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April 26, 2005
Public Vs. Private Virginity Pledges
"Adolescents who take public virginity pledges are just as likely to engage in sexual activity as those who do not, according to a study of Los Angeles and San Francisco teens."
The same study found that teens who made private virginity pledges were less likely to engage in oral sex or intercourse. The article stated that "formal pledges may fail if adolescents are simply responding to external pressures from parents or teachers, while private pledges usually result from their personal beliefs and are more likely to withstand external pressures from peers."
Posted on April 26, 2005 at 01:02 PM | Permalink
Comments
Back in the early 1990's there was a phase when girls were wearing "virginity rings". These were rings to remind themselves that they intended to stay chaste until married. A young teenage male I knew said that the male pressure for sex was much worse on these girls because the wearing of these rings set them up as targets. The young men would emotionally manipulate them for sex and then drop them once they succeeded. Among the males there were extra "points" scored among the young males if they could get these girls to have sex with them because they were a "challange". Perhaps some of that is also happening with the young girls who make public pledges.
Posted by: lee at Apr 26, 2005 2:10:09 PM
Oh, it's still going on. My cousin has one.
Posted by: Amanda at Apr 26, 2005 4:59:59 PM
Lee, I heard that too.
I have also heard that these girls tend to be easy targets for non-vaginal sexual acts, for obvious reasons.
Things like this, and abstinence-only education, are very distressing to kids who are not sexually active because they just plain old can't find partners. I have also heard of these pleges causing problems in some schools because - well, you know how teens can get passionate about things, and some kids were getting so in-your-face about their virginity status that it was cutting into classroom time.
When and if these girls do engage in teen sex, they are often so guilty, they cut loose and become very promiscuous.
Um, one other thing. Where are the virginity pledge rings for boys?
Posted by: kohoutekdriver8 at Apr 26, 2005 5:27:42 PM
"Where are the virginity pledge rings for boys?"
Oh, it's just for girls. There's no such thing as male promiscuity or males having sex "too early." Men not being virgins before marriage isn't taboo. The reason why people in the past always pressured girls to be virgins while entering the marriage-bed was to make sure that her husband would be the father of her child(ren).
Posted by: Pseudo-Adrienne at Apr 26, 2005 6:17:21 PM
There's no such thing as male promiscuity or males having sex "too early." Men not being virgins before marriage isn't taboo.
This is VERY sexist. I think there should be a virginity ring for guys, because it would be nice to know that they weren't with anyone else before us, that we're that special to them, that the men want us to be their first, sort of like a soul mate thing.
Posted by: ShadowHawk at Apr 26, 2005 10:16:03 PM
Uh, that was my point, ShadowHawk. Sarcasm, maybe?
Posted by: Pseudo-Adrienne at Apr 26, 2005 10:39:15 PM
I don't see why they needed a study to show what would seem obvious on the surface. Is there really anyone who couldn't have guessed that being pressured to do something publically as opposed to doing it willingly on your own, privately, would lead to people making a half-hearted commitment to something just to please other people?
Posted by: CrispCotton at Apr 26, 2005 11:03:26 PM
"The reason why people in the past always pressured girls to be virgins while entering the marriage-bed was to make sure that her husband would be the father of her child(ren)."
That probably did have something to do with it, and for damn good reasons...
"Oh, it's just for girls. There's no such thing as male promiscuity or males having sex "too early." Men not being virgins before marriage isn't taboo"
Apparently you've never visited a Christian bookstore...
Posted by: Blue Mako at Apr 27, 2005 2:34:49 AM
"Apparently you've never visited a Christian bookstore..."
Of course not. I'm not a Christian. But I've rarely heard of any sociocultural negativity directed torwards non-virginal guys marrying, or guys not being virgins period for that matter.
Posted by: Pseudo-Adrienne at Apr 27, 2005 7:16:49 AM
There are virginity pledges for boys as well, but the much-publicized rings aren't made in male sizes (as far as I know).
Don't forget that girls can be just as aggressive sexually as boys.
Posted by: kohoutekdriver8 at Apr 27, 2005 10:36:55 AM
There are pledges for the boys, but they are much more low-key and don't involve rings. Honestly, some girls seem to do it just because they want their parents to get them the fancy ring.
Posted by: Amanda at Apr 27, 2005 11:44:31 AM
Pseudo Adrienne: "The reason why people in the past always pressured girls to be virgins while entering the marriage-bed was to make sure that her husband would be the father of her child(ren)."
I used to believe that, but I was surprised to find out it wasn't true. In Colonial days many women were pregnant when they married. Sorry, I don't have any cites for that, but it stuck in my mind when I learned about it.
Posted by: Trish Wilson at Apr 27, 2005 11:50:15 AM
"I used to believe that, but I was surprised to find out it wasn't true. In Colonial days many women were pregnant when they married. Sorry, I don't have any cites for that, but it stuck in my mind when I learned about it."
Yes, that true but I read that MOST of them were pregnant by their future husbands...if they got married later, after the pregnancy, the men were fined if they admitted to being the father of the earlier child, so many would not sign off on the documents legitimizing their 'first' child...
Thus they got the homage of saving a fallen woman and no one knew (but the mother) that it was not true...kind of like that Scarlett Letter story.
I'm thinking that maybe women got married later then (I think I read that somewhere) and since divorce was rare perhaps they wanted to ensure the women were still capable of getting pregnant BEFORE they took on the burden of having married them...as you were responsible to provide for your wife after marriage...they might have even got this idea from the indians here as I read some American Indian tribes did the same thing...like allowed 'committed/engaged' whatever men and women to have sex and then they were married AFTER the woman got pregnant...
Just one weird thought about it...
I think Pseudo-Arienne MIGHT be right about earlier civilizations but not the American one...
Posted by: NYMOM at Apr 27, 2005 12:08:13 PM
"Don't forget that girls can be just as aggressive sexually as boys."
Yes, many MEN like to fantasize about this...
Posted by: at Apr 27, 2005 12:09:04 PM
"Honestly, some girls seem to do it just because they want their parents to get them the fancy ring."
Yes, this could be correct; especially since I heard once that some little girls are planning their wedding since they are 7 years old...
I wonder how that works out if styles change for wedding dresses...I mean flowers and jewelry to a certain extent are timeless...but dresses do have definite changes to them over time...
How would that play out in Texas do you think for the dressmaking industry????
Posted by: NYMOM at Apr 27, 2005 12:11:47 PM
What NYMOM writes above pretty much describes working class attitudes in NorthWest of England in Victorian times: it was if you get pregnant we marry, if you don't there's no harm done. This was kind of honoured as expected behaviour.
Posted by: Steve at Apr 27, 2005 12:13:39 PM
I think it was the same way in Ireland as well...maybe everywhere in Northern Europe, I'm not sure about Eastern and Southern Europe however...things might be a little tougher there regarding even getting married if you aren't a virgin.
Your husband can actually can bring you make home the day after you're wedding if he suspects you aren't a virgin...and that was as late as the 70s...maybe it's changed now...
Posted by: NYMOM at Apr 27, 2005 12:48:26 PM
You know what? I think this sort of thing is really backward and uncivilized. It seems to me that this publicizing of whether or not a woman's had sex as some sort of defining thing about her character is medieval. It is a lot like the old Middle Eastern traditions about having a midwife examine/break/certify/whatever the hymen of the woman before she goes in to the marriage bed which I always had a strong "gross" reaction to. What is with these people? Why on earth are girls supposed to go around advertising whether or not they have had sex? It just seems to make it so public and tacky. I don't try to impose my own fairly socially conservative social values on others and think there are some good points about experience before marriage but why should this be so out in the open either way?
It seems to me that the healthy way to approach sex is to practice it with your partner, try to make each other as happy as possible, and not to make a big public deal about it.
And if the fundie types who advocate this abstinence thing are so into female modesty why do they make the girls proclaim their lack of sexual experience at all? To me it's just as immodest as it would be to proclaim a great amount of experience. It is just something private. Yeargh.
Posted by: Anna in Cairo at Apr 27, 2005 4:07:47 PM
It all depends on the culture--some places allow for premarital sex, some don't. In Southern Europe in some parts it was once tradition to hang the wedding night bedsheets out so the community could verify there was blood on them.
Posted by: Amanda at Apr 27, 2005 4:54:23 PM
In regards to New England, see Laurel Thatcher Ulrich's book Good Wives.
She discusses the rise of "bundling" (sleeping or lying in bed together "fully clothed") in the late 18th century as the result of a breakdown in traditional external controls (the church, courts, parents) and before the "internal" controls associated with the 19c("Victorian virtue") came into play. According to Ulrich, premarital pregnancies increase every decade of the 18c until just before the American revolution. Ulrich sees it as a ritualized form of courtship, with marriage as the issue. It was often a way for a daughter to force her choice of a marriage partner against her parents' will.
See, ya can get an education here. Even in 18c American history no less!
Posted by: silverside at Apr 27, 2005 8:58:45 PM
"According to Ulrich, premarital pregnancies increase every decade of the 18c until just before the American revolution. Ulrich sees it as a ritualized form of courtship, with marriage as the issue. It was often a way for a daughter to force her choice of a marriage partner against her parents' will."
Now this is good...
AND very interesting, it actually sounds very likely as well...so I guess in Colonial America, things appeared a little more informal, whereas post revolutionary America they must have tightened up...Wars do that, with everybody reverting to very traditional roles...I understand that Israel, even though they have women in their armies, is in reality a very traditional society...
I guess it's the strain of constant warfare or terror (which is a form of war minus a formal army, I guess) that does it...
I think (until the last decade or so) women USED pregnancy as a negotiating tool to 'push, pull or drag by a chain' men to the altar...and it used to work...LOL...
Now it just doesn't...
I actually think a good number of the girls I went to high school with married through this method...That's why I frequently tell people it's not WOMEN who have changed anything about their behavior. We always got pregnant as a last ditch attempt to force a reluctent suitor into proposing marriage, IT'S MEN WHO HAVE CHANGED... and they are the ones who are refusing to fulfill their time-honored part of the social contract... but everyone keeps acting like it's women getting pregnant before marriage that is the source of the problem...
I guess women are still stuck using the same old methods that USED to work in the past, but don't anymore...so we have to accept that and just move forward...
So I guess the Christian Right's attempts to push virginity pacts until marriage is probably a waste of time...as they are looking at the problem from the wrong perspective...
Posted by: NYMOM at Apr 27, 2005 10:22:19 PM
I ain't no fundy, just a god-fearing, Sunday School-teaching Methodist. (Imagine that, and a feminazi too! Goodness gracious! Will wonders never cease!) One of my favorite Bible verses, one that the fundies seem to overlook a lot, is from Matthew 6:5-8. Won't quote it all here, but it does address the foolishness of public virginity pledges through an analogy to prayer. Within this context, Jesus recognized the hypocrisy associated loud prayers or "vain repetitions" uttered "in the corners of street" where they may be seen by others. That's why he urged his followers to pray from their own room "when thou has shut thy door." If only the televangelists and the virginity fetishists would heed His words!
Posted by: silverside at Apr 27, 2005 10:22:55 PM
This may be a bit off topic, but some people are very critical of people who choose not to have sex, and these people usually have serious issues with their own sexuality.
I do agree that it's really nobody else's business.
Posted by: kohoutekdriver8 at Apr 28, 2005 12:36:18 AM
Off topic, Amanda, what is up with Pandagon? Did you move it? I can't access it for 2 days now.
Posted by: Anna in Cairo at Apr 28, 2005 2:41:22 AM
NYMOM- Part of the old social contract is that if you married and/or created children with a woman you had to provide a home etc for that family. From that we've gone to you must create a home but you can be thrown out of it and still have to pay for it. Thats the unattractive part of the modern deal, especially as here in England a flat can cost 6 or 7 times a professional salary. Perhaps the problem is we can't financially afford the modern system we might otherwsie want. I would be interested to see how many couples in UK are staying together solely because of the impossibility of separation and providing 2 homes, as a consequence of the post-stock market collapse boom in price of domestic property, where prices have trebled in 7 years.
Posted by: Steve at Apr 28, 2005 10:37:36 AM
I had an uncle and aunt in southern California who decided that they couldn't afford to divorce, what with community property and the high cost of real estate, etc. So they functioned as roommates for years--didn't speak, just co-existed in the same structure till my uncle passed away a few years back. Was it worth it? Who knows.
Posted by: silverside at Apr 28, 2005 11:00:23 AM
