Virginity pledges alone may not decrease teenagers’ sexual behavior. Instead, they may decrease their sex safe practices, according to the January issue of Pediatrics.

Population and family health researcher Janet Elise Rosenbaum, of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found that pledges were 10 percent less likely than non-pledgers to use a condom or any form of birth control.

“In Chicago there are real questions about what teens know and what they’re doing,” said Dr. Melissa Gilliam, chief of the Division of Family Planning and Contraceptive Research at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine, who was not involved in the study. “This gives us information on how those two are related.”

Using data from a 1996 National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, Rosenbaum compared the sexual behaviors of 289 teenagers who reported taking a verbal or written virginity pledge with 645 non-pledgers with similar religious or conservative views. Five years after their pledges, the two groups did not differ in rates of premarital sex, sexually transmitted infections or oral or anal sex practices.

Gilliam said that the pledges' failures show in the rising cases of sexually transmitted infections and teen pregnancy.  Chlamydia infections recently hit a record million-plus new cases annually, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Meanwhile, national teen pregnancy rates have increased for the first time since 1991—up 2 percent in Illinois.

Abstinence Education Under Fire

Mounting research contends that the trends are upshots of the abstinence-only education that teens—and even children—receive before signing their virginity pledges.

“If a condom won’t protect you from AIDS what’s the point,” Gilliam said. “That’s what some of these kids are hearing.”

Although nearly half of states have so far refused Title V abstinence education funding, Illinois accepts $1.6 million per year through the program. The funds go directly to the Illinois Department of Human Services, which then allocates the money to 30 community-based organizations that provide abstinence education throughout the state.

“We are federally funded and our grant is abstinence-based,” said Joe Gonzalez, program coordinator for Caris Prevention Services, an abstinence-only program that visits Chicago area schools. The weeklong program focuses on abstinence as 100 percent effective in preventing sexually transmitted infections and pregnancy as well as “heartbreak” and potential psychological consequences, Gonzalez said.

“Abstinence isn’t a choice that everyone’s going to make. Just because people choose to do it [have sex], doesn’t mean our message is going to change,” Gonzalez said. That message does not include showing students how to use a condom.

Rosenbaum says the study’s findings prove that sex education has to change to protect teens and young adults.

“In my family sex was never really discussed,” said Northwestern University senior student Bethany Smith (not her real name), 22, a Roman Catholic whose parents focused on the religious significance of abstinence as opposed to safe sex practices in case sex came earlier. And for her, like many, sex did come earlier than planned. Her safe sex knowledge came largely from the media, her friends and her gynecologist.

Gilliam stressed, though, that parents shouldn’t depend on outside sources to have the safe sex talk with their children. Open communication—not silence—between teens and parents decreases rates of teen pregnancy.

Moving On, Fitting In

“A lot can change in five years,” Rosenbaum said. “They [the pledgers] have left home, their social groups have changed.”

Peer groups made the largest difference to Smith, who chose to end her abstinence pledge a year ago after joining a new social group.

“For the first time I had friends with whom sex wasn’t a taboo topic,” Smith said. “I felt relieved.”

But for Chicago native Justin Biehl, 20, his peer groups have largely remained the same since he made the pledge in his Christian middle school. He is currently a sophomore at Grace College, a Christian school in Northern Indiana.

“Most of my friends are also choosing to not have sex before marriage. But I do have friends who are not Christians, and although many of them seem surprised that I’m choosing to ‘miss out’ on something like sex,” he laughed, “many of them respect it anyway.”

It’s within these groups that Rosenbaum believes teens will opt out of birth control measures out of fear that peers will think that “they are asking for it [sex].”

Teens’ need for acceptance with both friends and family is another key finding in the study. She found that five years after taking their pledges, 82 percent of pledgers denied having taken them. So even if teens are taking the pledges, they aren’t always internalizing them. The larger the group making pledges, the less likely they are to keep them, according to Gilliam.

“When you’re Catholic you’ll sign seven or eight of those things in your lifetime,” Smith said. “For some, it meant something. For others, it didn’t. It was just what everyone did.”

Despite pressures from past boyfriends—even ones who had taken the pledge—Smith stuck to her promise until she was ready to make the personal decision to have sex within a significant relationship. But that resolve can be rare, as many girls do not feel like they have control over when they have sex or if they have sex with a condom. Gilliam said the study shows that sex education needs to empower girls to protect themselves.

Despite sexual pressures on girls, an erotically charged culture encourages male pledgers to break their promises, too. Sexualization of shampoo commercials to female fashion trends can make virginity pledges difficult for visually oriented boys, Biehl said. The perception that male virility is “normal” doesn’t help either.

Whether from parents, friends, sex education or other sources, teens internalize what they perceive as normal, Gilliam said. Support can make the largest difference in if teens choose to abstain, or, if they have sex, choose to use condoms and birth control.