Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
Here's yet another study that shows that abstinence-only sex ed and virginity pledges does nothing to reduce teen sex but does significantly reduce the use of contraception by those who take them.
Teenagers who pledge to remain virgins until marriage are just as likely to have premarital sex as those who do not promise abstinence and are significantly less likely to use condoms and other forms of birth control when they do, according to a study released today.The new analysis of data from a large federal survey found that more than half of youths became sexually active before marriage regardless of whether they had taken a "virginity pledge," but that the percentage who took precautions against pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases was 10 points lower for pledgers than for non-pledgers.
Here's why this matters:
The findings are reigniting the debate about the effectiveness of abstinence-focused sexual education just as Congress and the new Obama administration are about to reconsider the more than $176 million in annual funding for such programs."This study again raises the issue of why the federal government is continuing to invest in abstinence-only programs," said Sarah Brown of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. "What have we gained if we only encourage young people to delay sex until they are older, but then when they do become sexually active -- and most do well before marriage -- they don't protect themselves or their partners?"
James Wagoner of the advocacy group Advocates for Youth agreed: "The Democratic Congress needs to get its head out of the sand and get real about sex education in America."
I'm not holding my breath. But federal funding for abstinence only sex ed should be eliminated. Immediately.
Politics
Comments
For some reason, this study seems to be getting a lot more press than previous ones. I can't figure out if that's because the study itself is somehow superior to previous studies, or if it's just because with the new Administration coming there's a chance it won't be completely ignored.
Posted by: WScott | January 5, 2009 10:05 AM
I happened to be watching Faux News last week when they covered the report on their Live Desk. The Fox news guy was all embarrassed/flustered about having to cover a report on "sex", and after commenting on this "surprising" news, he said he hoped his children weren't watching.
All I can say is that right-wing has a serious sex complex.
Posted by: MarkusR | January 5, 2009 10:07 AM
What I love is that this study was touted by Fox under a headline claiming being religious caused teens to delay first intercourse. The conclusion is based on the age of first intercourse in the study being about 3 years higher than what other studies have found. They didn't actually have a non-religious group in the study for comparison purposes.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,475306,00.html
I don't know of any discipline where it's considered kosher to draw a comparative conclusion like that without, you know, a control group to compare it to.
Posted by: DaveL | January 5, 2009 10:08 AM
All I can say is that right-wing has a serious sex complex.
AMERICA has a serious sex complex. We impeach people for that shit here. It's far worse than killing (especially if we can find a way to make those we're killing "other" in some way).
Posted by: Josh | January 5, 2009 10:18 AM
I almost wonder if this might be what the right-wing actually wants. It often seems that they're fine with kids having sex, as long as those kids suffer some sort of consequences for their sexual activity (see Bristol Palin). But consequence-free sex? I think that's what really trips up the far-right, hence their abhorrence of artificial contraception (not to mention abortion).
Posted by: Sadie Morrison | January 5, 2009 11:07 AM
Ah yes, they're just thinking of the (potential)
brainwashed zombies.. er children -DJPosted by: DingoJack | January 5, 2009 11:48 AM
AMERICA has a serious sex complex.
Josh - Nah, it's the Right, especially the religious Right.
If you didn't know anything about Christianity except what its American spokesmen blather about in the media, you'd swear that every branch of the faith was based on obsessing over other people's sex lives.
Posted by: Molly, NYC | January 5, 2009 12:11 PM
So while there's definitely a large proportion who have the serious sex complex, it's definitely not America as a whole.
Posted by: James Hanley | January 5, 2009 12:15 PM
Actually, my guess is that the study understates the problem. The question that, I think, should have been asked was not "Now that you are having sex, are you using condoms or other birth control?" but rather "Did you use them the first few times you had sex?"
(The numbers would drop for both groups, but be close to zero for the a-o group, I'm sure.)
I've been arguing for years that we need a form of sex education that accepts that most teenagers will choose to have sex, that treats the decision whether or not to have sex, and with which gender, as a personal matter that must be respected, that teaches the basics of sexual technique, including the various alternate forms of sexual behavior that can't produce pregnancy. (Starting from there it should also be possible to teach sexual ethics, to show that the same basic principles of 'honesty, respect, responsibility' that apply to other activities apply as well, maybe more strongly, to sex.)
I've always felt that the worst problem with 'a-o' is not the ineffectivenes but the fact that, once people decide to have sex, the teacher has nothing left to say to them. (You can't, once you've said 'absolutely positively under no circumstances have sex before marriage' you can't go on to say 'and if you ignore that, then here's how to have sex safely and ethically.')
Which leaves them -- assuming their parents agree with and 'get with' the program -- with no guidance but the 'rules of the street.' You know, that sex is something you do TO someone rather than WITH someone, that sex is a game in which you 'score' by getting someone to have sex with you, that once a woman has sex she crosses the line from 'virgin' to 'slut' and is 'fair game,' etc. You know, all those ideas thast make young males so frequently obnoxious -- and which even get picked up by young females which does WONDERS for their self-esteem.
And it isn't just 'young' males. Many men go to their grave never knowing the difference between having sex and masturbating using a woman's body as a Kleenex-substitute.
Even if the type of sex education I'd prefer is not practical, at the very least people should be taught two things before puberty -- and you'd be surprised how many people of both sex never learn them: women can have orgasms too, and that 'hey guys, when you're having sex, there's a person on either end of your cock."
Posted by: Prup (aka Jim Benton) | January 5, 2009 12:46 PM
Prup - Good points.
Incidentally, you may have noticed that a basic assumption of Ab Only is that you aren't going to need to know much about sex even after you get married.
Posted by: Molly, NYC | January 5, 2009 1:18 PM
Yep, which seems match up with my own experiences. I can't tell you how many time I've heard people, mostly women, say, "I wouldn't fuck him, but I'd probably blow him." (Okay, I've said it a couple times too.) See Clerks for a comedic glimpse of the phenomenon.
Which reminds me, I was thinking the other day about what's permitted on television. It seems that it's okay to show a woman's naked breasts as long as the nipples are not visible. I've seen plenty with a bit of digitalized blurring or airbrushing. Yet it's okay to show men's nipples. So would it be permissible to show women wearing pasties with men's nipples printed on them?
That sex is so verboten that there's a system which makes such stray thoughts possible, I think speaks to Josh's point. It certainly seems to me that the US has a hang-up about sex that is far greater than just the religious right.
As to this comment from Ed:
I agree entirely and would add, "Use the money for comprehensive programs that actually help protect children."
Posted by: Abby Normal | January 5, 2009 1:24 PM
Am I a mean person for continually showing these studies to my neighbor who happens to be an abstinence counselor? And then asking her to defend her position?
Posted by: Mark | January 5, 2009 1:52 PM
Mark - Details, please!
Posted by: Molly, NYC | January 5, 2009 1:58 PM
Molly/James, with a nod toward Abby, you're probably right. I was probably extrapolating too far.
Posted by: Josh | January 5, 2009 2:02 PM
Prup--
Excellent points. Abstinence-only ed merely serves to further demonize sex in the eyes of young people who might develop (or who already hold) such dysfunctional and unhealthy views of sexuality. It's a vicious cycle, with damaging psychological results.
Posted by: Sadie Morrison | January 5, 2009 2:27 PM
Have I posted earlier elsehwere that Dan Savage sums A-O education's consequences up rather wonderfully here?
I grew up in the wrong era. I could have done so much more on the high school dating scene if I hadn't been raised by trendy liberal Catholics with their "education works"-type ideas!Posted by: Metro | January 5, 2009 2:57 PM
Molly - Not much to say really. She works at CareNet of DuPage County. Quite a few times her only argument for continued federal funding is so that she would continue to have a job...her husband is a preacher so they take the approach of if the bible says so then it must be correct. Nice people when they aren't preaching.
Posted by: Mark | January 5, 2009 3:21 PM
Quote of the millennium.
Posted by: Sadie Morrison | January 5, 2009 3:23 PM
Not that I actually require his input... I'm guessing mroberts is lurking out there somewhere and I'm just curious, given his statements about having sex with his wife frequently throughout their marriage whether he has:
a.) used contraceptives (which is a sin)
b.) got 40-11ty kids, or
c.) shoots blanks
just wondrin'
Posted by: democommie | January 5, 2009 3:37 PM
If after taking a virginity pledge a teen still gets a STD, is that an Immaculate Infection?
Posted by: RJW | January 5, 2009 3:40 PM
If after taking a virginity pledge a teen still gets a STD, is that an Immaculate Infection?
Posted by: RJW | January 5, 2009 3:42 PM
Posted by: WScott | January 5, 2009 8:37 PM
Yes, but don't you think that says something about our culture, that there was a great push for Clinton's impeachment on the grounds that he lied about sex, whereas Bush and company will never get impeached over their lies about the grounds for pillage and murder?
Posted by: Sadie Morrison | January 5, 2009 8:46 PM
For uncounted generations of human ancestry going back at least to the likes of Lucy and her people, if you weren't having sex at or shortly after puberty, you probably would not reproduce at all. After all, if your life expectancy is maybe twenty years or so, and if it takes at least a hand full of those years to raise a child capable of contributing to the survival of the family group/tribe, you had to get on it quick.
It seems reasonable that the rut in humans begins at or shortly after puberty because it is an indispensable survival tactic. Horniness in teens is actually a good thing for the human race after all. Except for some in theses later, longer lived generations.
With all the understanding of biology, psychology and history we still have those who tell their children "not to" because it's nasty, untoward, brutish, ignorant or offensive to a sky guy (take your pick or make up your own!). Well brush my teeth and call me Smiley but I still ain't grinnin'.
We owe our existence to teen and tween sex.
But, shit. What does several million years of human development mean when Jebus is just around the corner?
(Full disclosure: When my beautiful eighteen-year-old told 'Ol (single parent) Dad that she was three months on, my reply was, "Oh, baby. Dumb, dumb, dumb!" And I instantly felt foolish and helpless. But in the end everything worked out and it's all OK now, some fourteen years later.)
Posted by: Crudely Wrott | January 5, 2009 9:00 PM
Lincoln Six Echo, there's a note on your file that shows you've been interacting regularly with Jordan Two Delta. You do know about the Rules of Proximity, don't you? In future, keep your separation.
Posted by: Ex-drone | January 6, 2009 6:59 AM
Posted by: WScott | January 6, 2009 11:00 AM
@WScott:
Well, it might be an honest to gosh felony, but it seems likely that Clinton never committed it.
Firstly, whether he lied at all depends on your definition of "have sex with"; and it seems that enough USAans believe that a blow-job isn't sex to cloud that issue. He relied upon an agreed definition that on one reading excludes blow-jobs performed on him.
Secondly, for a lie under oath to be perjury, it has to be on a material issue. The allegation against Clinton was alleged sexual harassment of Paula Jones; whether or not Clinton had sex with Lewinsky is immaterial to that issue, notwithstanding the trial judge's finding that Jones was entitled to details of Clinton's sexual relations with government employees.
From this side of the Atlantic, it looked like the whole point of the Republican support of Paula Jones's claims was to get Clinton on the stand to ask him a whole host of irrelevant but politically damaging questions; that either impeachment or political damage was the intended result of that support. As I understand it, according to the Republican Lexicon since 2001, that is treason;-)
Posted by: Robin Levett | January 6, 2009 12:36 PM
Lack of education=ignorance. Are you saying ignorance is a recipe for failure? Surely not! :)
Posted by: Liberal Atheist | January 8, 2009 6:27 AM