The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services just released a major study on drug use and sexual behavior that purportedly used more thorough, scientific means than ever before to get more reliable results than prior surveys.

One striking conclusion: our children appear to become sexually active at surprisingly young ages. A higher percentage reports first sex below age 15 (15.6%) than the percentage waiting till age 21 or later (only 14.7%) The biggest group experiences sex for the first time between the ages of 15 and 17.

The CDC survey also shows striking racial differences when it comes to first sexual experiences. Among “non-Hispanic whites” 13.9% become sexually involved below 15; among “Mexican-Americans” the figure is 14.3%, and among “non-Hispanic blacks,” the number is nearly twice as high – with a full 27.5% experiencing sex before age 15. Only 5.8% of blacks wait till age 21 or later for first sex, but among whites a full 15.0%-- nearly three times the percentage –delay sex till the traditional age of maturity. Among Mexican-Americans, the highest percentage (16.6%) waits till age 21 for sexual initiation.

Most authorities (and most parents, certainly) would agree that sex for twelve, thirteen and fourteen year olds brings a host of problems, so it stands to reason that the much greater incidence for blacks of intimacy at these tender ages correlates with a wide range of problems in high school and even middle school. If a thirteen or fourteen year old is sexually active, for many (if not most) kids this distracting intimacy can make school that much more difficult (or even irrelevant).

It makes sense, in other words, to help close the racial gaps in educational performance by working to help inner city teenagers to avoid early onset of sexual behavior. 

One more number from the new study seems difficult to explain, or even to believe: among married people, a surprising 1.9% report that they have never had sex. If this figure reflects accurately on American reality it means that close to four million adults who are currently married still qualify as virgins.

Now that Hollywood has mined comedy gold by portraying “The Forty Year Old Virgin,” the new CDC study suggests endless dramatic and humorous possibilities for a future project about “Married Virgins.” If some enterprising screenwriter hasn’t already commandeered this idea, you can hereby steal it from this blog.