Chastity Has Its Loopholes

C'mon, you gotta admit this is interesting. A study just came out:

Teens who pledge to remain virgins until marriage are more likely to take chances with other kinds of sex that increase the risk of sexually transmitted diseases, a study of 12,000 adolescents suggests.

The report by Yale and Columbia University researchers could help explain their earlier findings that teens who pledged abstinence are just as likely to have STDs as their peers.

The latest study, published in the April issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health, found that teens pledging virginity until marriage are more likely to have oral and anal sex than other teens who have not had intercourse. That behavior, however, "puts you at risk," said Hannah Brueckner, assistant professor of sociology at Yale and one of the study's authors.

Among virgins, boys who have pledged abstinence were four times more likely to have had anal sex, according to the study. Overall, pledgers were six times more likely to have oral sex than teens who have remained abstinent but not as part of a pledge. Study: Abstinence May Lead to Risky Acts

So, they find a loophole, you might say.

Look, people, the sensible thing is just to inform teens about what to do. Show 'em the video with the cucumber, let them learn how you actually buy a condom, how to open the package, how to put it on. It doesn't mean they're going to go out and do it right now. But if they do -- or this study suggests we can say when they do -- they'll at least know how to do it right.

This might be the ticket, right here:

Last year, the same research team found that 88 percent of teens who pledge abstinence end up having sex before marriage, compared with 99 percent of teens who do not make a pledge.

So, OK, twelve percent of the pledgers actually do wait until marriage, compared to one percent of the others. The Red part of the country will want to emphasize that.

But that "waiting till marriage" thing. It's one thing to wait until you're adult, or wait until you're in a long-term, loving relationship. But "waiting till marriage?" It sounds like what they're finding is that "waiting till marriage" is basically so hard to do that people find ways to, y'know, "do it" without, y'know, "doing it."