Surprise, surprise! According to a recent study released today, teenagers who pledge to remain virgins until marriage are just as likely to have premarital sex as those who do not promise abstinence. The only difference, those teens that pledge not to have sex are significantly less likely to use condoms and other forms of birth control when they do. "Taking a pledge doesn't seem to make any difference at all in any sexual behavior," said Janet E. Rosenbaum of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, whose report appears in the January issue of the journal Pediatrics. "But it does seem to make a difference in condom use and other forms of birth control that is quite striking." As much as parents or educators or whoever hope kids don't have premarital sex, fact of the matter is they do! We are sexual beings! Sex is one of the strongest driving forces in humans. I know there are some people that are not driven by sex for whatever reason (medication decreasing the libido, a painful past sexual experience, etc), but as long as humans have been in existence, sex is a very strong motive for their behavior.
So for those who think abstinence-only education must be the rule in schools, hopefully this study will help shed some light on our educators and politicians: kids need to know the facts, all the facts! Teens need to be given total insight to contraceptives available, the possible negative side effects of sexual behavior, and condoms need to be made available wherever possible for teens!
2 comments:
But it worked so well for Sarah Palin's daughter ...err, well, then again.
The only preventative is parental supervision, but it's hard to be 100% with that. Best to supervise as much as possible and to also teach about safety and responsibility.
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