Despite recent declines in overall sexual activity, sexual risk-taking remains a substantial danger to US youth. Existing research points to athletic participation as a promising venue for reducing these risks. Linear regressions and multiple analyses of covariance were performed on a longitudinal sample of nearly 600 Western New York adolescents in order to examine gender-and race-specific relationships between "jock" identity and adolescent sexual risk-taking, including age of sexual onset, past-year and lifetime frequency of sexual intercourse, and number of sexual partners. After controlling for age, race, socioeconomic status, and family cohesion, male jocks reported more frequent dating than nonjocks but female jocks did not. For both genders, athletic activity was associated with lower levels of sexual risk-taking; however, jock identity was associated with higher levels of sexual risk-taking, particularly among African American adolescents. Future research should distinguish between subjective and objective dimensions of athletic involvement as factors in adolescent sexual risk.Keywords jock identity; athletic activity; sexual risk; adolescent; gender; race Despite declines in overall adolescent sexual activity over the past decade (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2002;Santelli et al., 2000), sexual risk-taking (e.g., multiple partners, sexual precocity, unprotected intercourse) remains a substantial danger to US youth. Each year, American adolescents experience nearly a million unintended pregnancies and more than 4 times that many new cases of sexually transmitted diseases (US Department of Health and Human Services, 2000). Strategies to reduce sexual risk have commonly employed narrowly focused approaches such as contraceptive distribution, sex education, and abstinence programs To whom correspondence should be directed at the Research Institute on Addictions, 1021 Main Street, Buffalo, New York 14203; email: kmiller@ria.buffalo.edu.
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NIH-PA Author ManuscriptNIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscript (Franklin et al., 1997). In their search for interventions that reduce sexual risk-taking, some researchers and policy-makers have begun to cast a wider net that addresses the larger social and developmental contexts of adolescents' daily lives, including routine behaviors for which the linkage to sexual risk outcomes is indirect (Kirby, 1997;Males, 1993). Adolescent athletic involvement constitutes one such area of interest. The present study examined the gender-and race-specific relationships among two distinct dimensions of athletic involvement (specifically, frequency of athletic activity and "jock" identity), dating, and sexual risk-taking in one longitudinal sample of Western New York adolescents.
SPORTS AND ADOLESCENT SEXUAL RISKRecent research has identified adolescent athletic participation as a promising avenue for promoting sexually responsible behavior, particularly among girls. Female athletes at the high school and college levels report less freq...