Although premarital sexuaUty has been an important area of research for several decades, researchers (e.g., Ehrmann, 1964; Reiss, 1960, 1967) empha? sized attitudes or standards and mostly used college-age samples. One of the major recent shifts in this area has been toward studying younger adolescents (Chilman, 1983; Coales & Stokes, 1986; Diepold & Young, 1979; Sorensen, 1973). National sample surveys have documented that the proportion of adolescents who have had intercourse increased during the 1970s (Zelnik, Kantner, & Ford, 1981) and increases with age (Pratt, Mosher, Bachrach, & Horn, 1984). Estimates in 1986 were that 53% of female and 61% of male 17-year-olds have had intercourse (Harris & Associates, 1986). Another factor traditionally associated with adolescent sexual behavior is more widespread sexual activity among males than females, but there is con? siderable evidence that sex differences are diminishing (Coales & Stokes, 1986; Jessor & Jessor, 1975; Robinson & Jedlicka, 1982). ReUgious participation and church attendance are inversely related to sexual permissiveness of college students (Davids, 1982; Notzer, Leuvan, Mashiach, & Soffer, 1984; Reiss, 1967; Reiss & Miller, 1979; Sack, Keller, & Hinkle, 1984; Young, 1982) and younger teenagers (Harris & Associates, 1986). Living with a single parent is related to more permissive teen sexual attitudes and behavior (Harris & Associates, 1986), even after controlling relevant contaminating variables (Rodgers, 1983; Thornton & Camburn, 1987) as is lower social class (Chilman, 1983; Harris & Associates). The present analyses were undertaken, first, to go beyond the previously reported bivariate relationships and ascertain how a number of background and contextual variables relate to sexual attitudes and behavior when they are combined in a multivariate analysis. A second purpose was to do this analysis with a recent and younger (high school-aged) sample of adolescents.