The problem of surveys is that some survey takers don’t take the surveys seriously and put silly answers to be funny or just plain life. I wanted to get very personal with this survey. I had 50 people take the survey, 28 were females and 22 males. Most survey takers ranged from the ages 18 to 25 which were 31 survey takers. 19 survey takers were 25 years and older. Gender, age and religion played big roles with the surveys. People based their answer according to their gender, age and religion. The survey takers that were male seemed to have had sex at a younger age than the women. Most men had had sex at an age of 15 with no relationship. They explained it as an age of curiosity. Only five female survey takers had sex at an age of 17 and were indeed in a relationship with the other person. Most females stated that they were not curious it was more of pressure and it was a thought decision. When it came to females and males, more females thought that the right time for one to engage in sexual activity would be 19 years old but the males said 17. Age really changed a lot of the opinions on when one should engage in sexual activity. Survey takes that were 25 years old and older thought that one should engage I sexual activity at the age of 20 and older and their reasoning to this as that one has a more mature mind then to think about their decisions. They say that sex is something that changes lives and they think one should do it at a mature age. Most of them were married and had kids of their own. They wanted their kids to make the right decisions. Teenagers thought that the age that one should engage in sexual activity is at the age 18 and older. Their reasoning was that one will be going to college at that age anyway and they would be free to make their decisions. I thought that religion would play a big role on the