For the Youngest Couples, Cuddling May Be Better Than Sex

A subtle shift is quietly taking place in studies of teen sexuality. Researchers are finally focusing on sexual pleasure. Until recently, virtually all studies of adolescent lovemaking have focused on the hazards: pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections, and the problematic emotions sex may trigger, especially among young women—including guilt, shame, and victimization.

Sex researchers have largely ignored teen sexual pleasure—until now. Indiana University researchers asked teens about the elements of lovemaking that most contributed to pleasure. The young people identified four key factors—and orgasm was not among them.

What Produces Teen Sexual Pleasure?

The investigators began with the 2015 National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior, an ongoing periodic survey of a nationally representative sample of Americans age 14 and older. The researchers contacted the 2,736 participants who said they were parents of 14- to 17-year-olds, and asked permission to survey their teenage children. One thousand granted permission, and 600 teens, average age of 16, completed the survey. The researchers asked if they were sexually active with partners, and if so, about their most recent partner sex experience.

The majority of the teen respondents, 55 percent, called their most recent partner sex encounter either “quite a bit” or “extremely” pleasurable. Forty percent considered it “a little” or “moderately” enjoyable. Only 3 percent said “not at all” pleasurable. The overwhelming majority of these teens derived at least some pleasure from partner sex and most experienced a great deal.

The teens rated only two as most strongly linked to their pleasure—cuddling and genital touching.

The myth is that teens—especially teenage boys—are hell-bent on vaginal intercourse. They’re supposedly so intent on shedding their virginity that they skip non-genital play in a headlong rush to intercourse. That may have been true in the past, but this study shows it’s no longer the case. A key ingredient of pleasure is emotional comfort. Most teens today feel most comfortable kissing and cuddling; all other sexual activities are substantially less popular.

• As a group, today’s teens are not as sexually active as their parents and grandparents were as teens. A generation ago, well over half of the teens were not virgins when they graduated high school. Today, more than half still are.
• The other sexual activities require negotiations that make teens feel uncomfortable. They don't have much experience with sexually loaded conversations, and the discomfort resulting from that lack of experience detracts from pleasure.
• Increasing sexual assertiveness by young women may also play a role in these findings. However, there’s no research one way or the other. But most girls have always wanted to take escalations slowly, and today’s teen boys increasingly appear to accept this. In a culture that increasingly empowers adult women to assert their sexual likes and limits, this agency has likely trickled down to teenage girls.

Feeling Connected and Wanting the Sex

This has a good deal to do with the choice of partners. Who were the sexual partners?

• Current romantic partner: 53 percent. (Those saying they were “in love,” 46 percent.)
• Dating partner: 33 percent.
• Friend: 11 percent.
• Other: 2 percent.

As partner connectedness increased, so did pleasure. The teens rated sex with “other” partners, for example, someone they just met, as hardly pleasurable at all. But these teens declared that sex with romantic partners, that is, sex that included emotional intimacy was quite pleasurable.

Did they want the sex?

• Very much: 41 percent.
• Somewhat: 35 percent.
• A little: 23 percent.
• Didn’t want it, but did it to please the partner: 1 percent.

These teens’ pleasure depended to a large extent on wanting sex. More than three-quarters wanted it “somewhat” or “very much.”

A little more than one-third (38 percent) said they had orgasms, and a similar proportion (39 percent) said their partner did. Wanting sex was strongly associated with pleasure. But orgasm was less of a prerequisite for pleasure.

In the end, four elements produced sexual pleasure: wanting sex, emotional intimacy with the partner, cuddling, and sharing genital touch.

Many people use a baseball metaphor to describe the progression of sexual escalations. First base means kissing and cuddling. Second is breast fondling. Third is genital caressing. And a home run means intercourse. Adults often fret that teens can’t wait to round the bases and score. But in this study, activities beyond first base had little to do with teens’ pleasure. The researchers concluded that specific sexual activities “had less to do with teen pleasure than teens’ desire for sex and emotional intimacy with their partners.”

It appears that adolescents are less interested in physically “getting off” than in connections that build relationships and emotional intimacy. That should reassure adults and help teens grow into mature, sexually responsible adults.

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