Stuff I promised about VIRGINS! last month

Okay, the last time I promised The Straight Skinny on Thousands of Teenage Virgins Having Sex, I provided a link, and if you click on that link, a Large Corporation will electronically give you a lot of crap and make it hard for you to read the story about the thousands of virgins having sex. I try to deliver on my promises, so here is the story.

And this is exactly where we've been bumping into that Old Dead White Man, Thomas Malthus (I'm only mentioning him again since finding out that Nephew Kwak goes Schoolyard and Postal every time he sees that name). Malthus thought the solution to exponentially growing population was to get Youth to volunteer not to screw and make babies until later, like when they were 22 or 25. Specifically, the Anglican Curate referred to it as Postponing Marriage. That was 1798.

At the bottom of the smutty virgin story I promised, you will find references to two national USA organizations that try to convince Youth not to screw until very shortly After Marriage (like, an hour or two, or maybe three if there's a good band at the reception): True Love Waits, and The Silver Ring Thing.

"True Love Ways" is a teenage love geezer song by Buddy Holly, which many people mis-hear as "True Love Waits." (People were beginning to take drugs in those days, and they also mis-heard Jimi Hendrix sing: "'Scuse me / While I kiss this guy!")

If these aren't enough well-scrubbed faith-based un-pierced, un-tattooed Goody-Two-Shoes for you, you can also hit Promise Keepers, but this one's just for us guys who are Trying to Do the Right Thing by our women pals.

And don't forget our previous mention of a new group of young girls somewhere to the right of those whacky, liberal, partyin', birth-controllin', diversity-acceptin' Girl Scouts: the American Heritage Girls.

So anyway ... whaddya think? Was Malthus on the right track here? Was he on to something? The Bush Administration seems to think so. These organizations seem to think so.

But, as you will see from this lurid story of thousands of teenage virgins having sex, you would be wise to be very cautious if you have vile designs on these virgins, even the ones with valid photo i.d. You could get Cooties.

Incidentally, there was already talk, and possibly even some action, about Artificial Birth Control back when Malthus was a divine. Malthus himself was horrified, and thought the very idea was Satanic, and rejected it entirely as policy for dealing with population control. If you're going to not be a virgin, he felt, procreating exponentially (Not For Fun!) was the only acceptable object.

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The Washington Post
Saturday 19 March 2005 / Page A03

Teen Pledges Barely Cut
STD Rates, Study Says

by Ceci Connolly
Washington Post Staff Writer

Teenagers who take virginity pledges -- public declarations to abstain from sex -- are almost as likely to be infected with a sexually transmitted disease as those who never made the pledge, an eight-year study released yesterday found.

Although young people who sign a virginity pledge delay the initiation of sexual activity, marry at younger ages and have fewer sexual partners, they are also less likely to use condoms and more likely to experiment with oral and anal sex, said the researchers from Yale and Columbia universities.

"The sad story is that kids who are trying to preserve their technical virginity are, in some cases, engaging in much riskier behavior," said lead author Peter S. Bearman, a professor at Columbia's Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy. "From a public health point of view, an abstinence movement that encourages no vaginal sex may inadvertently encourage other forms of alternative sex that are at higher risk of STDs."

Rates of Disease

The findings are based on the federally funded National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, a survey begun in 1995 that tracked 20,000 young people from high school to young adulthood. At the start of the project, the students were 12 to 18 years old and agreed to detailed, sexually explicit interviews. They were re-interviewed in 1997 and again in 2002, when 11,500 also provided urine samples.

Virginity pledges emerged in the early 1990s based on the theory that young people would remain chaste if they had stronger community support -- or pressure -- to remain abstinent. Programs vary, but in most cases teenagers voluntarily sign a pledge or publicly announce their intention to abstain from sex. Often pledgers receive a pin or ring to symbolize the promise and team up with an "accountability partner."

Since it was founded in 1993, the virginity group True Love Waits claims 2.4 million youths have signed a card stating: "Believing that true love waits, I make a commitment to God, myself, my family, those I date, and my future mate to be sexually pure until the day I enter marriage."

The study, published in the Journal of Adolescent Health, found that 20 percent of those surveyed said they had taken a virginity pledge. Bearman and co-author Hannah Bruckner broke them into two categories -- "inconsistent pledgers" and "consistent pledgers" -- to reflect the fact that some changed their status or their responses between interviews. Among those youngsters, 61 percent of the consistent pledgers and 79 percent of the inconsistent pledgers reported having intercourse before marrying or prior to 2002 interviews.

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.

The study did not detect major geographic differences but found that minorities were far more likely to have an STD. About one quarter of African American girls in the survey tested positive for at least one STD in 2002.

In terms of high-risk behavior, the raw numbers were small, but the gap was statistically significant, Bearman said. Just 2 percent of youth who never took a pledge said they had had anal or oral sex but not intercourse, compared with 13 percent of "consistent pledgers."

Debate on Abstinence

The report sparked an immediate, bitter debate over the wisdom of teaching premarital abstinence.

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 anal sex will tell you they are practicing abstinence because they haven't had 'real sex' yet," she said.

Ralph DiClemente, a professor at Emory University's School of Public Health in Atlanta, compared virginity pledges to adults' efforts to make New Year's resolutions.

"I wish it was that easy. We'd all be a lot healthier," he said. "If we can't do it as adults, why would we expect kids to be able to handle those issues?"

But Joe S. McIlhaney Jr., chairman of the Medical Institute for Sexual Health, said the study offers an incomplete picture because it could not say whether sexually active teens who did not take a pledge had been pregnant or treated for an STD before the 2002 testing. The analysis "doesn't prove or disprove" assertions that virginity pledges are flawed, he said.

On the other hand, Bill Smith, public policy vice president for the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States, said, "Not only do virginity pledges not work to keep our young people safe, they are causing harm by undermining condom use, contraception and medical treatment."

Conservative academics said the paper overlooked earlier important findings about adolescents who take virginity pledges, most notably that they have fewer pregnancies and out-of-wedlock births.

"It's hugely successful on those variables," Rector said. "Bearman has focused in on the one variable he thinks can show they [pledgers] don't do better."

President Bush has requested $206 million in federal funding for abstinence-only programs this year.

Several True Love Waits officials were unavailable Friday, according to a receptionist. Telephone calls to another virginity group, the Silver Ring Thing, were not returned.

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