Osmo Kontula

• PhD
• Professor at Väestöliitto

The historical background of European national sex surveys dates back to the late 1960s and early 1970s when the first such surveys were conducted in Europe. That was an era of Western sexual revolution, a time of increasing openness to discussion and debate of sexual issues, and legal reforms in many countries. During this period, there was a grow...

Sexual expression is fundamental to human existence and an important topic of enquiry in its own right. Understanding sexual behavior is also essential to establish effective sexual health prevention activities (e.g., education), services and policies, and to assess the progress of policies and action plans. Questions on sexual health are rarely in...

Tässä tutkimuksessa selvitetään parisuhteettomien miesten ja naisten onnellisuuteen yhteydessä olevia tekijöitä ja tarkastellaan, kuinka onnellisuus kytkeytyy intiimisuhteisiin, yksinäisyyden kokemukseen, liikunnallisuuteen, alkoholin käyttöön, uskonnollisuuteen, terveyteen ja sosioekonomiseen asemaan. Aineistona käytetään FINSEX-kyselyn parisuhtee...

Research Professor Osmo Kontula, who has studied sexual matters for thirty years, describes the origins of desire and arousal that are hidden in the mind, which are dealt with by the most recent studies on the sexuality and arousal of the mind. Practical experiences of psychotherapeutic treatment, as well as many examples and exercises, help both a...

Population health surveys are rarely comprehensive in addressing sexual health, and population-representative surveys often lack standardized measures for collecting comparable data across countries. We present a sexual health survey instrument and implementation considerations for population-level sexual health research. The brief, comprehensive s...

Population health surveys are rarely comprehensive in addressing sexual health, and population-representative surveys often lack standardized measures for collecting comparable data across countries. We present a sexual health survey instrument and implementation considerations for population-level sexual health research. The brief, comprehensive s...

Background: Women’s contraceptive choices may change after an induced abortion, due to contraceptive counselling or a behavioural change prompted by the experience. The effect may vary between women; sociocultural background, for example, may affect their subsequent reproductive choices. Objective: We examined whether women’s current contraceptive...

Aikaisemmissa tutkimuksissa on todettu parisuhteen vaikuttavan elämänlaatuun erityisesti miehillä. Parisuhteettomuuden valinnaisuudesta ei juuri puhuta ja ydinperheolettama elää vahvana. Tässä tutkimuksessa selvitettiin, missä määrin miehet toivovat parisuhdetta ja miten parisuhteettomuus on yhteydessä miesten hyvinvointiin. Yksin eläviä mutta itse...

Objectification theory provides an explanatory conceptual framework for describing women’s lived experiences. The goal of this study was to examine the relations between media consumption, self-sexualizing behavior, and sexual satisfaction within the objectification framework. Responses from a sample of 298 married Iranian women, chosen using multi...

Background: The pursuit of sexual pleasure is a key motivating factor in sexual activity. Many things can stand in the way of sexual orgasms and enjoyment, particularly among women. These are essential issues of sexual well-being and gender equality. Objective: This study presents long-term trends and determinants of female orgasms in Finland. T...

In international comparison, Finland is a country where social well-being and gender equality are exemplarily progressed. One could assume that this had caused positive impact also on sexual well-being. This assumption was tested by utilizing nationally representative sex surveys that have been conducted in Finland during several decades. The resul...

This paper explores whether sexual acts of varying degrees of misconduct/violence are judged differently depending on the gender of the actor and the subject. It presents pooled data from four countries regarding the actors and subjects involved in a range of sexual activities. In addition, the paper investigates whether the gender of the observer...

The importance of a comprehensive and holistic sexuality education has been presented and discussed in the last few years in several international documents. Key arguments of this discussion and the content and methods to deliver sexuality education will be presented here. The focus is on Finland, the only country where the content and progress of...

Sexual desire involves many different things such as sexual thoughts and images, excitement, expectation and orgasm. Mood has a strong association with sexual desire. Fatigue and depression in particular cause lack of sexual desire. By affecting the state of alertness and energy in humans, sunlight may increase sexual activity.

Sexuality is an essential feature of human life throughout the life course. It is a major aspect of intimacy and incorporates components such as sexual desire, activity, function, attitudes, beliefs, values about identity, and self-concepts. It represents an essential nexus for the interaction among social life; culturally determined beliefs and pr...

Training programs for sexologists are core activities to promote higher professional standards in sexology and to educate a new generation of sexologists. The summary information from 25 European countries provides evidence that training in sexology consists today of different models. The existing different national training models in sexology in E...

Adolescent girls' ability to negotiate effectively is necessary for their sexual health. The aims of this study were to discover the issues of negotiation in Finnish adolescent girls' sexual encounters, what kinds of negotiation strategies they used, and how the girls' intentions were fulfilled. The data are comprised of 68 narratives of 9th grade...

Finland is probably the only country where sex education has been studied in two consecutive national surveys, in 1996 and 2006 directed at biology and health education teachers, and in 2000 and 2006 by measuring adolescents' sexual knowledge. In 2006, responses from teachers and students could be combined for 339 schools. The most important educat...

This study examined what kinds of sexual scripts were found in Finnish girls’ narratives, what elements those scripts included and how different scripts were associated with sexually risky behavior. The data were comprised of the narratives of 173 14 - 15-year-old girls regarding their experiences in sexually motivating situations. The narratives w...

The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of mental disorder and associated factors during an economic recession. Random samples of Finnish general population were collected in 3 consecutive years, 1993-95. The prevalence of mental disorders was assessed by means of the 12-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ). The prevalence of men...

This article empirically studies how much aging modifies human sexual activity and sexual desire, and what the most important determinants in this change are. The analyses are based on 2 representative national sex surveys conducted in Finland in the 1990s. As a result of female widowhood, aging men had a higher incidence of sexual intercourse comp...

Sex life of the elderly has been investigated in Finland by three representative population surveys. The subject is topical as the large generations become aged. According to the survey the sexual activity of the elderly people remained quite high, if they were living in a steady relationship. In the survey the numbers of sexual intercourses decrea...

This qualitative narrative study examined contraceptive use and non-use in light of the Theory of Planned Behaviour. The purpose of this paper was to understand contraceptive use and non-use among Finnish teenage girls: why do girls use or not use contraception in a sexually motivated situation and how do the determinants of the Theory of Planned B...

This book introduces the entire spectrum of sexual issues with its desires, pleasures, problems and disorders. The available information is based on systematic national sex surveys and other reliable national and international sources of information of sexual patterns and sexual values. Findings in Finland are compared to sex surveys in ten Europea...

Sex surveys based on random samples from national population registers have been conducted in Finland in 1971, 1992, 1999, and 2007. They are representative of the total population within the age range of 18-54 years in 1971 and 18-74 years in 1992, 1999, and 2007. Sex survey in 1971 was only the second sexuality study in the world ever that was ba...

Nordic sex education has been estimated by the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) to represent an advanced model of a comprehensive sex education in Europe. Finland is the only Nordic country where this education has been followed up by two national surveys directed to biology and health education teachers in 1996 and 2006 and by me...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to study in detail what kind of role alcohol has among a selected group of sexually active teenage girls, with special emphasis on their locus of control and risky sexual behaviour. Design/methodology/approach The data comprise the narratives of 87 girls regarding their experience with sexually motivating situa...

The DIALOG countries are experiencing long-term downward trends in fertility, leading to demographic ageing. Natural population growth rates are entering periods of declining growth or outright decrease. There are a great number of societal problems that arise from this demographic transition. Up to date, it has been disputable whether public polic...

Age at first birth has become an important population policy issue in Europe after a relatively steep decline, followed by stabilization, in total fertility to reach an exceptionally low level. Fertility postponement has played an important role in this population transition. Low fertility has contributed to negative natural population growth in a...

Phase III trials have demonstrated the efficacy of human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines in preventing transient and persistent high-risk (hr) HPV infection and precancerous lesions. A mathematical model of HPV type 16 infection and progression to cervical cancer, parameterised to represent the infection in Finland, was used to explore the optimal ag...

Inhabitants of Nordic countries have in international comparisons liberal sexual values and attitudes. Nordic countries are more tolerant than other Europeans about accepting, for example, sex without love and they are exceptionally liberal also in approval of abortion and homosexuals. However, Nordic people are nowadays very strict concerning unfa...

Candidate human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines have demonstrated almost 90%-100% efficacy in preventing persistent, type-specific HPV infection over 18 mo in clinical trials. If these vaccines go on to demonstrate prevention of precancerous lesions in phase III clinical trials, they will be licensed for public use in the near future. How these vacci...

Model-Predicted Age-Specific Low- and High-Grade Intraepithelial Lesion Incidence per 100,000 Women The peak incidence for low-grade squamous intraepithelial lesions (LSIL) in the model occurs at age 25 y for women, and for HSILs at age 40. It is challenging to compare this model output to observed data because screening, as implemented in the mode...

Observed HPV 16 Seroprevalence Compared to Model-Predicted Seroprevalence for 26- to 31-y-Old Women between 1983 and 1997 The model underestimates HPV 16 seroprevalence, but captures the trend over time. (88 KB DOC)

Observed HPV 16 Age-Specific Invasive Cervical Cancer Incidence versus Model Prediction without Screening and with Screening and Change in Behaviour HPV 16 ICC incidence is shown for the model prediction before the introduction of screening and with national screening and changes in sexual behaviour and smoking compared to the observed cancer incid...

Distribution of the Sexually Active Population, by Age Group, into Sexual Activity Groups for Finland (104 KB DOC)

Demographic Rates for Finland The demographic rates were taken from the Statistics Finland Web site [ 34]. (93 KB DOC)

Percentage of Tobacco Smokers among Finnish Women Aged 15–64 y Statistics are from National Public Health Institute, Finland [ 19]. (79 KB DOC)

Model Equations (189 KB DOC)

Likelihood Profile for HPV Transmission Probability Maximum log likelihood estimation for different patterns of sexual behaviour ( Table S1) is shown. Doubling the reported average number of new sexual partners per year, to account for underreporting, shows 0.6 to be the best estimate of HPV 16 transmission probability. (88 KB DOC)

Effect of Changes in Sexual Behaviour The observed incidence is compared to the model prediction. In this case, the model changes in sexual behaviour occurred when they were reported (1992), with the increase in model incidence lagging behind the observed increase in incidence. Changes in patterns of behaviour probably occurred before they were det...

Finnish Model Equations (145 KB DOC)

Effect of Cervical Cancer Screening Programmes in Finland (84 KB DOC)

Training clinical sexologists, sex therapists and sexual counsellors has improved a lot in Finland in the last 10 years. An important boost for this development was the common Nordic training and authorization program for sexologists in the late 1990s. The number of trained professionals has, since then, reached higher levels than ever before. Howe...

The aim of this article is to report some cross-national results of the NEM surveys in relation to bi- and homosexuality in the studied countries. These results will be compared with some similar European surveys (Kontula & Haavio-Mannila, 1995; Lewin et al, 1998; Haavio-Mannila & Kontula, 2003) and with the survey in the U.S. (Laumann et al, 1994)...

Sexual and reproductive behavior, and outcomes of that behavior, are treated in thisarticle in the framework of sexual and reproductive health. The focus is on teenagers.European trends in sexual behavior and in fertility/births from the 1980s to the late1990s are presented.The transition in sexual initiation started first in the Nordic countries,...

The sexual revolution and fight for gender equality began in the West during the 1960s but did not reach the Soviet Union until the late 1980s. Using survey data from nationally representative samples from Finland in 1971, 1992, and 1999 and from two former Soviet areas, Estonia in 2000 and St. Petersburg in 1996, we investigated the following: (a)...

Each generation has adopted views on masturbation via transforming cultural definitions of sexuality and normality. This article presents how masturbation habits have changed during the last decades in different generations and how these habits are linked to the partnership status. The analysis is based on three national follow-up sex surveys in Fi...

This study presents us with an insightful sociological exploration of sexual practice, within five different types of relationship and from varying perspectives of gender and age: lifelong love; serial loves; searching; devitalized relations, and parallel relations. Based on the accounts of almost two hundred adults in Finland, these real-life expe...

In this study we investigated whether there were associations between religious attendance and life satisfaction in the Finnish general population. Furthermore, we examined whether social support could explain these associations. The nationwide sample included 869 women and 773 men. The respondents were asked during telephone interviews about socio...

We investigated in a nationwide sample of the Finnish general population (869 women and 773 men) whether there were gender-differences in associations between religious attendance and mental well-being. Respondents were asked during telephone interviews about sociodemographic variables, frequency of religious attendance and social contacts, and per...

Nuorten aikuisten seksuaalikäyttäytymistä tilastollisesti tutkittaessa on todettu, että noin 10 % miehistä ja naisista on solminut vuosittain uusia sukupuolisuhteita. Osaan näistä suhteista on liittynyt seksuaalista riskikäyttäytymistä. Tässä tutkimuksessa haastateltiin 30 pääkaupunkiseudun 20-24 -vuotiasta nuorta aikuista tarkoituksena selvittää r...

This is a study on associations between the number of close friends and mental well-being in a nationwide sample of the Finnish general population (n = 1,603). Mental well-being was assessed by means of the 12-item General Health Questionnaire. A total of 3% of the sample had no close friends and another 3% had only one. Over half of the sample (52...

The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of mental disorder and associated factors during an economic recession. Random samples of Finnish general population were collected in 3 consecutive years, 1993-95. The prevalence of mental disorders was assessed by means of the 12-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ). The prevalence of men...

The sexual socialization and sexual experiences of young men past their adolescence have been studied relatively little thus far. ln the present study, the subject was approached through surveys conducted in 1996 and 1998 in a number of garrisons. There were 984 male respondents in 1996 and 1220 in 1998. 20 years old on average. Both years, the res...

The purpose of this article is to examine how two different corpora of material are suited for researching the sexuality of youth on the basis of material gathered via a structured questionnaire (N = 1183, response rate 87%) and via eight focus group discussions (FGDs), and to investigate the knowledge and opinions of adolescents at the age of 15 y...

We studied the significance of debt as a risk factor for suicidal ideation and suicide attempts in a nation-wide sample (n = 4868) of the Finnish general population. Those experiencing difficulties in repaying their debts more often than others (37 vs. 16%, P<0.001) had a probable minor mental disorder (GHQ-12 score > or =3). Nevertheless, difficul...

In a sample of the Finnish general population (n=4868), 2.4% of women and 2.3 % of men reported having thought about suicide during the preceding 12 months. The prevalence of parasuicide was correspondingly 0.9% in women and 1.1% in men, higher figures than have previously been found or estimated. Most suicidal individuals (85%) had contacted gener...

Les données des enquêtes menées dans douze pays européens sur les comportements sexuels permettent de reconstituer l'évolution de l'âge au premier rapport dans les cinquante dernières années. Au cours de la période, l'âge des femmes à l'initiation sexuelle baisse de façon marquée, alors que les changements sont plus modestes pour les hommes.; à par...

Comparisons of nationally representative survey data of the population ages 18-54 years in 1971 (N = 2252) and 1992 (N = 1718) from Finland show that sexual satisfaction has greatly increased particularly among women. Some predictors of sexual satisfaction of men and women are examined on the basis of the 1992 survey data on people ages 18-74 years...

Résumé Bozon (Michel), Kontula (Osmo).- Initiation sexuelle et genre Les données des enquêtes menées dans douze pays européens sur les comportements sexuels permettent de reconstituer l'évolution de l'âge au premier rapport dans les cinquante dernières années. Au cours de la période, l'âge des femmes à l'initiation sexuelle baisse de façon marquée,...

The present study assessed adolescent knowledge of sexual issues and sexual behavior in Estonia and Finland. The Estonian survey was conducted among students in the final grade of comprehensive school in March 1994, with a questionnaire translated trom the Finnish KISS-92 study. The Estonian sample comprised 532 boys and 548 girls 15.0 years old on...

Attitudes toward unconventional and casual forms of sexuality and toward extramarital relations as well as the appearance of parallel (extra) sexual relationships are studied in three sexual generations. These are constructed on the basis of sexual norms and practices prevailing at the time of the sexual initiation of their members. The following s...

The aim of the study was to examine the social and economic variables associated with mental health by means of telephone interviews of a randomly chosen population sample (n = 1557) in Finland in 1993. Mental health was evaluated by means of a 12-item General Health Questionnaire. A mental disorder, indicated by the GHQ score, was detected in 18.3...

The first general population mail survey of the prevalence of drug use in Finland was conducted in 1992. The data consisted of 3,457 responses with a response rate of 70.7%. The persons surveyed were from 18 to 74 years old. These data are supplemented with data about "problem use" of drugs in Finland, which is mostly characterized by the mixed use...

The book concentrates on presenting the results of the national survey study in 1992. The central aim was to establish the changes in Finnish sex during the last 20 years (Sex life of Finns 1974, in Finnish language by Kai Sievers, Osmo Koskelainen and Kimmo Leppo). Our models were also Hans Zetterberg's ja Alfred Kinsey's sex studies in Sweden (19...

In 1986 and 1988, a structured questionnaire on sexual knowledge, attitudes, fears and behaviors was administered to 13, 15 and 17 year olds in Finnish public schools; 5289 (88% response rate) responses were recorded. With the exception of a few small differences in attitudes, no significant regional differences were recorded—suggesting that the re...

Seksuaalisuus kohosi merkittäväksi kansanterveyskysymykseksi Suomessa vasta 1900-luvun vaihteessa. Terveydenhuollon lisäksi seksuaalisuus sai entistä merkittävämmän aseman myös opetustoimen kautta tapahtuvassa valistustoiminnassa. Sukupuolivalistuskirjallisuutta julkaistiin melko runsaasti ja sukupuolikysymyksestä keskusteltiin julkisuudessa. Osaa...

Suomessa on tutkittu suhteellisen vähän ehkäisymenetelmien käyttöä ja siinä tapahtuneita muutoksia, vaikka ajan myötä lääketieteelliset suositukset eri ehkäisymenetelmien käytöstä ovat muuttuneet. Tässä tutkimuksessa selvitettiin naispuolisten yliopisto-opiskelijoiden ehkäisykäytäntöä kahden viime vuosikymmenen aikana. Tutkimuksessa tarkasteltiin m...

SUMMARY This survey is a part of the international HBSC Study (Health Behaviour in School-aged Children). The purpose of this study was to investigate 15-year-old adolescents' condom attitudes. In 1990, data were compiled from 928 students and in 1994 from 1183 students. In 1994, 70% of boys and 55% of girls reported that they had used a con- dom w...