A survey in Britain yesterday confirmed what many teenage girls perhaps already suspected, that most boys are more interested in their bodies than falling in love.
Twenty-two per cent of the girls questioned said they had had sex before they reached the age of 16, while four in every 100 said they lost their virginity when they were aged 13 or even younger.
But a third of girls who had sex under the age of 16 subsequently regretted it, according to the survey for Channel 4's Generation Sex series, which offers a brutally clinical breakdown of teenagers' first sexual experiences.
The survey of 1,000 young people aged 14 to 19, of whom 5 per cent said they were gay, reflected first sexual experiences characterised by ignorance. One in 10 boys was ignorant that a girl could become pregnant the first time she had intercourse.
Although nearly half (422) of the teenagers surveyed had already had sex, almost three-quarters reported little or no discussion of contraception before their first experience.
On attitudes to sex, twice as many girls as boys cited "love" as their main reason for losing their virginity.
Dr Roger Ingham, director of the Centre for Sexual Health Research at Southampton University, who conducted the survey, said: "Compared with some other European countries, the UK is some way behind in educating young people about sex."
Meanwhile, Irish and Scottish accents were yesterday voted the sexiest in the British Isles, according to another survey.
The research, carried out on behalf of the Alliance and Leicester bank, found that one in four said they found the Irish accent the sexiest while 14 per cent chose Scottish.