Running time: 18 min.

Laura Hawks and colleagues undertook a study of forced sexual initiation — that is, a woman’s first episode of vaginal intercourse (and it’s forced when it wasn’t voluntary on her part).

Using government survey data on some 13,000 women of reproductive age, Hawks compared the women whose sexual initiation was voluntary with those whose wasn’t. It turns out that there were longer-term medical consequences apparently associated with the circumstance. Listen in.

Links:

JAMA Internal Medicine article

JAMA Internal Medicine editorial