Allow me to introduce you to a study you will be hearing misquoted and taken out of context by idiots for the next decade forever. A “scientist” with an obvious chip on her shoulder named Janet Elise Rosenbaum from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health has published a study that lead to a lot of important sounding headlines. Headlines that she has been happy to not correct because they play into exactly the political point she obviously wanted to make.
Here is the only part most people will ever read…
Patient Teenagers? A Comparison of the Sexual Behavior of Virginity Pledgers and Matched Nonpledgers
CONCLUSIONS. The sexual behavior of virginity pledgers does not differ from that of closely matched nonpledgers, and pledgers are less likely to protect themselves from pregnancy and disease before marriage. Virginity pledges may not affect sexual behavior but may decrease the likelihood of taking precautions during sex. Clinicians should provide birth control information to all adolescents, especially virginity pledgers.
- PEDIATRICS Vol. 123 No. 1 January 2009, pp. e110-e120 (doi:10.1542/peds.2008-0407)
Sounds ominous right? Right! And in fact if we go to Google it all gets deeply stupid with the screaming. Enjoy the results yourself by clicking on this screen you see with this article. Since most people will only read the results page and / or the abstract as filtered through some blog, this gives you an idea of the bullshit you will hear from now on.
Now let’s put our IQ’s back on and look at what is actually shown in the study.
- Does it say that “pledgers” are as sexually active as the baseline US teen? No
- Does it show that “pledgers” get pregnant as often as your normal US teen? No
- Does it say that “pledgers” get more STD’s or have riskier sex? No
In fact in order to get the results she so clearly was fishing for Rosenbaum had to compare those teens who took a virginity pledge with a very, very specific group of other teenagers.
In fact, the only way the study’s author, Janet Elise Rosenbaum of Johns Hopkins University, could reach such results was by comparing teens who take a virginity pledge with a very small subset of other teens: those who are just as religious and conservative as the pledge-takers. – William McGurn in the WSJ online
In reality, compared to the normal teenager those teens who take a virginity pledge and those teens who live in similar households but do not take the pledge both fare much better. What the study really shows is that whether or not they take a “pledge” that teens in households raised with strong religious or conservative attitudes have less sex, less disease and less pregnancy than teens that do not*.
Of course, that doesn’t make good headlines or get folks big grant money, so don’t expect to hear it. Especially when you can put up a headline / story like this one…
Virginity Pledge Teens Just As Sexually Active But Use Less Protection
American teenagers who take virginity pledges promising they will not have sex before marriage are just as likely to be sexually active as non-pledgers and moreover are less likely to protect themselves against pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases said a scientist who recommended that all teenagers, especially pledgers, should receive birth control advice.
Hell, putting aside a good headline for the truth would be like… journalism. And we couldn’t have that.
* note: So not only is it way hotter to get someone to break a pledge like that, but she probably will probably be pretty safe, STD wise… also Catholic School Skirts… BONUS!
sry i just know how to write my name in arabic
) anyway however my english not that good but i think i get the point. thanks