To compare HIV seroprevalence and sexual risk behavior among very young gay and bisexual men aged years and their older counterparts aged years. To examine drug-use patterns and correlates of sexual risk behavior in both of these age groups. An interviewer-administered cross-sectional survey of gay and bisexual males between 15 and 22 years old was conducted through a venue-based sampling design. Blood specimens were collected and tested for HIV antibodies, hepatitis B, and syphilis.

Interviews assessed sexual and drug-use behavior as well as psychosocial variables believed to be related to sexual risk-taking, including self-acceptance of gay or bisexual identity, perceptions of peer norms concerning safer sex, and perceptions of the ability to practice safer sex safer sex self-efficacy. Of the participants, HIV seroprevalence was somewhat lower among those aged 15 to 17 years 2. Overall, the prevalence of hepatitis-B core antibody was significantly lower in the younger age group 5.

When I was a teenager, I was precocious and restless.

As the only out young gay kid at my school, I took the advancement of my sexual experiences into my own hands and I did what we all do: I bought a fake ID and hit the gay clubs. Out on the scene I had thrilling and, now looking back, precarious hook ups with guys, going far but never all the way.

Still, as I grew into my late-teens, venues started to crack down harder on underage drinking, and it soon became increasingly difficult to go and hook up with guys much older than myself. I felt, in my increasingly anxious and deflated state, that I was being left behind.

My first year at college, apart from being grueling mentally, was hardly a sexual smorgasbord of one-night-stands and hook-ups. Instead, I reverted to my teenage years, pining after straight boys who I knew I had no chance in hell with The boy told his then-girlfriend who I knew about , saying I had come on to him but that nothing had really happened. Although one thing I can vividly remember was that it was quite literally the other way around, the visceral shock of being somewhat shoved back in the closet and denied the celebratory expungement of my virginity was palpable. And while at the beginning I felt like I had the upper hand in the situation—I was the one who was out and comfortable in my sexuality, right?