The Virginity Pledge is something of a
fad these days with
teen magazines. Started by the
Southern Baptist Church, the
Virginity Pledge Movement involves young people signing pledges stating that they will not have sex until they are
married.
There's been a big stink lately about teenagers who pledge to be celibate until marriage and how a survey by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development found that, on average, teens who take the pledge postpone having sex for 18 months longer than those who don't pledge. Parents are apparently rejoicing at this news because, hooray, here's a way to keep little Johnny and Suzy from going at it like monkies before they leave home.
Can I get a big "bullshit" from everyone? Thanks.
The media, even with their impeccable record, didn't quite report the whole story. The survey had quite a few caveats, and apparently those who reported the story in a somewhat postitive light didn't quite read the whole thing. Kids will only make the pledge if it's cool to do so, the report said. "The pledge works because it is embedded in an identity movement. Consequently, like other identity movements, the pledge identity is relatively fragile and meaningful only in contexts where it is at least partially non-normative."
Have parents forgotten that, no matter what kids may say their intentions are, the willingness to have sex is, more often than not, purely contextual? There are those individuals like myself who have the special combination of strength of conviction and lack of opportunity to have been able to hang on to their virginity for a long time (thank god I finally wised-up and got rid of it), but a lot of people have sex for the first time in high school. The ones that expect sex are bound to be more prepared for it. The report even stated that the pledgers, when they do break their pledge, are more likely to have unsafe sex. If you've pledged not to have sex before marriage, you'd look pretty silly carrying a condom around everywhere, wouldn't you?
Sex happens to good people all the time, and sometimes they don't expect it. All it takes is the right mood and the right person.
If I were a parent, I'd rather my kids didn't delude themselves with a pledge which is really just a pipe dream. Denying yourself out-of-wedlock sex is such a social abnormality these days that there's little chance they'd be able to go through with it.
I'd rather they just promise me that they'll know when not to have sex. At least that would indicate their willingness to use their own intelligence rather than just stick their fingers in their ears and pretend that sex has gone away.