I found
this article regarding a study of viginity (abstinence) pledges.
SF Chronicle wrote:
The 14,000 survey subjects were interviewed in 1995 and re-interviewed in 1996 and 2001. They ranged in age from 12 to 18, and came from across the United States.
Rosenbaum found that 52 percent of those who said they had signed virginity pledges recanted them within a year. Additionally, 73 percent of those who told the first survey that they had taken a pledge but later had sex denied making such a promise when they were surveyed a second time
.
the same article wrote:
The adolescents also were unreliable in reporting their sexual experiences, Rosenbaum said. Almost one-third of non-virgins in the first survey who later took a virginity pledge said in the next survey that they had never had sex.
What this really says is that these kids didn't feel bound to keep their pledges.
Another article from the
Washington Post.
The Washington Post wrote:
Almost 7 percent of the students who did not make a pledge were diagnosed with an STD, compared with 6.4 percent of the "inconsistent pledgers" and 4.6 percent of the "consistent pledgers." Bearman said those differences were not "statistically significant," although Robert Rector, who studies domestic policy issues at the conservative Heritage Institute, said he interpreted the data to mean that young people committed to the abstinence pledge were less likely to become infected.
and
The Washington Post wrote:
Deborah Roffman, an educator and author of "Sex and Sensibility: The Thinking Parent's Guide to Talking Sense About Sex," said youths who take virginity pledges are often undereducated about sexual health. "Kids who are engaging in oral sex or **** sex will tell you they are practicing abstinence because they haven't had 'real sex' yet," she said.
Flea wrote:
Too many kids think that a condom will protect them from anything out there, when in some cases, even skin-to-skin contact is enough to infect someone else.
That’s why we have statistics like 65% of Americans having some form or the Herpes virus and 17-22% having genital Herpes.
What they need is the religious right to get off their high-horse and promote "Abstinence Emphasized" programs that cover STDs, birth control, and responsibilities of parenthood if you do get/your girlfriend gets pregnant, but put the emphasis on abstaining being the only 100% effective way to prevent STDs and pregnancy (barring divine intervention for the 2nd coming, of course).
