The results, published in the journal Pediatrics, suggest that virginity “pledgers” are less likely to protect themselves against pregnancy or other sex-related diseases when they do have sex.

 

Researchers have concluded that virginity pledges may not significantly affect teenagers' sexual behavior. Instead, they may decrease the likelihood of teenagers taking precautions, such as using a condom or using birth control, when they do have sex. The federal government spends about $200 million annually on abstinence promotion program, a program which includes virginity pledges.

 

Previous studies have shown that virginity pledges can delay sex, but researchers say that those studies did not account for pre-existing differences between pledgers and non-pledgers. Researchers have compared the sexual behavior of 289 teenagers who reported taking a virginity pledge in a 1996 national survey to 645 non-pledgers who were matched on more than 100 factors, such as attitudes toward sex and birth control.

 

Five years after taking the virginity pledge, 82% of the pledgers denied ever having taken the pledge and they had 0.1 fewer sexual partners in the past year, but did not differ from non-pledgers in the number of lifetime sexual partners and the age of first sex. Other analysts say these results suggest that health care providers should provide birth control information to all teenagers, especially virginity pledgers, in order for them to avoid unwanted pregnancies.

 

All in all, it can be said that teenagers who promise to remain virgins until marriage are just as likely to have sex before that as those who don't take any pledge in the first place. It remains to be seen what further studies will prove, because this is a much-discussed subject.