[The onset of sexual activity in male adolescents]

This quantitative study aimed to investigate the onset of sexual activity in male adolescents from Concordia, Santa Catarina, Brazil. The studied sample consisted of a total of 340 14-19-year-old male adolescents attending secondary school in six local educational institutions, who accepted to answer the questionnaire and whose parents signed the Free and Informed Consent. From these, 69.7% affirmed that they already had sexual relations; the mean age at the first relation was 14.4, lower than national average of 15 years. The first sexual relation occurred with a date in the case of 45.1% and 64.2% affirmed that the main reason was sexual desire/excitation. Most of adolescents (74.%) qualified the experience as good or very good. The condom was used in the first sexual relation by 73.8% and in all relations by 72.5%. Some adolescents do not talk about sexuality, but most of them indicate friends as the main source of information about sex. These data show the effectiveness of the dialogue about STD/AIDS prevention and contraception developed over the last decades, expressed by the considerable condom use among the adolescents.