Almost half of the eighteen million cases of sexually transmitted diseases that are reported every year occur in people between the ages of 15 to 24, and most of these people have been found to have sex with members of the same gender or with both genders (bisexual) while also being more likely to engage in risky sexual behaviors. Of course, it is these risky sexual behaviors that increase the chances of one getting an STD.

And in a new study, it was revealed that nearly one in ten teens have same-sex partners, almost twice as much when compared to a study of Vermont and Massachusetts teens that was conducted in 2002.

In this study that was recently published in the journal Pediatrics, and that looked at almost 17,000 teens from New York City, researchers found that almost one in every ten teens who had sex with partners from the same gender or with both genders were more likely to engage in risky sexual behavior (leading to a risk of getting an STD) such as forced sex and having sex without a condom.

When it came to boys engaging bisexual activity, more than half of them did not use a condom in comparison to one-fifth of the boys who engaged in heterosexual sex, while about 50 percent of bisexual girls did not use a condom as opposed to 30 percent of heterosexual girls not using a condom either.

According to Elizabeth Saewyc, a researcher at the University of British Columbia, this risky sexual behavior is largely because sex education provided in schools does not acknowledge gay, lesbian and bisexual relationships.

Although she was not involved with this new study, Saewyc says “"Some teens I've seen tell me that they completely check out of sex ed because they feel what they were learning didn't apply to them."

And even though she claims that the figures in this new study is similar to what she has seen in other studies and her work, the NYC Health Department is taking this report seriously, as they seek to understand the vulnerabilities that might be associated with these behaviors.