HA! If I can make a bullet list of findings:
- Virginity pledges reduced intercourse in teens by 12%
- Non-pledgers didn't use condoms any more than pledgers who broke their pledges
- Both pledgers and non-pledgers who did not have sex practiced the same amount of sexual activities
I would like to comment as a person who was a teen in the 90s and heard about the virginity pledges. There was almost zero emphasis on pre-sex activities. Usually sex was dire, but everything leading up to that was not so bad. I will advise my son when he's old enough (he's 2 now) to not even talk to a girlfriend about sexual topics. The mind is breached first and the body follows.
That's good but I really think parents are the ones that are going to have to stop this by keeping them supervised. There are some very mature teens, but most...if they are in lust...they forget about everything momma and daddy have told them. I would be surprised if the girls that kept their vows didn't come from well supervised homes.
As a mom of 4 girls, we talk about sex here. Well, I do with the two teens.
Sex is fine, it’s great and wonderful and beautiful and a whole lot of fun, imo. I didn’t have sex as a teenager but mostly because pre-marital sex was wrong according to my faith and because I knew as a teen that I wasn’t ready for all that came with it.
My mom taught me that in the heat of passion, that I’d have to decide, use my head, and it worked for me.
As for all the fun stuff that leads to sex, it WAS fun even though it didn’t end up with intercourse in my case until marriage.