Teenage sex

EDITOR,-In her editorial on teenage sex Sue Stuart-Smith gives the impression that there is still a trend towards earlier menarche. 1 Roberts and I have long shown that that trend has stopped (it stopped in 1965) and that there now seems to be a reverse trend. 2 3 4 Thus the trend towards earlier menarche, when it existed, is unlikely to have been an important factor in the decrease in the age at first sexual intercourse in girls, since it amounted to only three to four months per decade; thus even if it had continued over the past 30 years it would have amounted to at most one year.