Virginity Vows don't stop STD spread

Per Washington Post Article:

An 8-year study indicates students who took a virginity pledge, not to have sex until they were married, were just almost as likely to be infected with an STD as students who did not take the test. The fine upstanding christian soldiers were less likely to use condoms and more likely to engage in oral and anal "activities." (Such activities not being "sex" therefore they rationalized their abstention.) Or as a cynic like me might observe, due to religious beliefs being forced upon them, they are engaging in more risky activity. Is this in Leviticus? But of course Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation (that font of wisdom) says the virginity pledge program is a Huge Success because those involved have fewer pregnancies and fewer out of wedlock births. Praise the Lord!

...the good christian virgins are having anal sex instead?

Isn't that nice.

Do you have a link?

the Sunday Edition of the New Orleans Times-Picayune, byline Washington Post by Ceci Connolly. Sorry I don't have the technical knowhow to get you there.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2005-03-18-sex-study_x.htm
Posted 3/18/2005 2:59 PM



Study: Abstinence pledges may trigger risky sexual behavior

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) — 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.
........

:shrug: I'm just wondering - isn't this more of a General Discussion topic?

health issue!! Here we have the WH mandating Abs. only sex education before they get federal eduction funds!! That is politics!!

from the USAToday essay:

.....Millions of teens have signed written pledges or verbally promised to abstain from sex, part of a church-led effort to discourage premarital sex and the spread of disease. President Bush has boosted funding for abstinence-only education in schools.

Critics say that education needs to be coupled with safe-sex education to be effective.

"If adolescents only had sex in monogamous, married relationships, by definition there would be no STDs," Brueckner said, echoing President Bush's remarks in last year's State of the Union address. "But the majority of adolescents don't live like that. They do have sex."

Last year, the same research team found that 88% of teens who pledge abstinence end up having sex before marriage, compared with 99% of teens who do not make a pledge....

"adolescents only had sex in monogamous, married relationships" What is he saying? Bush wants TEENAGERS TO GET MARRIED?

I didn't get the gist of that from the OP. It seemed to me to be another opportunity to poke fun at those hypocritical Christians again, rather than a discussion of Bush's mandate. :shrug:

bashing. And just bashing the fundamentalists does not seem to beworking.

Aren't we able to discuss ideas, without resorting to ridicule? And how does it help our cause if we widen the bashing-circle?

<"And just bashing the fundamentalists does not seem to beworking.">

She was very proud about being a "virgin" and was very negatively judgmental about everyone else. But then when she talked about what she did do, it was everything else but vaginal intercourse. She really believed that she was somehow more "moral" than people who played no such games. I certainly did not consider her a "virgin" any more than Bill Clinton "did not have sexual relations with that woman."

So it was not at all hard for me to believe the findings of this study, that there are a lot of people like her out there.

And by the way, she considered herself a Christian, and said that was why she believed in "virginity", but that certainly does not mean that Christians in general would make such hypocritical decisions.

Just ask my sister, who swore up and down that she was 'saving herself for marriage.'

Oh yeah, that's exactly what happened. At 19, she got pregnant -- and three months later, married an asshole who turned into a complete crack-head addict.

Her statement at the time? "He said he loved me and really, really wanted to make love. I couldn't say no."

Hormonally-drunken teens have a tendency to forget all rational thought -- including pledges and promises -- when they're hornier than hell. A shame those idiots refuse to recognize this basic fact of human biology.