Virgin hair lines; An American study reveals the fundamental

WHAT did we learn about teenage sex from the study of "virginity pledges" by America's National Institute of Child Health and Human Development? Nothing new; all of it depressing. And the stuff that wasn't there, the data between the lines? So infuriating, it makes me want to cry. The big news, the juicy part of the recently released study, was very high-concept. The virginity pledge movement, brainchild of the Southern Baptist Church and favourite fad of teen mags ("Virginity is hot," said Young and Modern magazine in an issue featuring the 100 secrets of Leonardo DiCaprio), has been a resounding success, according to the study's chief researchers. Pledgers, announces the study, postpone first-time sexual intercourse for an average of 18 months longer than non-pledgers.

This is heavenly news for Jimmy Hester, co-ordinator of the True Love Waits campaign. He told the New York Times that the report was great news since it proves that pledges do make a difference. On first reading, there is a hint of the positive for those who might disagree with Hester about sex out of wedlock. "Surely," even the most liberal parents will mutter, "it is best if a teen-ager postpones sex for as long as possible, even if true love doesn't wait for the sanctity of marriage."

But this wishful thinking must die - gruesomely - in a hail of caveats. The first concerns why teenagers take, or don't take, the virginity pledge. According to the report, kids will only pledge to stay virgins until marriage if it is "cool", which usually means that other kids are taking the pledge. But kids won't take the pledge if so many other kids are pledging virginity that it is "uncool".

In other words, a virginity pledge, like glitter powder and Gap sweatshirts, is based on the painfully self-conscious surrender of self and not, as Hester wants to believe, on the early adoption of family values. It ceases to be attractive when Leo expresses a preference for sex or when virginity is no longer "hot" or so "hot" that it becomes "uncool". (Nothing is said in the study about the troubling possibility that the young respondents to the survey, wishing, as always, to be "cool", might have lied on their questionnaires about making the pledge.) The average delay incurred by the virginity pledge, reports the study, tends to be about 18 months - marriage appears not to be a factor. And then there's the part about how the pledge works best among 15 to17-year-olds (not so well among 18-year-olds) and that it helps if the pledger is religious, of Asian ancestry, in a romantic relationship or less advanced in pubertal development. (Pause here for the adolescent - pledger or non - to utter: "Duh!") And finally - whoops! - when pledgers break their pledges they have a tendency to have unsafe sex. Researchers suggest that since the pledgers promised not to have sex, when they finally do, they haven't done much planning and are unlikely to use contraception. (Another favourite footnote here: "That pledgers who have sex are likely to be contraceptively unprepared is to be expected, for it is hard to imagine how one could both pledge to be a virgin until marriage and carry a condom while unmarried.") The results so far: a very young girl who wants very much to be cool will promise to stay a virgin until marriage as long as it is cool and may postpone sexual intercourse for about 18 months; but when she decides it isn't cool to keep the pledge she is more likely than the uncool non-pledgers to get pregnant and/or a sexually-transmitted disease.

But, there's more.

Researchers only asked their subjects about vaginal intercourse. They did not ask about othere forms of sexual activity, which recent studies indicate are reported at high rates among teenagers, more and more of whom believe that oral and anal sex can be indulged in without relinquishing one's virginity. In fact, a recent study by the Urban Institute focused on the sexual practices of 3000 15 to 19- year-old boys and found that two-thirds of them had experience with oral sex, anal intercourse or masturbation by a female. The first two behaviours put the participants at risk of getting sexually transmitted diseases, though few of the respondents were aware of that. Most of those interviewed said they did not consider their activities to constitute "sex" - in fact, many felt oral sex qualified as abstinent behaviour.

So, the pledgers who, according to the study, jealously guarded their "virginity" for an average of 18 months longer than non- pledgers could well have been having sex of another kind - every other kind - for years before "breaking" their pledge.

Didn't we cover this? Didn't we denounce this? Wasn't Bill Clinton guilty of sexual relations with "that woman" even though he personally believed that he was dutifully maintaining his own virginity pledge?

How can it be morally acceptable to indulge in sex that involves complicating intimacy, not to mention sexually transmitted diseases, as long as one is "intact" on the wedding night? And why, oh why, would a federal agency conduct a study in such a way as to blindly honour a duplicitous and deeply sexist definition of virginity?

But that, alas, is not the worst of it. That is not the part that makes me want to cry.

The part I hate most in this study is the unwritten part, the part that pompously assumes that teenagers are not entitled to intimacy, to pleasure, to education or to a sense of self. The part that is dangerous and sad implies that a "virginity pledge" is "effective" in dealing with teen pregnancy, sexually-transmitted diseases and participation in other "risk" activities like smoking, drinking and substance abuse but fails to acknowledge the role of the pledge movement in promoting oral and anal sex among teenagers while denying them any education about either. The part that is sneaky and amazing perpetuates the concept of "technical virginity", a state that is likely to be just as confusing and burdensome for a 16-year-old as sexual intercourse, if not more so given its uncomfortable and much- talked-about proximity to untruth.

What would be ineffective about a pledge to have safe sex motivated by what feels like love or desire? What could be wrong about acknowledging a teenager's emotional intelligence and need for intimacy? Would it hurt to bestow some respect and sex education on people who are engaging in sex, regardless of what they write on an invasive questionnaire designed to measure their moral rectitude? How could researchers who ostensibly care about adolescents insist that they are incapable of informed decisions? How could they endorse the idea that love and intimacy should be postponed - not until an unspecific age of maturity has been reached but until marriage, regardless of when it happens?

I agree with the authors of this report that teenagers should not engage in unwanted sexual activity. Nobody should engage in unwanted sexual activity. What a shame, though, that they don't expose the "virginity pledge" for what it is: a sexist, guilt-driven campaign of terror that fosters frightened conformity in adolescents, as well as high-risk sexual behaviour and dishonesty.

Jennifer Foote Sweeney is a leading US writer on family issues Next week: with the controversial prospect of the morning-after Pill being available in Scottish schools, we report on attitudes towards teenage sexuality in Scotland.

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