Research shows that a record number of teenage boys are kissing for the first time

Only one in five high school students in Japan say they have had their first kiss, the lowest figure ever recorded in a mainstream survey of youth sexuality.

The Japan Association for Sex Education (Jase) survey has been conducted every six years since 1974.

High school girls are also demure: 27.5%, or more than one in four, say they have had their first kiss. But the decline among boys was much greater than in the previous study.

The figures show how pandemic restrictions have affected the way Japan’s youth express themselves sexually, experts say.

The study also showed that fewer Japanese young people are having sex.

The percentage of secondary school students who say they have had sexual intercourse has fallen by 3.5 points compared to 2017 to 12%. For high school students, it dropped 5.3 points to 14.8%.

Tokyo-based Jase surveyed 12,562 students in middle schools, high schools and universities in 2023 for his research.

School closures and restrictions on physical contact during the Covid pandemic likely affected many of these students as it happened “at a sensitive time when (they) started to become interested in sexuality,” said Yusuke Hayashi, professor of sociology at Musashi. University quoted in Mainichi newspaper.

Although they are less active with partners, the research shows that masturbation is increasing across all three demographics and is at record highs among middle school girls and high school students in general.

The study results come as Japan struggles to combat its declining birth rate and the growing problem of sexlessness. A separate study earlier this year found that almost half of marriages in Japan are sexless.

The country has the oldest population in the world, measured by the UN as the proportion of people aged 65 or over.

Japan said this for the first time at the end of 2023 one in ten people in the country is 80 years or older.

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