Why Don't Virginity Pledges Work?

[Zen Curmudgeon]

A recent report in the Journal of Adolescent Health finds that teens who've taken a "virginity pledge", promising to remain chaste until marriage, have about the same rates of sexually transmitted disease as nonpledgers, despite reporting fewer sexual encounters. In other words, pledgers have less sex than nonpledgers but the sex they have is riskier, too.

This is the opposite of expectations, isn't it? Do the pedges actually work in some reverse fashion?

Figures from the government-sponsored site 4parents.gov indicate that parents have the most influence on teen sexual behavior, media the least. Should parents take the responsibility for their teen's gonorrhea?

Is it enough to insist on an abstinence model for people at the horniest times of their lives?

Take Care -

ZC

[Lexi]

Love the Carlin quote. lol!

[sweet_chin_music]

Much like many other things in life, what works for some doesn't work for others.

One thing I remember about these pledges is that if a person commits to one, on average they will last 6 months to a year before they forget about it, ignore it or choose a different thing to believe in. That's why churches/programs that do these usually do it every year.

Another point to consider is that most kids don't view "other" forms of sex as "sex". STD's can be spread by these other forms of sex just as easily as traditional sex. I can almost guarantee that if you ask 10 teenagers to define what a sexual encounter is, you'll get 10 different responses.

[Chuckie]

We could always take the middle eastern approach to all of this. Arrange marraiges for the girls as soon as they turn 14 to someone who already has a career established. No more out of wedlock kids. With the father already established...fewer welfare babies.

(please note the heading I added to this)

[large]

What I know about that subject, I could write on the back of a standard Postage Stamp and still have room for the Gettysburg Address . . .

[KCLeigh]

Halfway through my junior year in high school my father received orders for us to move to Florida. The public schools were so bad (still are) that they sent me to a Baptist high school to finish my education. The first thing anyone said to me on the first day of class was "Are you saved?" I looked around me terrified... "Saved from WHAT??" I asked. It went downhill from there... At any rate, this school had a "Devotional Week" every six months in which we sat in the gym for "chapel" and were lectured about morality and the evils of things such as dancing (no prom---sit down dinner with performance by the school jazz ensemble) smoking, premarital sex, and short skirts. Needless to say, we had some very intense speakers and somehow, every time, we had people coming forth to proclaim their newfound faith and swear they would obstain from all those aforementioned evils. That was DURING Devotional Week. One week after, all those same people were smoking off grounds, sleeping with each other, etc. My senior class had 32 people in it. We had 5 pregnancies (and subsequent expulsions), 2 guys expelled for having been seen off school grounds with girls and acting in an immoral way, and another was asked to leave because he'd had a party at his house and there were rumors of drinking. Compared with my previous school, in which my graduating class would have been around 500, we only had 2 girls get pregnant. I think that the atmosphere at the last school I attended was just breeding that kind of behavior. When someone is constantly being told YOU CAN'T DO THIS and that person is 15, 16, 17... revolt is sure to set in. Curiosity will win out in the end. And when you're only being given one option--obstain, it's hard to hold oneself to that absolute.