With Role Models Like These…

Parents frantic to get their kids to "Just Say No"
have been touting the effectiveness of "Virginity Pledges" where young
teens
sign symbolic contracts to remain virgins until marriage. The idea is
to cut down on teenage pregnancies, Sexually Transmitted Diseases and
single parenthood. Does it work? Is it worth it? Preliminary evidence
seems to show that pledge-signers have less fun but get in just as much
trouble…

PHILADELPHIA – Teenagers who make a one-time pledge to remain
virgins until marriage
catch sexually
transmitted
diseases
about
as often as those who don’t pledge abstinence, according to a study
of the sex lives of 12,000 adolescents.

Those who make a public pledge to delay also wind up having fewer sex
partners and get married earlier, the research shows. But the two
groups’ STD rates
were statistically similar.

No premarital sex? Earlier marriage? Fewer sex partners? That’s three
strikes against this policy, in the Dowbrigade book!

One of the problems, researchers found, is that virginity pledgers
are less likely to use condoms.

So that’s how come they have less sex but just as many STD’s. Pledge
signers are much less likely to be carrying protection in their wallet
or purse!

”It’s difficult to simultaneously prepare for sex and say you’re
not going to have sex,” said Peter Bearman, chairman of Columbia
University’s
sociology
department, who coauthored the study with Hannah Bruckner of
Yale University.

‘The message is really simple: `Just say no’ may work in the
short term but doesn’t work in the long term,” Bearman said.

From our experience, in many cases it doesn’t even work in the
short term.

from AP