In an earlier post, Jeff quoted the first two paragraphs of a Washington Post story:
Teenagers who pledge to remain virgins until marriage are just as likely to have premarital sex as those who do not promise abstinence and are significantly less likely to use condoms and other forms of birth control when they do, according to a study released today.
The new analysis of data from a large federal survey found that more than half of youths became sexually active before marriage regardless of whether they had taken a “virginity pledge,” but that the percentage who took precautions against pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases was 10 points lower for pledgers than for non-pledgers.
I hate to admit that William McGurn has a point, but in this case he does. What the study actually did was compare pledge takers to non-pledge takers among religious teenagers who think that teens should wait to have sex. According to McGurn, when compared to typical teenagers, pledge-takers actually had less sex and stayed virgins longer.
The Post article eventually presents a bit more information, but the leading two paragraphs are misleading.
Actually, this was a very important study.
Previous studies have shown that virginity pledge takers generally were older at the time of initial sexual activity. So parents and abstinence advocates have long claimed some success from their programs (despite the increase in STD rates).
I’ve always known that kids who were highly motivated for whatever personal reasons (religious, cultural, sexual orientation issues, whatever) were likely to remain virgins for a longer period of time than those kids who were motivated to engage in sexual activity. Duh.
This is the first study to compare virgins to virgins and conclude that the virginity pledge / abstinence only “education” didn’t work in reducing or delaying sexual activity, and in fact made them more prone to STDs.
This was a very important study and completely blows a hole in the theories and arguments of the abstinence only advocates
Hey Amp,
Thanks to you and Jeff for keeping this discussion going. I just wanted to throw in a couple of points about the initial premise of the virginity pledge program and the method use by the WP article to counter it.
First, as with all health behavior modification programs, the virginity pledge folks have never actually shown how the sample of kids in their program were not as a result of selection bias. That is, there’s nothing that actually shows that the kids in the program were always going to be less inclined to have sex than a comparison group.
Second, I think what the WP article was attempting to show was to address that sample bias. This means that they tried to select from the same sample to see if there were significant differences.
Ok, I have to run but I’ll be back later to finish up the last point I was making.
This is the first study to compare virgins to virgins and conclude that the virginity pledge / abstinence only “education” didn’t work in reducing or delaying sexual activity, and in fact made them more prone to STDs.
Not true.
What this study does is demonstrate that there is little difference between kids who take such a pledge and kids who don’t if both groups of kids are from religious and socially conservative backgrounds that already stress things like abstinence, etc.
Which, when you think about it, makes sense. The incremental difference that such a pledge makes to a group of kids who are already under strong influence to behave in such a fashion should be expected to be lower than, say, among groups of kids who are not subject to other such influences.
The study does not at all address what difference the pledge process might make in groups of kids who don’t come from such backgrounds and live in such environments.
The study does NOT show that “virginity pledges don’t work.”
The study does not at all address what difference the pledge process might make in groups of kids who don’t come from such backgrounds and live in such environments.
The study does NOT show that “virginity pledges don’t work.”
But wouldn’t only kids from that background *take* such a pledge?
I think the study did work, even if the Post summarized it wrongly, because they took samples from the same target group (religious conservative youngsters) and compared those who did take the pledge with those who didn’t. Both groups would aim at not having premarital sex, but the only actual difference between the groups seems to be that the pledge group was (even?) less prepared than the non-pledge group.
Unless that was down to sample bias, but that is hard to judge. I’d assume that pledges would work better in some areas than others due to peer pressure and populair youngsters publically taking it, but that’s just a gut feeling.
But wouldn’t only kids from that background *take* such a pledge?
No. Not coming from a strongly religious and/or conservative background does not preclude becoming convinced of the wisdom of such a pledge.
What I’ve read about studies of abstinence pledges and abstinence-only sex ed is that kids who take them tend to delay sex longer than kids who don’t, but if they do have sex before marriage they are less likely to take precautions against pregnancy and STDs, so if the goal is to prevent those it’s basically a wash.
But I wonder now if the virginity pledge really makes any difference: regardless of background, conservative or otherwise, if you’re inclined to take such a pledge, won’t you be more likely at least to make a serious effort to save yourself for marriage with or without a pledge? And if you think sex outside of marriage is wrong, aren’t you less likely to use birth control anyway? To use birth control you have to admit at least to yourself that you plan to have sex.
(More or less OT: here is an absolutely hilarious story of how well-meaning people tried to stampede one girl into taking a pledge, and how she got out of it.)