Save a hymen; save your virginity!
I’m trying to come up with bumper stickers for this one.
Adolescents who pledge to remain virgins until marriage are more likely to substitute high-risk sexual behaviors that increase the likelihood of transmitting sexually transmitted diseases, according to researchers who studied the sex lives of about 12,000 teens.
The report by Yale and Columbia University researchers could help explain why a study by the same group last year found that despite having fewer sexual partners and getting married earlier, teens who pledge abstinence are just as likely to have STDs as their peers.
The latest study, published in the April issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health, found that teens who pledge abstinence until marriage are more likely to have oral and anal sex than other teens who have not had intercourse.
“They substitute other non-coital sex, which, however, puts you at risk,” said Hannah Brueckner, assistant professor of sociology at Yale University and one of the study’s authors.
Among virgins, boys who have pledged abstinence were four times more likely to have had anal sex, according to the study. Overall, pledgers were six times more likely to have oral sex than teens who have remained abstinent but not as part of a pledge. The pledging group was also less likely to use condoms during their first sexual experience or get tested for STDs, the study found.
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Umm…She’s fooling herself a bit if she actually thinks that.
My hymen has already been broken through participating in sports and using tampons. I’ve never had sexual intercouse (nor anal sex). Oh, but I guess that makes me a whore anyway! I have sooooo ruined my marriage bed!……good. I have no interest in getting married.
Oh, and remember kids; if you’re going to have anal sex–lube up and double bag, if you know what I mean :-)
Can I make a pledge retroactive to the 1970s?
Most women don’t even have a hymen. It’s a genetic anomalie that became more common through selective breeding. And those substitute activities are dangerous as well. No one ever tells a teenage girl she can get gonorrhea in her throat. It’s a gift, baby – wrap it up.
it seems to me that the bumper sticker is: “your hymen or your health, make smart choices”
And remember how much trouble Jocylyn Elders got into for recommending masturbation? These people have no realistic plan and just want to foster a culture of guilt and blame.
Many “good Christian girls” used anal or oral sex as a way to get around abstinence in my school, which I call “getting off on a technicality.” hee.
Well, at least their boyfriends got off. I’m not sure they did.
Christ, that sounds like something out of a frat comedy. “Sorry, I’m saving myself for marriage. I can still suck you off and then do the most taboo of mainstream sexual practices, though! No, don’t bother with a condom: if it’s not my vagina, there’s no risk!”
Emjaybee, I hate to quote Oprah here, but she recently had a show about young women who feel it necessary to participate in these kinds of sexual acts to maintain boyfriend/girlfriend relationships, even if they claimed they hadn’t technically had sex, i.e. vaginal intercourse. It appears to be a sort of social capital.
Most of them hadn’t even considered that they, too, have the capacity for that kind of pleasure, nor did they consider that in a healthy sexual relationship this kind of thing should be reciprocal.
I believe Feministing had something posted on this topic recently… here’s one though I think there was another this month. It doesn’t appear that they have a public monthly archive.
I wouldn’t doubt it, Lauren. I should have said, this was about 15 years ago…so things haven’t changed much, even though it’s just now making the news. If they got any pleasure out of it, it was probably pure luck–the boys, also trying to skirt the rules, most likely didn’t have much concept of what to do for the girls in return, should they even be inclined to reciprocate.
But I think besides social capital, it was also a form of rebellion without getting in trouble. It was difficult to get up the nerve to buy condoms, much less get on birth control, in our Texas suburb, and pregnancy would be disaster. So using oral and anal sex was also a way to get around that and be bad without consequences (hopefully). Undoubtedly pleasing boyfriends was a high priority, but I think it was more complicated than that.
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