‘True Love’ proving successful

Teenagers who pledge to remain sexually abstinent until marriage are 34 percent less likely to have sex than those who do not take virginity vows, according to a study to be published in the American Journal of Sociology.
   
“Pledging decreases the risk of intercourse substantially and independently,” the study’s authors, Peter S. Bearman and Hannah Bruckner, wrote.
   
Bearman is professor of sociology and director of the Institute for Social and Economic Theory and Research at Columbia University, and Bruckner is assistant professor of sociology at Yale University.
   
“This is great news,” said Paul Turner, co-coordinator for True Love Waits, an international campaign that challenges teenagers and college students to remain sexually abstinent until marriage. The campaign is sponsored by LifeWay Christian Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention.
   
“Since the beginning of True Love Waits in 1993, we have believed pledges do make a difference,” Turner said. “We have witnessed the leveling off and decline of teen pregnancy since then because the latest CDC (Centers for Disease Control) report told us so. This study provides us with strong data that proves pledges do actually make a difference.”
   
The study, “Promising the Future: Virginity Pledges as they Affect the Transition to First Intercourse,”  appears in the January 2001 issue of The American Journal of Sociology, and was reported Jan. 4 in The New York Times and USA Today.
   
In his 1999 study, Bearman reports that 2.5 million teens in the United States have taken public virginity pledges; however, he believes that figure is closer to three million by now. His data was taken from a mid-1990 National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (popularly referred to as Add Health). By “weighting up” the number of teens who reported they had taken virginity pledges in the Add Health study, Bearman said, “It’s got to be over three million now. I think that’s a good number.”
   
Bearman pulled his research question from the earlier Add Health study that found teenagers who take pledges of virginity, have loving parents and regard religion and prayer as important are the least likely of all adolescents to report engaging in early sexual behavior.
   
The earlier research was conducted to identify risks to adolescent health and to pinpoint specific factors that might guard against those risks.
   
Bearman said he wanted to study how taking a virginity pledge alone would affect a teen’s sexual behavior.
   
“The biggest predictor to (having) sex is being in a romantic relationship,” he said. But teens who are in relationships and take abstinence pledges are less likely to have sexual relations than teens who don’t take the pledge, Bearman’s study found.
   
“A ‘pledger’ with four romantic partners has the same relative risk of sex as a ‘non-pledger’ with no romantic partners. That’s a huge effect,” he said.
   
The delayed effect of sexual intercourse is substantial and almost impossible to erase, he reported. “Taking a pledge delays intercourse for a long time.” In fact, Bearman said by age 15, half the teens in the study had already had sex. Those who took virginity vows usually held off for 18 more months. 
  
While the finding may not elicit a sigh of relief from many Christian parents, Turner reminds them that, in addition to taking a public stance on abstinence, a teen who takes a True Love Waits pledge is making a vow to God.
   
The covenant cards signed by teens state: “Believing that true love waits, I make a commitment to God, myself, my family, my friends, my future mate and my future children to be sexually abstinent from this day until the day I enter a biblical marriage relationship.” (BP)