Once more with feeling: Virginity pledges don't work
Yet another study shows that teenagers who take virginity pledges are just as likely to have pre-marital sex than non-pledgers. And, naturally, after years of being taught that birth control pills are evil and condoms cause cancer - teens who take virginity pledges are less likely to use contraception when they do have sex.
Posted by Jessica - December 29, 2008, at 05:00PM
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The Forced Prostitution of Iraqi Women in foreing Lands
Who can think that the Future of Iraq is very peaceful and beautiful ???
The hard fact is that there are millions of refugees in neighboring countries and many girls that were thinking of going to study in an Iraqi University are now in prostitution in a foreign land.
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The dreams of many Iraqi girls were shattered because of a cruel war imposed on their country. And they fell to the lowest places of society.
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That post is called "Damascus, Syria, Some Iraqui Women ......" and corresponds to an article in the Baltimore Sun "No place to go".
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This is very painful and heartbreaking. And that is the result of an irresponsible and idiotic Invasion and Occupation that should have never occurred.
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At least it is remarkable that the Syrian authorities have been kind and humane with the millions of Iraqis that reach their land trying to save their lives. Arabs and Moslems are famous for being kind in hospitality, no killings or murders of Immigrants.
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Read the Baltimore Sun here :
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bal-te.refugee28dec28,0,4459817.story
The Future of Iraq ( Poor Nation ! ) :
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The most probable Future of Iraq is an Islamic Nation, or Shiite Nation. Probably very Teocratic and under the influence of Iran.
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I have the Blog Prophesizing.com and I have to prophesize to honor that name. So I have prophesized the Future or Iraq.
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I have no pact with the devil, no tarot, and no crystal ball. But some prophecies seem very easy. Just think a little, analyze a little.
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Prophesizing.com
Vicente Duque
vicenteduq, please don't plug or derail the thread. If you'd like us to post on something, email us about it.
Condoms cause cancer? If anything, condom usage may prevent some forms of cancer such as cervical cancer.
Sadly, these programs are -- for their most virulent proponents, still serving a desired function. It has long been my position that some on the far right believe that pregnancy and disease are God's chosen punishments, and even if they cannot reduce the rate of premarital sex or abortion, simply increasing the correlation between non-marital sex and disease and pregnancy is itself a win for them. It's so horrifying that they won't say that, but the resistance to Gardasil pretty much laid that bare.
I think one of my favorite parts of this study as discussed on the today show was the fact that
(1) 50% of the teens don't admit to having taken the pledge a year after taking it and
(2) 80% of them deny taking any sort of abstinence pledge 5 years later.
The sociologist pointed to the fact that many of these kids taking these pledges are not really doing it because they feel super strong about their own abstinence or virginity. Most of them take the pledges because they feel peer pressure to do so or because they are told to take such a pledge in a church or youth group setting. And who wants to be the token kid that says "I'm not taking your stupid pledge, I'll decide when it's the right time for me."
Sort of makes me think about just how many of the girls being taken to "purity balls" by their pushy fathers really mean what they say either.
My niece took an abstinence pledge. The second she started dating her first very sweet boyfriend, I pulled her aside and told her that I didn't care what pledge she took, if she and her boyfriend started going "there" she needed to have a talk with me and/or her doctor. Two months later, we went to planned parenthood, got her on the pill and got her some condoms. She's now 18, no longer dating the young man and didn't have a baby because of a stupid pledge. Hallelujah.
I think one of my favorite parts of this study as discussed on the today show was the fact that
(1) 50% of the teens don't admit to having taken the pledge a year after taking it and
(2) 80% of them deny taking any sort of abstinence pledge 5 years later.
The sociologist pointed to the fact that many of these kids taking these pledges are not really doing it because they feel super strong about their own abstinence or virginity. Most of them take the pledges because they feel peer pressure to do so or because they are told to take such a pledge in a church or youth group setting. And who wants to be the token kid that says "I'm not taking your stupid pledge, I'll decide when it's the right time for me."
Sort of makes me think about just how many of the girls being taken to "purity balls" by their pushy fathers really mean what they say either.
My niece took an abstinence pledge. The second she started dating her first very sweet boyfriend, I pulled her aside and told her that I didn't care what pledge she took, if she and her boyfriend started going "there" she needed to have a talk with me and/or her doctor. Two months later, we went to planned parenthood, got her on the pill and got her some condoms. She's now 18, no longer dating the young man and didn't have a baby because of a stupid pledge. Hallelujah.
I think one of my favorite parts of this study as discussed on the today show was the fact that
(1) 50% of the teens don't admit to having taken the pledge a year after taking it and
(2) 80% of them deny taking any sort of abstinence pledge 5 years later.
The sociologist pointed to the fact that many of these kids taking these pledges are not really doing it because they feel super strong about their own abstinence or virginity. Most of them take the pledges because they feel peer pressure to do so or because they are told to take such a pledge in a church or youth group setting. And who wants to be the token kid that says "I'm not taking your stupid pledge, I'll decide when it's the right time for me."
Sort of makes me think about just how many of the girls being taken to "purity balls" by their pushy fathers really mean what they say either.
My niece took an abstinence pledge. The second she started dating her first very sweet boyfriend, I pulled her aside and told her that I didn't care what pledge she took, if she and her boyfriend started going "there" she needed to have a talk with me and/or her doctor. Two months later, we went to planned parenthood, got her on the pill and got her some condoms. She's now 18, no longer dating the young man and didn't have a baby because of a stupid pledge. Hallelujah.
oh geez. Sorry about the TRIPLE post. Doh!
It is a really good post, and worthy of being posted thrice.
Not enough study or attention is given to see if girls who take the "virginity pledge" are doing so out of their own interests, or out of pressure from their parents.
As much as I am against minors having penetrative sex, I certainly am not against teaching teenagers how to obtain condoms and how to properly use them, and I am against pressuring children with shame as a means of implementing parental guidance.
I am against pressuring children with shame as a means of implementing parental guidance
However you would still shame your son or daughter by grounding and scolding them if they had sex at the age of 17 in a state where the legal age is 16, am I right?
Despite our disagreements on the above, I am with you in that I absolutely agree that parents should not be pressuring their children to make any promises or 'pledges' that they do not want to take voluntarily and from conclusions they reach on their own. Pressure and preaching don't tend to make teenagers react in the most appropriate ways.
Also anon, great post and very good. I think all teenagers need someone older than them who they feel they can talk to about these things. The MRA activists are all gung-ho about mentors for boys, but unfortunately I agree with them insofar as I think a sensible mentor is good for all kids whilst growing up. I was lucky enough that my mum was very open and honest with me about things like sexuality, so I could open up to her about everything.
Good work for taking the initiative with this teenager and ensuring that her (presumably) first experience of sex was a safe one.
Why do you consider grounding the same thing as shaming?
How else are we supposed to punish children?
The best thing about giving your children privileges (cell phone, car, evenings out, internet use, part time job, and etc) is that you can take them away if they defy your rules.
I am a parent, and I am going to have rules, one of which will be no (penetrative) sex before they (my children) turn 18 or graduate from high-school.
And you're planning to enforce this rule how? Motion detectors implanted in your children's orifices?
You'd just be encouraging your children to 1. look at penetrative sex as "forbidden fruit", and 2. lie to you about their desires and/or actions.
Wouldn't it be better to say, "I would prefer you avoid penetrative sex until you were 18, but I can't make that decision for you. The most important thing is being safe, respecting yourself, and respecting your partner."
"I would prefer you avoid penetrative sex until you were 18, but I can't make that decision for you. The most important thing is being safe, respecting yourself, and respecting your partner."
My only augmentation to that line would be.
I am against you having penetrative sex before you are 18, or graduate from high-school, but I can't make that decision for you. The most important thing is being safe, respecting yourself, and respecting your partner."
No high tech surveillance equipment, just groundings if I catch them, but don't worry, I won't go to unreasonable lengths to try catch them.
If you make a rule that you can't enforce, and your kids know you can't enforce it (unless they're dumb enough to have sex in your house), it will weaken every other rule you make.
Ultimately it's your business, but don't say we didn't warn you.
Well, the way I plan to parent worked for my parents, worked for their parents, and has worked for millions of other western, middle class families.
Not every minor has sex, and not everyone had sex when they were minors; I didn't.
There is ample evidence that good parenting does discourage minors from having sex.
Yeah, you are right; we will see how good of a parent I will be. So far I have confidence in my abilities, and I believe my children do as well.
And I could care less what you think of my parenting ability, ShifterCat
"I am going to have rules, one of which will be no (penetrative) sex before they (my children) turn 18 or graduate from high-school."
Perfect way to make sure your children don't come to you if they decide to engage in sexual activity anyhow. I hope they have another adult that can guide them in the event they make that decision. I also hope the first time you do discover your children are having penetrative sex isn't after they become pregnant/impregnate someone. I think it's perfectly reasonable to want your children to wait until they are legal adults to engage in behavior with such serious consequences, but forbidding it is a good way to shut down communication with you.
You know what parents hate more than anything else?
Criticism from non-parents.
You don't know my kids, and I doubt you know any kids, so don't pretend that you do.
Svutlov,
You sound just like my parents. You know what happened to me? My first relationship freshman year of college was sort of sexually abusive, and I chose not to come talk to my parents about it because I'd felt like sex and sexuality was sort of this taboo issue in my house (not talking about in the abstract but the reality of ME actually being sexual), and plus they'd always made it sound like once I reached a certain age and chose a partner who seemed respectful everything would magically be okay sexually, so I felt kind of like there was some personal failing on my part.
When children choose not to talk to their parents about their most intimate problems, it's really easy for the parent to decide whatever they're doing is working okay. And I know many peers of mine who have been in similar positions as regards their personal issues and their parents.
THAT is the "typical western parenting" you refer to, actually. In American culture parents and kids don't discuss sex very much and are just sort of mutually uncomfortable at that prospect, UNLIKE many other places in the world.
trust me.
Sex and sexuality is not a taboo subject in my house.
I am an outspoken advocate for gays serving openly in the military, I write pages about sex and sexuality everyday, have hours long conversations with my wife about sex everyday, and give sex advice to my friends everyday; do you think I could not talk about sex with my kids?
My kids know more about sex then a lot of adults do.
But I am still against minors having (penetrative) sex.
I once saw a TV clip about those "purity balls" that Anon mentioned. The girls had to stand up and look their fathers straigt in the eye and promise to remain sexually pure until marrage. Eww. A father having control over his daughter's sexuality seems incestuous to me.
And I've never heard about a purity ball for young men. It seem like these families only care about keeping their daughters "pure". Apparently the boys can run off and do whatever they want.
Apparently they do exist, but they're called "Integrity Balls", and the slant is more about not sullying someone else's future wife than it is about boys maintaining their own "sexual purity".
I read today in the Village Voice that a new study found that anal sex is on the rise amongst straight teenagers. Ok. Interesting. but, wait for it....
And some of the reasons that more teenagers are having anal sex is to please a partner, avoid pregnancy or preserve their virginity. I know, BLOWS YOUR MIND.
Let's leave the first reason alone for now-
I wonder if virginity pledges and bad/No Sex Ed classes have ANYTHING to do with the two other reasons? hmmm....
Leaving the marriage and pregnancy issue aside, I keep thinking that the religious fundamentals who keep pushing this stuff would be HORRIFIED to find out that their kids are having unorthodox, unholy, perverted "BUT TEH GAYZ DO IT" anal sex.
Maybe this is how we can convince them that Sex Ed is good? By feeding into their faked sexual "purity" and prejudice and telling them that
Lack of Sex Ed + virginity pledges = butt sex.
Actually I had a friend have sex for the first time drunk and anally at a party in college because she didn't want to loose her virginity.
My question to these first timers doing anal at a young age is are they using appropriate lubrication? I dunno, I was pretty clueless at that age and wouldn't think to get anal lubrication, or any lubrication for that matter, or know where to get it so the idea that young people are out there without the right lube sounds really painful, my friend used hand lotion.
Anyway, yeah, probably not the affect the parents are going for. Hopefully people will stop with the pledge nonsense, or at least couple it with some medically accurate sex education.
Yeah, Sex Ed is the really important part here. I have tons of issues with the concept of "virginity" and its value and even more with the virginity pledging crap but the real problem is that these kids are not getting good, medically accurate info, like you said.
I mean, i was joking a lot in my first post but the whole thing is actually pretty scary because these kids not only think that you can't get pregnant from anal sex, they also think you can't contract STDs.
Oh, and gay teens are much more likely to get pregnant than straight ones because they feel they have to conform to heteronormative sexual practices.
It amazes me that people are willing to risk the health of their children, and for what? Empty moral convictions based on fundamentalist religious beliefs? Blah.
As for the lube. Yeah, i don't know about that...that's a whole other can of worms - which is why i stayed away from that first reason that i listed in my first post. But I'm sure a lot of them are doing things wrong and I'm sure a lot of people are getting hurt....
it's sad, really.
And when i say "real problem", i mean imminent problem - i dont mean to imply that the virginity stuff is not important, because it definitely is.
Yeah, about a year ago I was joking around with my best friend about girls that think they're still virgins because they only have anal sex...then she told me that that's what she did. I was honestly shocked. I didn't know what to say except to tell her "You know, you're not a virgin then." To which she responded that she knew she wasn't a virgin now because she had had sex the good old fashioned way several times since, but the first time she would only let her boyfriend do anal. Still shocked (and it was apparent by the expression on my face) I asked why she let her boyfriend do that but not the other. She said that she wanted to stay a virgin and was afraid of disease and whatnot. I almost fainted. We grew up in the same town, went to the same schools, had the same sex ed classes and yet she still thought this??? I just quickly changed the subject and I haven't ever brought it up again...I mean, how do you tell your best friend you think what she just said to you is completely ridiculous and she needs to have her head examined? Did I mention we had this conversation when we were 25?
I hit "submit" too soon.
I am not at all bothered that some folks choose to avoid or de-emphasize PIV in their sex lives -- there are plenty of perfectly valid reasons for that. However, if women are doing it out of ignorance and misinformation, nobody wins. I went to high school in the late 1980s, in a progressive district scared by AIDS into levelling with us. We got a great video with real information, including that the anus was tight and dry, so that anal sex required both a condom and additional lube. I didn't appreciate it at the time, but we got great comprehensive sex ed. In theory maybe parents should do this at home, and some of us will -- my kids can turn red in the face all they want, but I'll tell them all the nuts and bolts in a safety context before the school does -- but so many parents are too embarrassed to do that that this is not a viable public health solution.
This post and thread reminded me that I've owed my health teacher an apology for two decades.
When I was 18, my then-boyfriend who was 8 years older than me told me that his best friend had anal sex on a first date because they didn't have condoms.
I was like, um, what exactly do the two things have to do with each other, because you can still get pregnant from anal sex.
He started howling in laughter and derided me for being so stupid, because "That's not the right hole!" (side note, yes, I DTMFA eventually)
When I said, "Let's humor you for a second and pretend you're correct, what about STDs?" he just gave me a blank look and said, "You do not get STDs up the butt."
To make matters worse, he was a biology major, which suggests some sort of basic knowledge about body tissue and diseases.
When I was 18, my then-boyfriend who was 8 years older than me told me that his best friend had anal sex on a first date because they didn't have condoms.
I was like, um, what exactly do the two things have to do with each other, because you can still get pregnant from anal sex.
He started howling in laughter and derided me for being so stupid, because "That's not the right hole!" (side note, yes, I DTMFA eventually)
When I said, "Let's humor you for a second and pretend you're correct, what about STDs?" he just gave me a blank look and said, "You do not get STDs up the butt."
To make matters worse, he was a biology major, which suggests some sort of basic knowledge about body tissue and diseases.
Hanne Blank, in her essay "The Process-Oriented Virgin" in Jessica and Jaclyn's book Yes Means Yes, makes what I think is a powerful argument for women defining their virginity themselves. The essay is not online, but I put my own take on Blank's essay on the Yes Means Yes blog, here, and Vanessa picked up on it here at Feministing.
I learned the horrible and disgusting phrase "virgin in the front, martyr in the rear" from one of the feministe bloggers. Apparently in her Catholic experience, a lot of girls would have anal before marriage to appease their boyfriends. I never came across this in my Catholic experience, but things are different everywhere, I guess. What's disgusting about the phrase is that is implies that girls are doing something so awful that they are martyrs for putting up with it. If the reality is that these girls are feeling pressured to put out, that is horrible. If they are enjoying every minute of it but have to act as though they are not, that is also horrible.
From personal experience, they don't work. They just made me feel guilty the first time I had sex. And i also was very ignorant when it came to different types of birth control. I was naive in that I thought I was going to get pregnant the first time I slept in a bed with a guy naked (no sex).
Teens will ultimately decide when they are ready on their own, usually with only two people in the room. I think the way to deal with that immutable situation is not to tell them when we think they are ready, but to give them a model to decide for themselves. My attempt at that is here.
Realistically, based on what I know about youth culture, especially in uneducated areas, and my personal experiences, I'm actually NOT sure it's more feasible to get kids to have always protected, mutually respectful and enjoyable sex vs. staying abstinent.
Because plenty of kids DO stay abstinent, for a variety of reasons.
And plenty of kids will be too embarassed to communicate openly and always use condoms, even if they know they should -plus there's always the partner to think about, who may or may not be an equally enlightened individual.
BUT, I think if you want kids to grow up to be adults with a healthy relationship to sexuality, the former approach (comprehensive sex ed) is the far better one.
Thing is, many of these fundamentalist Christians don't have what most liberals would consider a healthy relationship to sexuality as adults, it's just not on their priority list. So, I think it's quite difficult for the two sides to have a conversation.
The reason why abstinence training fails, it because it is a pledge not to have sex before marriage.
Girls who take the abstinence pledge, almost always under pressure from their parents, are left with the deal that they will only get one sexual partner for the rest of their lives that their parents will accept.
faced with that deal, why not start earlier rather than later?
I don't think it is that difficult to convince girls to wait until they are mature and independent to have (penetrative) sex, when you give them the assurance that when they are mature and independent they can have sex with however they want whenever they want.
With boys this is not so much of a problem, as most boys aint getting none until they have a job, a car, and a life, which usually doesn't happen till after they turn 18.
Boys just need to be taught they are getting none, unless the woman (not a girl) says "YES" while she is fully conscious and sober.
The message should be; "Listen girls, here's how you use condoms, but sex is a let more fun when you are fully mature and independent. After you finish high-school you can have sex with whoever you want, whenever you want."
Give that message, and I am sure the teen pregnancy rate and teen sexual exploitation rates will drop dramatically.