Sexual experiences and their correlates among college students in Mumbai City, India

International Family Planning Perspectives, Sep 1999 by Abraham, Leena, Kumar, K Anil

Most of the factors that were associated with an elevated likelihood of any sexual activity among male students also had significant effects on young men's odds of having had intercourse. In addition, working for income doubled the odds that male students had had intercourse (2.0), and a high level of knowledge decreased the odds (0.4). Furthermore, both moderate and liberal attitudes toward premarital sex increased the likelihood of intercourse (2.6-6.6). A high level of social interaction had only a marginal effect, and while erotic exposure remained significant, the effect of a high level of exposure was greatly reduced.

To investigate the extent to which the choice of variables included in the multivariate analysis influences the results, we conducted five additional analyses of the effect of knowledge about issues related to sex on sexual behavior (Table 5), each controlling for the effects of a subset of the variables included in Table 4. In general, these calculations yield considerably different odds ratios, although changes in the direction of the effect are infrequent.

When sexual knowledge is the only independent variable considered, the analysis confirms that the likelihood of having had intercourse is highest among young men with a moderate level of knowledge (odds ratio, 2.5), next highest among those with a high level of knowledge (1.8) and lowest among those with the least knowledge. In analyses including additional variables, however, males with a medium level of knowledge remain the most likely to have had intercourse (1.3-2.1), but those with a high level of knowledge become the least likely to have done so (0.4-0.5). Thus, the effect of knowledge depends on the extent of knowledge gained.

The pattern of variation is different when we consider any sexual experience as the dependent variable. For male students, the analysis including only the level of knowledge confirms the bivariate finding that the chance of having had any sexual experience increases with knowledge level. This result holds also when the socioeconomic and familial variables are considered, but when the intermediate variables are added, the direction of effects reverses; as knowledge level increases, the chance of experience decreases. Thus, the change observed is due primarily to the influence of other intermediate variables.

For young women, the bivariate regression result is consistent with the bivariate cross-tabulation, showing that the odds of sexual experience increase as the level of knowledge rises. However, the effect of a moderate level of knowledge is minimal (odds ratio, 1.1), and this may help explain why the inclusion of more variables produces a change in the direction of the effect. In all analyses including additional variables, female students with moderate knowledge have a reduced likelihood of being sexually experienced (0.7-1.0), while those with a high level of knowledge have considerably elevated odds (2.93.6). These results may be affected by the small sample size of sexually experienced female students (42); therefore, we cannot conclude that level of knowledge has a positive effect on the odds of sexual experience for young women and a negative effect for young men.