RESEARCH | 'Virginity Pledges' Reduce Likelihood of Contraceptive Use, Do Not Affect Likelihood of Premarital Sex, Study Finds
[Jan. 29, 2009]

Summary of "Patient Teenagers? A Comparison of the Sexual Behavior of Virginity Pledgers and Matched Nonpledgers," Rosenbaum, Pediatrics, December 2008.

Federal funding for abstinence-only sex education increased from $73 million in 2001 to $204 million in 2008 despite a lack of evidence that such programs are effective at influencing adolescent behavior. Oral or written "virginity pledges" -- promises not to engage in sexual activities, typically until marriage -- often are used to determine the effectiveness of abstinence-only sex education programs based on the number of pledges made, without taking into account the sexual behavior of participants. Previous studies using regression models have shown that virginity pledgers were less likely to become sexually active one and five years after the pledge than nonpledgers, less likely to use contraception during sexual activity and equally likely to have a sexually transmitted infection five years after taking the pledge. Past findings showing that pledgers were less sexually active than non-pledgers may be because of the failure of study models to adjust for vast "prepledge" differences between the groups. Given the "recognized limitations" associated with regression models, the study used matched sampling methods to compare sexual and contraceptive behaviors of virginity pledgers and nonpledgers five years after the pledge was made.

Methods
Janet Rosenbaum of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health used a subsample from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health -- a national sample of participants in grades seven through 12 who were interviewed in three waves in 1995, 1996 and 2001. The subsample included 3,440 participants who in 1995 had not taken a virginity pledge, had not been sexually active and were older than age 15. All participants also completed all three waves. By the 1996 survey, some of participants had taken virginity pledges, so the researchers created two groups -- 289 pledgers and 645 nonpledgers -- that were as similar as possible in regard to 128 prepledge factors that could influence sexual behavior. The refined sample used in this study matched pledgers and nonpledgers who were more religious and sexually conservative than the general population of adolescents. According to Rosenbaum, the researchers created the groups to be as similar as possible so that "outcome differences between pledgers and matched nonpledgers cannot be attributed to pre-existing differences."

Results
The data for the study showed that those who made virginity pledges were not less sexually active than nonpledgers and that 81.9% claimed they had never made the pledge after five years. In addition, unmarried pledgers were significantly less likely to report contraceptive use in the previous year, as well as birth control at the last sex act. However, they did not differ in reporting condom use at last sex or condom breakage. Pledgers and nonpledgers did not differ in 12 of 14 sexual behaviors studied by the researchers or three of three STI tests. They also did not differ in the average number of lifetime sexual partners (about three) or the age of sexual initiation (21).

Discussion
According to the study, pledgers were "substantially less likely than matched nonpledgers to protect themselves" against STIs and pregnancy, which is consistent with the findings of earlier studies. Unlike previous studies, despite the use of a refined sample that matched pledgers and nonpledgers who might be more inclined to delay sex even without virginity pledges, researchers did not find pledgers to be less sexually active than nonpledgers. Rosenbaum adds that pledgers might be less likely to use condoms and other contraception because "many abstinence programs cause participants to develop negative attitudes about their effectiveness." She noted, "Virginity-pledge programs do not prepare pledgers to protect their health if they have sex, although most pledgers do have sex." The results of the study imply that virginity pledges do not change sexual behaviors, Rosenbaum writes, adding that the pledges "should not be used as a measure" of the effectiveness of abstinence-only sex education programs. She also writes that a person "cannot make casual inferences given the pledge's voluntary nature," but if sexual activity was decreased through the pledge, "we would expect to observe a difference" between those who make the pledge and those who do not. Rosenbaum concludes that abstinence-only sex education funding should be "shifted" to comprehensive sex education programs that "teach birth control and have demonstrated to delay sexual initiation and increase safer-sex practices."





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