Teenage gay sex 'a passing phase'

THE CAMPAIGN to lower the age of homosexual consent will be given a lift by a survey showing that teenage homosexuality is usually a passing phase. The biggest survey into British sexual behaviour - being serialised by the Independent on Sunday - suggests that one in 16 men and one in 29 women have had a homosexual experience. But only one in 70 men and fewer than one in 160 women have been actively homosexual in the last five years.

An unexpected finding is that those men who had a homosexual experience before 16 were less than half as likely to have had a homosexual partner in the past five years as those who started gay sexual activity later. The study concludes: 'Homosexual experience . . . in the early teens is unlikely to lead on to more consistent homosexual behaviour.'

Sex & the British, Page 3

Tomorrow, part 2 of the survey.