A downside to boys' self-esteem. (FYI).

Youngsters' level of self-esteem is an important predictor of sexual initiation, but it has opposite effects among males and females. (1) To study how self-esteem influences early sexual activity, researchers collected data from a sample of junior high school students in seventh grade and again 22 months later, and analyzed the responses of the 188 youngsters who had reported being sexually inexperienced in the earlier survey. They measured self-esteem using a standard instrument and categorized respondents as having high or low self-esteem according to the median score for each gender. Results of logistic regression analyses indicated that males with high self-esteem were significantly more likely than their peers with low self-esteem to have initiated intercourse between surveys (odds ratio, 2.4). By contrast, female students with high self-esteem had higher odds of having remained sexually inexperienced than those with low self-esteem (3.0). The researchers comment that while programs aimed at delaying first intercourse are useful, their effectiveness may improve if they address issues of self-esteem.

(1.) Spencer JM et al., Self-esteem as a predictor of initiation of coitus in early adolescents, Pediatrics, 2002, 109(4): 581-584.