Posted on 05/20/2005 10:16:12 PM PDT by Utah Girl
Teens who remain virgins throughout high school may think they're missing out on some of the fun, but the reality is their sexually active peers are the ones missing out.
The study: A new study from the Christian group Focus on the Family analyzed data from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth that was conducted in waves from 1979 to 2000 with 3,750 men and 3,620 women. It controlled for ethnicity and previous educational or economic disadvantage. About half the students were virgins at 18 and half were not. Students were surveyed at age 18 and again at age 38.
The results: When the two groups were evaluated 20 years after their high school graduation, the data showed that both the male and female high school students who remained virgins at least until age 18 enjoyed huge advantages as adults, compared to those who had had sex in high school:
1. They completed an average of one year more of higher education."It is very much as we suspected--that adolescent virginity has a significant impact on well-being in middle adulthood," said lead study author Reginald Finger, M.D. "We found, as well, that these better outcomes were not merely the result of avoiding teenage pregnancy or fatherhood. The outcomes are inherent to remaining abstinent. In addition, we found that female virgins were more likely than their non-virgin counterparts to have a positive financial net worth and were almost half as likely as non-virgins to use welfare benefits."
2. Their incomes were 20 percent higher.
3. They had about half the risk of divorce.
The research findings were published in the journal Adolescent and Family Health.
I was a virgin at 18. By two years later I racked up more tail than I could count on all my fingers and toes. Do I still get the benefits?
No, but do you still have any addresses and phone numbers?
I would suspect if they took the same people, left out any consideration of sex, and measured their IQ's, the findings would be the same.
Yeah but they're all older than I like 'em now ;)
I'll offer a different take on the findings. Being a virgin at 18 is not the direct cause of the positive outcomes (or as social scientists say, the independent variable.) It's a marker for it (social science gobbledygook = dependent variable.)
That marker is whatcha call good judgment, common sense, modicum of intelligence--you know, all that stuff that FReepers have all day long, or are are at least embarrassed when we dont.
Hold on. Let me check! LOL
OK I'll be back in NYC over the weekend...
So...be a FRiend and let me know when you get here! ;-)
Big assumption there. Not everybody that's a virgin at 18 wants to be, some just lack the social skills necessary to get de-virginized.
Du lieber Gott.
Then there's the question of what's so magic about the age of eighteen. Is it less traumatic or immoral for an 18 year old to lose their virginity than a 17 year old?
My wife and I were both virgins when we met at 20. Twenty-nine years of marraige and two stable and successful careers later, we are retiring next month.
Of course, the California Real Estate market helped a bit. ;)
Good analysis. That's what I thought. Those who abstain demonstrate self-control and are thinking in the long-term.
I'm a dude, just turned 20, and am still a virgin, not ashamed to say. It's been hard (no pun intended) but will probably be worth it in the long run.
But to each their own. =P
I have to agree. The same character attributes that cause teens to avoid early sexual activity also influence subsequent successful life outcome. It is not that virgins become more responsible adults, but that more responsible teens become more responsible adults.
True, but I don't think this characteristic is all that common. In my experience it is found almost exclusively among males who oh, never mind.
No you should continue the thought because it dove tails nicely with this survey. The primary under 18 demographic that want to get laid but "can't" are males generally defined as nerds, nerds who tend to get more schooling and often get jobs in the technology sector that pay better. Which would tend to skew the survey towards "waiting" being good when it's really not the "waiting" but the type of people that "wait".
Coming from an old married woman, who waited for her husband, and he waited to.
There is also the issue of: No comparison. This makes life so much less complicated.
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