Swedes have sex on their very first date

Swedes have sex on their very first date
REUTERS

STOCKHOLM, MARCH 8: Swedish sexual habits have loosened up in the past decade, with more people inclined to live dangerously for love, according to a new survey.

Swedes are having sex more often on their first date with a new partner than in the 1980s, but their use of condoms has declined, the National Institute of Public Health (NIPH) said on Wednesday. And promiscuity and homosexuality are no longer the taboos they once were, it said. Its study of 6,000 Swedes suggested that almost one fifth of men and one in 10 women had first-night sex with a new partner in 2000, up from 12 per cent of men and six per cent of women in a similar 1989 survey.

At the same time, fewer were practicing safe sex in their love lives. Twenty-four per cent of male respondents in the new survey said they had used a condom in the past month, down from 26 per cent in 1989.

Among women, 16 per cent said their partner had used a condom compared with 22 per cent in 1989.

The NIPH report called the findings worrying. Venereal diseases have become more common in Sweden in recent years. Swedes have also become more tolerant regarding promiscuity and homosexuality in the past two decades, the NIPH found.

Just over one third of men and less than four in 10 women now said that only people with steady relationships should have sexual intercourse down from 53 per cent and 65 per cent respectively in 1989.

Close to 80 per cent of women and more than half of men now agreed that homosexuality was not abnormal. In 1989, only one third of men and just over half of women endorsed that opinion.