

Premarital Abstinence Pledges Ineffective, Study Finds - fallentimes
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/28/AR2008122801588.html?hpid=moreheadlines

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TomOfTTB
I've never thought highly of abstinence pledges. I mean, a pledge requires a
person to put rational thought over emotion which is not something teenagers
are known to be good at.

How many kids "pledge" not to try drugs? Or "pledge" to always do their
chores? Or "pledge" to be home at a certain hour? All these are examples of
weaker temptations than sex and teenagers still break them.

That said, I'm weary of these results being this researcher clearly has an
agenda (she's written about the topic several times now and keeps a related
blog). I've found statisticians who go into a survey wanting to draw a
specific conclusion tend to draw that conclusion regardless of whether it's
true or not. Especially when their sample size is so small.

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likpok
Research has shown that abstinence doesn't really work so well. There was a
study that showed that abstinence only sex-ed lead to no change in the median
initial age for sex.

In fact, abstinence education has led to a rise in anal sex among straight
teens (it's not real sex, and is perfectly safe).

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markessien
It's silly to try to moderate or influence sexual behaviour of animals, and
it's unethical to try to restrain natural animal behaviour. If you see a
primate of prime mating age priming to mate, get out of the way and let them
do their thing.

The only time we should step in is when other things we invent cause this
behaviour, in which case it becomes unnatural. For example, alcohol or drugs.

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electromagnetic
This is positively the least shocking news I've heard all day.

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fallentimes
Agreed. The fact that all these tools take such pledges slays me.

The sad part is how many of the states' school's systems still teach
abstinence as a form of safe sex instead of actually teaching safe sex.

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speek
Why not both?

Condoms are good most of the time, but in order to have 100% foolproof safety
one would have to not have sex at all.

Redundant forms of birth control add more 9s to the end of 99.9, but there's
still that possibility that one would get pregnant.

And then there's the whole STI(STD) issue. The only way to make sure that you
don't get them is to not have sex, but that's not exactly fun, right?

Proper birth control _should_ be taught in _all_ schools, not just public
schools but also private schools.

Don't be a fool, wrap your tool.

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GHFigs
I think we need further studies, as I find it hard to believe that peer
pressure and misinformation are unable to nullify biological imperative.

