Sex Vows Did Not Curb STDs

Young adults who as teenagers took pledges not to have sex until marriage were just as likely to contract a venereal disease as people who didn’t make the promise, according to a study in the Journal of Adolescent Health.

Sociologists studied data from a government-funded study that tested 11,000 18- to 24-year-olds for some sexually transmitted diseases, including chlamydia and gonorrhea.

There was no statistically significant difference between the percentage of people who took a so-called virginity pledge and were infected with an STD and those who didn’t pledge, said Hannah Bruckner, one of the study’s authors.

“It is important to teach adolescents that if they decide to have sex, they can protect from negative consequences,” said Bruckner, an assistant professor of sociology at Yale University.

In 1993, the True Love Waits movement urged teenagers to promise to refrain from sex until marriage. About 2.2 million adolescents, or 12% of U.S. teenagers, had taken such a pledge by 1995, according to the study.

Researchers had expected those who took a virginity pledge to have a lower incidence of STDs because pledgers tended to have fewer sex partners, lose their virginity later and marry earlier than those who didn’t make the promise, Bruckner said.

She said it was difficult to pinpoint a reason for the finding.

The study found that 88% of sexually active people who took the pledge had intercourse before marriage. Sexually active pledgers were less likely to use condoms the first time they had sex, Bruckner said.

The study found that people who took an abstinence pledge were less likely to get tested and treated for venereal disease. They may then be infected longer than other people.

Some teenagers and young adults may engage in other intimate activities besides vaginal sex in order to preserve their virginity, the study found.

Sex education programs that teach only about abstinence are “outside the reality of most adolescents and young adults,” Bruckner said.