I’m a huge fan of the Urban Institute, and this is a valuable study. But the Guardian story is a textbook illustration of the mainstream media’s inability to accurately report scientific results. Instances of transactional sex are reported in the results of a qualitative study. It is not a quantitative study. That is, this study does not necessarily demonstrate that transactional sex exists among US teens. It demonstrates that some US teens, especially low-income teens, believe that transactional sex exists. That is an important finding, but it is not the same thing as quantifying the existence of transactional sex among US teens.
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