Study: 'Virginity Pledges' Are Ineffective

According to a study released earlier today, teenagers who have taken a "virginity pledge" are still just as likely to engage in premarital sex than those who have not pledged their abstinence. But worse than that, the study found that those same abstinence-swearing teenagers are far less likely to use a form of birth control - condoms, etc - when they do become sexually active.

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.

"Taking a pledge doesn't seem to make any difference at all in any sexual behavior," said Janet E. Rosenbaum of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, whose report appears in the January issue of the journal Pediatrics. "But it does seem to make a difference in condom use and other forms of birth control that is quite striking."

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Comments

[That Guy]

I'm shocked. Just shocked.

In other news, the earth revolves around the sun

[ElPerro]

See, there's always a silver-lining. Thanks Rethugs!!

[WorldGriot]

The first rule of sex education to minors has always been abstinence. The only reason the "abstinence only" crowd missed this is because of their tyrannical belief that you can tell people (and particularly kids) what to do and they will do it. If that were the case, then we would not need all the enforcement provisions for underage sex. It is not now and has never been true that kids will obediently abstain because they're told to take a pledge and so we need to teach the kids how to act responsibly. the Pledge was a farce from the beginning because it asked kids to do something that adults cannot do. Even priests have a very difficult time with abstinence only - so much so that some of them who may not be homosexual engage in same sex acts because of this bottom line: THE DRIVE TO COPULATE IS FAR SUPERIOR TO ALMOST ANY GOVERNOR WE MIGHT PLACE ON THE MIND. Welcome to the real world Abstinence Auditors. we hope you've learned a valuable lesson.

[ptillen]

Parent with teenage girls. listen up! If you want to preserve your daughter's virtue, all you have to do is dress her really frumpy, give her a bad haircut, don't teach her how to wear makeup, and make sure she maintains a lively interest in excelling academically. I guarantee no boy will want to come near her.

[ElPerro]

Wrong. Back when I was in high school, we knew those girls were the ones desperate for male attention and could be convinced to do things that the *popular* girls wouldn't. It was often the case that there was a lot more passion and kink in the frumpy girls than the Debs and Cheerleaders.

[bbriani3842]

Dude! You broke the code!! You weren't suppose to tell. . .

[MJinCanada]

I wasn't all that desperate. But I found out in university that dressing frumpy or dykey was a good way to attract nice nerdy guys with sexy-librarian fantasies (takes off glasses, lets down hair...).

[Sepulchre]

Back when I was in school the "popular" girls were the ones doing all the things "good" girls didn't. That was how they got popular.

[ptillen]

Some of those girls were really just interested in their academics, their athletics, their science club, their music lessons, and not at all "desperate" for male attention.
Isn't high school age a little young for "passion and kink" anyway?

[poliscibabe]

If you don't want your teenagers to have sex (boys and girls) you have to start way before they are teenagers and help them to see the benefits of waiting. Also, fear of you doesn't hurt, as in "My Mother would kill me!"

[indy100]

Ah, did you read the article? You're still talking abstinance only. Been there, done that, both as a teen myself and with my own four teenage children. There are no guarantees they won't have sex, no matter what you've taugh them. Education and prevention

[Vr6]

Seems like a good way of meeting people, going to a virginity pledge event - find a virgin and go at it! Maybe if they're christian you could get to phug some sense into them - or at least give them an AHA !

[HeatherLeila]

The New Yorker had an interesting article out in November about how Evangelical and Mainline Protestant teenagers differ in their sexual habits. It's a little more in depth than this article:
http://heatherleila3.blogspot.com/2008/11/red-sex-blue-sex.html

[IndianaConservative]

We live in an age where the sexualization of children is everywhere (Ambercrombie & Fitch ads, etc.) and all parents have significant challenges in trying to protect their kids. Heck, even most regular tv shows during daytime hours are often unsuitable or questionable. And then our children become teenagers and our culture tells our kids that "hooking up" and having meaningless sex (friends with benefits?) is inconsequential and the only right or wrong things is whatever you feel is right or wrong. All things are relative.

It's easy to laugh at Virginity Pledges and mock the people who take part in them. What I see a majority of people here saying is that humans are animals and they'e going to do they're going to do what they're hard-wired to do. People can't control their sexual urges.

[JustMyWords]

I'm not mocking the people or laughing at the pledge - but I am seriously mocking the people who have made the pledge the cornerstone of their sex education efforts. And they deserve it, because they are seriously laughable.

[patriotactreverse]

One more thing parents:

Stop letting your girls walk out of the house wearing jeans that don't even cover their rear end. Stop letting your girls walk out of the house wearing a shirt that hardly covers their chest. What ever happend to modesty?

[Enqa]

Also, parents:

Make sure your SONS know that girls aren't just walking vaginas. Then maybe girls wouldn't feel like that's the only way to get any kind of male attention. Why don't we stop blaming the girls for being "hypersexual" and only addressing half of the problem?

[patriotactreverse]

Enqa, you are right. I should have posted about the males too. Parents need to raise their sons to realize that they are to have respect for woman hood and not to use them as a punching bag or sexual gratification. We are living in a very perverse time. Date rape is rampant, by the time one is in their late twenties, multiple sexual partners are a reality. Let's get back to the days of old. One man, one woman making a promise to one another in marriage to stick it out through thick and thin.

[patriotactreverse]

Of course the pledge doesn't work. If you want to raise a child to abstain from premarital sex, you've got to do more than coerce a pledge from them.

Parents wake up, you're raising your daughters to be little whores but you feel ok about it because you get them to take some pledge. The reality of the situation is that if you let them watch any mainstream television, movie, internet, myspace, etc, etc,etc, they are inundated with the message of "it's ok to spread your legs for any mouthful of teeth that comes along, smiles and lifts up your skirt." We can't raise children with values when we only take them to church one hour of the week and allow them to be exposed to fifty hours of garbage via television, internet, movies. These are useful tools for communication but the bottom line here is that parents need to stop abdicating their responsibility by allowing the tv or computer to raise their kids.

[bobtr900]

Religion does not allow the use of condoms.

[bewundern]

some denominations of Christianity don't believe using condoms is biblical but most religions are ok with using condoms. It's Plan B, abortion and sometimes birth control that is not allowed because they believe you are killing a baby that was formed at conception.

[Jeff1958]

Certain religions...

[whatawebb]

Didn't Bristol take this pledge?

[LeftRight]

I don't know for sure, but I wouldn't doubt it!

[senevada]

yet something else that 75% of people already knew but that the crazy right wingers just HAD to prove for themselves.

[brandon102]

This is so shocking. Horny teens having sex. Amazing. I think we need to get this discovery out right away.

Only a fundamentalist, evangelical nut case (and the Republican party is blessed with so many) would believe that Abstinence pledges and Abstinence training would have the slightest effect, other than to increase the spread of STI, I guess.

Oh, and George Bush believes this too. That's a clue.

[Worrierking]

This has absolutely nothing to do with these teens and everything to do with their fundamentalist Christian parents.

[Skoutt]

I'm trying to access the full article in the Journal of Pediatrics and I'm unable to find it. Does anyone know the full citation for this article? (The January issue of J Peds is posted in full through science direct and this article doesn't appear there.)

[Skoutt]

I found it. It's actually in "Pediatrics" not the "Journal of Pediatrics" as reported.

Pediatrics 2009; 123: e110-e120

[Blomkvist]

here's the link: http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/reprint/123/1/e110