Opponents of abstinence education were celebrating yesterday when a new study from a researcher at Johns Hopkins University found that there was little difference in sexual behaviors between religiously active teenagers with conservative parents who took an abstinence pledge at age 17 and religiously active teens with conservative parents who didn’t. In both groups half had had sex for the first time by age 21, more than 3 years later than the average American teenager, half of whom have had sex by age 17. The average number of sexual partners for the half which did start having sex was three, well below the average number of sexual partners for those young adults who started having sex at an average age of 17.
Since the number of sexual partners is a primary factor in one’s risk for sexually transmitted diseases, the ones who waited until age 21 surely had much lower rates of ever having been infected with an STD, although the study did not look at that. Research shows that girls who wait until their 20s to start having sex have a 200% lower risk to develop cervical cancer than those who start having sex in their teen years. And we can also be pretty sure that none of the ones who abstained from sex until age 21 were involved in a teen pregnancy!
What critics fail to notice is the obvious–that in this day and age, with the right support and guidance significant numbers of teens can delay sexual involvement well beyond the teen years. Yes, a one-time abstinence pledge may not show a significant difference to those who already have a worldview that values committed relationships and deferring sexual gratification. What the critics also fail to notice is the half who were still waiting to have sex at age 21. In the sex-saturated, sex-obsessed culture in which we live, that is an achievement worth pondering.
What this and other studies show is that the positive message to delay sexual involvement until one is ready to make a monogamous commitment in the context of marriage needs to be repeated in the college years, with deeper content about the emotional, social as well as physical health benefits to oneself, ones future children and to the community. For instance, research shows that those who do wait until marriage have higher levels of romance and less conflict than those who don’t wait until marriage.
Jane Rosenbaum, the study’s author, emphasizes that the pledgers who did start having sex by age 21 had a lower rate of using condoms, which she attributes to the fact that most abstinence education programs inform students about the use failure rates of condoms in preventing pregnancy or disease. For example, the Family Planning Perspectives journal reported in 1999 that one in four sexually active teen couples who use condoms become pregnant within one year. Presumably, Ms. Rosenbaum would have health educators censor this information, as do many “comprehensive” sex ed. programs.
A number of studies show that ones risk for infection with STDs including HIV, the virus that leads to AIDS, is related more strongly to ones number of sexual partners than to whether or not condoms are used. Some studies even show that those who use condoms more have higher rates of infection with HIV and other STDs, since they are also more likely to have many more sexual partners. While condoms can provide significant partial risk reduction for some STDs, reducing one’s number of sex partners, ideally to one in the context of marriage, can be even more important. Basing our nation’s sexual health prevention strategy entirely on condom promotion is a tired idea that has already failed here in the U.S and around the world.
Richard Panzer, Ph.D., Director
Free Teens USA/Center for Relationship Intelligence
Westwood, NJ
(www.freeteensusa.org) (www.freeteensyouth.com)
