Posted on 12/29/2008 3:39:55 PM PST by Responsibility2nd
Dec. 29, 2008 -- Teenagers who take virginity pledges are no less sexually active than other teens, according to a new study.
But the results, published in the journal Pediatrics, suggest that virginity pledgers are less likely to protect themselves against pregnancy or disease when they do have sex.
Researchers say the findings suggest that virginity pledges may not significantly affect teenagers' sexual behavior. Instead, they may decrease the likelihood of teenagers taking precautions, such as using a condom or using birth control, when they do have sex.
Virginity Pledge May Lead to Risky Sex
Researchers say the federal government spends about $200 million annually on abstinence promotion programs, which include virginity pledges. Two previous studies have suggested that virginity pledges can delay sex, but researchers say those studies did not account for pre-existing differences between pledgers and non-pledgers.
In this study, researchers compared the sexual behavior of 289 teenagers who reported taking a virginity pledge in a 1996 national survey to 645 non-pledgers who were matched on more than 100 factors, such as religious beliefs and attitudes toward sex and birth control.
The results showed that five years after taking the virginity pledge:
82% of pledgers denied ever having taken the pledge. Pledgers and matched non-pledgers did not differ in rates of premarital sex, sexually transmitted disease, and oral and anal sex behaviors. Pledgers had 0.1 fewer sexual partners in the past year but did not differ from non-pledgers in the number of lifetime sexual partners and the age of first sex. The biggest difference between the two groups came in the area of condom and birth control use. The study showed that fewer pledgers used birth control or condoms in the past year or any form of birth control the last time they had sex.
Researcher Janet Elise Rosenbaum, PHD, of Harvard University, says the findings suggest that health care providers should provide birth control information to all teenagers, especially virginity pledgers.
They should give all the kids saltpeter (or Lexapro). It’ll prevent all those special elections.
A pledge doesn’t stop anyone from doing anything they are going to do anyway. It’s the character of the person making the pledge, not the volume of his/her voice that will determine whether that person follows the pledge or not.
What it shows, with all the book-cooking we’ve come to expect from the scientific culture-of-death community, that a virginity pledge alone is not a significant factor in chosing a chaste lifestyle, and that “religious beliefs and attitudes toward sex and birth control” do matter.
Since 90 percent of pledgers in the study denied even taking the pledge, none of this should be surprising.
Hard to believe. A government program that doesn't have the intended effect? The stupid parents don't even have to do anything but stand aside and let Uncle Sugar do his thing, and still the little brats don't get the message. Maybe 24-hour-a-day video surveillance by a federal watchdog agency would do the trick. I think I will email the incoming Secty. of Health and Human Services with a proposal. Anybody know who that is?
This nails the real issue.
Bookmark for later reading.
This is the most stupidiest study that I have ever seen. Are they kidding?
America has been saturated by sexuality through our media (Hollyweird and the MSM) all throughout my lifetime.
I grew up in the 80’s when the MSM first started reporting heavily on the AIDs epidemic. I remember that at the time I thought that their would be LESS promotion of sexuality and light porn and all types of porn in the main stream media but instead throughout my entire life it has steadily increased to become more an more open and more and more perverse and more and more shocking.
How anyone could act like simply trying to shelter yourself from all of this and pledge to be pure would stand an honest chance for kids growing up is beyond me.
It is sick how liberal sexually this society has become, imo.
And so, of course, it will never be addressed.
I could teach teenage boys how to avoid sex.
Lesson 1)Don’t talk to girls.
As I wrote in my post #8, at “Condom Nation,” http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2155885/posts
the only thing proven is that kids with similar backgrounds will demonstrate similar behavior.
The article in question can be downloaded at
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/123/1/e110
The final “wave 3” data came from what the author calls “adolescents” — who were 22 years old. Data from those who had married was treated as “missing.”
We don’t know anything about the actual sex ed courses that the students took, who paid for the course, or whether they actually took a course or just made a pledge.
I’m not strong on statistics, but isn’t this just too much manipulation of the data?
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