NEW YORK (ABP) — True love often doesn't wait — and it frequently has difficulty with the “true” part, too, according to a new study.
Harvard University scholar Janet Rosenbaum, in an article published in the June issue of the American Journal of Public Health, reports that statistics about teenagers who take virginity pledges may be unreliable, because they often change their stories, over time, about what they pledged and whether they were virgins or not.
The study used research on more than 14,000 teenagers, surveyed in 1995, 1996 and again in 2001, in the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health. It tracked sexual histories of seventh- through twelfth-grade students.
It found, among other results:
— that 52 percent of respondents who took virginity pledges had retracted those pledges within a year
— that 73 percent of teens who, in the first survey, said they had taken a virginity pledge denied taking such a pledge by the second survey
— that nearly a third of those who reported being sexually active in the first survey, but who later took a virginity pledge, reported being virgins in the second survey.
Rosenbaum said the discrepancy could be because some people think the technically true answer — that they had engaged in sex, for instance — no longer represents them after their beliefs change.
“Psychology studies in a variety of contexts seem to demonstrate that people's memories of their behavior are consistent with their beliefs, rather than their actual behavior,” she told Reuters.
In any case, the study implies that some virginity studies provide unreliable data, Rosenbaum said in the report. Ultimately, she said, rationalizations made by teenagers who conveniently changed their recollections of sexual history could lead to greater risks for transmitting sexually transmitted diseases.
Critics of the study have questioned its reliability, while others have said its results call into question earlier studies on the effectiveness of abstinence pledges. Janice Crouse, a fellow with the pro-abstinence Concerned Women for America, said, “This study is in direct contradiction with trends we have been seeing in recent years,” according to the Los Angeles Times. “Those who make virginity pledges have shown greater resolve to save sex for marriage.”
J.T. Finn, who operates a pro-abstinence website, said even if the Harvard study is accurate, the bottom line is that America has a “crisis of sexual activity among teens.”
“Although some kids change their mind about their 'True Love Waits' commitment — often times because of peer pressures and temptations — that doesn't mean we should throw the baby out with the bath water,” Finn said, referring to a popular Southern Baptist-sponsored virginity pledge program. Finn's website, LoveMatters.com, provides pro-abstinence educational materials and news.
The bottom line, Finn said, is that too many teens have sex — and there are great benefits to saving sex for marriage. He said that most people who wait will say they're glad they did.
“Approximately one million teens get pregnant each year, and about half of these young girls have abortions,” Finn said. “And 12 million Americans get a new sexually transmitted disease each year. That's almost 33,000 people infected each day. I call that an epidemic.”
Rosenbaum told The Seattle Times that she wants her work to help public health workers understand the limitations of statistics based on what people say about their own behavior, and instead rely more on medical data when studying teen sexual behavior.
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— Robert Marus contributed to this story