Abstinence Pledges Usually Broken

So-called "virginity pledges" don't seem to have much effect on
whether or not people have sex before marriage, according to a
study.

Angela Lipsitz, a psychology professor at Northern Kentucky
University, and her colleagues surveyed 527 college students and found 16
percent had taken a pledge to abstain from sex before marriage. Of those,
61 percent broke the pledge the following year.

The study also found that some 50 percent of the students who said
they'd kept their oath regularly engaged in oral sex. "They think that
oral sex doesn't count," says Lipsitz, who presented the findings at the
annual meeting of the American Psychological Society.

Although Lipsitz contends that virginity pledges are likely to
delay sex, she also says that when young adults do decide to have
intercourse, they are not prepared to do it safely. Students who vow not
to have sex aren't likely to have any kind of birth control on hand when
they change their mind.