déjà vu.
In the January issue of Pediatrics, the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics (woot), there’s a new study from Janet Rosenbaum of Johns Hopkins University on the effects of virginity pledges on sexual behaviour. What effects do virginity pledges have on sexual behaviour, one might wonder? The answer, which would seem inherently logical to me, is not much that’s good. Do teens who pledge to abstain have less sex than their compatriots? Nope. Do they wait longer to have sex? Nope. So where’s the effect? Teens who take virginity pledges, when compared to matched (matched is important, and I’m going to come back to it) non-pledgers, are significantly less likely to use birth control or other contraception.
Colour me unsurprised. Bearman and Bruckner looked into virginity pledges twice before. In 2001, they found that when compared to the general population, teens who take these pledges are more likely to delay first intercourse, but less likely to use a condom or birth control when they do get around to it. here’s where that whole “matching” thing becomes important: where Bearman and Bruckner compared pledgers to all non-pledgers, Rosenbaum used 128 different factors to make sure that her samples had similar attitudes towards sexual activity to begin with. So the factors that make someone more or less likely to pledge are already controlled for (in categories including economic status, proximity to family, attitude towards birth control, emotions about sex, personal and parental religiosity, friend risk, type of family, etc), and you’re not left questioning if the difference is statistically significant. So the control group matches the pledge group, and no one can claim bias in reading the data (well, I’m sure they can try. And how about that! They did!).
That might all be kind of boring. Hell, even I think the summary is kind of boring, though it is a little interesting to get into the nitty gritty of teen pledgers’ attitudes towards sex (more likely to have negative expectations about sex, feel guilty about having sex, think birth control is bad or morally wrong, have less experience in romantic relationships, and, here’s the kicker, less likely to have masturbated in the last 18 months. It’s just sad.). but there are a couple interesting psychological findings from these studies:
1. Bearman and Bruckner found that pledging only seems to work in a setting where the pledgers perceive themselves as a self-segregated identity movement. Too few or too many pledgers spoil the soup, as it were. So, paraphrasing, “the identity as a pledger is only meaningful when it is non-normative.” Which means massive national pledge drives don’t have a shot in hell.
2. Rosenbaum found in an earlier study that half of virginity pledgers will deny having pledged within one year. so even as an identity movement, it doesn’t seem too successful.
So, basically, here’s what we know: Bearman and Bruckner used data from the 1995 National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. Rosenbaum picked up that group, followed it through 2001, and used more rigorous study methods to show that virginity pledges have NO PROTECTIVE EFFECT on teen sexual behaviour, and have a statistically significant NEGATIVE EFFECT on contraceptive use.
What does this mean for policy? Basically, it’s just reinforcement of the same thing we’ve been saying for years - abstinence only programs, many of which include virginity pledges, do not work. The whole virginity pledge movement seems to be a way of reassuring parents and other “concerned” adults and not an actual behavioural or moral choice made by teens for themselves. As part of the larger abstinence movement, they fail, and in ways that seem to demonstrate the problems inherent in ab-only programs - that at best they don’t inform teens of necessary public health information, more commonly they deliberately distort and falsify facts to undermine teens’ sexual and reproductive health knowledge and curtail their ability to protect themselves. These programs are ineffective, unethical, and quickly becoming a national embarrassment. So what’s my hope for this year? that we start thinking of sexuality education from a comprehensive, life-long, sex positive position. Sexuality education should be rights-based: it should be taught not because it reduces teen pregnancy or sti rates but because all people, and especially young people, have a right to accurate, complete and unbiased information about their bodies, their health and their sexuality. You don’t teach kids about sexuality as a bandage on the HIV epidemic, you teach kids about sexuality for the same reason that you teach them history, math, and logic - they have a right to the tools that help them understand and function in the world around them. It’s education. They have a right to that education. Hopefully, the new administration will recognize that right, quit funding programs that violate teens rights, and start looking at comprehensive sexuality education as one of many necessary steps towards a just and healthy world.
Colour me unsurprised. Bearman and Bruckner looked into virginity pledges twice before. In 2001, they found that when compared to the general population, teens who take these pledges are more likely to delay first intercourse, but less likely to use a condom or birth control when they do get around to it. here’s where that whole “matching” thing becomes important: where Bearman and Bruckner compared pledgers to all non-pledgers, Rosenbaum used 128 different factors to make sure that her samples had similar attitudes towards sexual activity to begin with. So the factors that make someone more or less likely to pledge are already controlled for (in categories including economic status, proximity to family, attitude towards birth control, emotions about sex, personal and parental religiosity, friend risk, type of family, etc), and you’re not left questioning if the difference is statistically significant. So the control group matches the pledge group, and no one can claim bias in reading the data (well, I’m sure they can try. And how about that! They did!).
That might all be kind of boring. Hell, even I think the summary is kind of boring, though it is a little interesting to get into the nitty gritty of teen pledgers’ attitudes towards sex (more likely to have negative expectations about sex, feel guilty about having sex, think birth control is bad or morally wrong, have less experience in romantic relationships, and, here’s the kicker, less likely to have masturbated in the last 18 months. It’s just sad.). but there are a couple interesting psychological findings from these studies:
1. Bearman and Bruckner found that pledging only seems to work in a setting where the pledgers perceive themselves as a self-segregated identity movement. Too few or too many pledgers spoil the soup, as it were. So, paraphrasing, “the identity as a pledger is only meaningful when it is non-normative.” Which means massive national pledge drives don’t have a shot in hell.
2. Rosenbaum found in an earlier study that half of virginity pledgers will deny having pledged within one year. so even as an identity movement, it doesn’t seem too successful.
So, basically, here’s what we know: Bearman and Bruckner used data from the 1995 National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. Rosenbaum picked up that group, followed it through 2001, and used more rigorous study methods to show that virginity pledges have NO PROTECTIVE EFFECT on teen sexual behaviour, and have a statistically significant NEGATIVE EFFECT on contraceptive use.
What does this mean for policy? Basically, it’s just reinforcement of the same thing we’ve been saying for years - abstinence only programs, many of which include virginity pledges, do not work. The whole virginity pledge movement seems to be a way of reassuring parents and other “concerned” adults and not an actual behavioural or moral choice made by teens for themselves. As part of the larger abstinence movement, they fail, and in ways that seem to demonstrate the problems inherent in ab-only programs - that at best they don’t inform teens of necessary public health information, more commonly they deliberately distort and falsify facts to undermine teens’ sexual and reproductive health knowledge and curtail their ability to protect themselves. These programs are ineffective, unethical, and quickly becoming a national embarrassment. So what’s my hope for this year? that we start thinking of sexuality education from a comprehensive, life-long, sex positive position. Sexuality education should be rights-based: it should be taught not because it reduces teen pregnancy or sti rates but because all people, and especially young people, have a right to accurate, complete and unbiased information about their bodies, their health and their sexuality. You don’t teach kids about sexuality as a bandage on the HIV epidemic, you teach kids about sexuality for the same reason that you teach them history, math, and logic - they have a right to the tools that help them understand and function in the world around them. It’s education. They have a right to that education. Hopefully, the new administration will recognize that right, quit funding programs that violate teens rights, and start looking at comprehensive sexuality education as one of many necessary steps towards a just and healthy world.