Exactly. I am surprised that Heritage did not control for the most obvious variable: IQ. It's well known that IQ correlates significantly with age at initiation of sexual activity. It's entirely possible that the average IQ of the abstaining group is significantly higher than the sexually active group. Which would explain its greater academic success and career aspirations.
Not that I am opposed to encouraging abstinence. I am only opposed to social science that ignores the obvious.
Indeed, but I was tending to point that the [relative] abstinence of "geeks" has somewhat of forced character: they, too, have hormones and would like to take part, but are impeded by the social attributes of their "geekiness". Then they have not much else left to do but to persist in what they have been doing reasonably well [their studies] - and this reinforces their academic success. Sort of a "virtuous circle" [pun very much intended] - this can be a mechanism by which IQ correlates with abstinence...