Politics Silver Ring Thing

[Julia_Thorne_]

Silver Ring Thing Homepage
what is your opinion on it?

 

[the_alliance]

it's not just a "religious" alternative, it's the alternative. it's a bit more effective than condoms in preventing pregnancies and much more effective than other methods. it's an option that many religions do support, but it doesn't mean it's just a religious thing.

 

[Julia_Thorne_]

never meant for it to be a religious matter. just thought this topic would belong here. anyways i'm totally for it and it is sooo much more effective than other methods.

 

[Jamison]

It's just abstaining, but with a lot more bells and whistles to it.

Sorry, I'm a bit of a cynic when it comes to this method. I know many people who took part in the silver ring thing with their churches and such, and while some have stayed abstinant others haven't. This certainly works for some, but not for all. I don't think this should be the only method taught, especially in schools.

And while not technically a religious organization, almost all of their upcoming events are at churches and the vast majority of the people I know who have taken part in it have done so through their churches.

 

[xdancer]

i was just doing some reading on STDs for my public policy class, and Issues for Debate in American Public Policy - Selections from the CQ Researcher had a little section on abstinence pledges. according to a study done by Columbia sociology professor Peter Bearman, and cited in this book, "[Virginity] pledgers were just as likely to have sexually transmitted diseases as non-pledgers. Communities in which 20% of teens had been pledgers had higher rates of STDs according to the study. The study also found that pledgers were less likelyto use condoms the first time they had intercourse, and were less likely to have ever been tested for an STD or to have seen a doctor over worry about an STD."

 

[Jamison]

i was just doing some reading on STDs for my public policy class, and Issues for Debate in American Public Policy - Selections from the CQ Researcher had a little section on abstinence pledges. according to a study done by Columbia sociology professor Peter Bearman, and cited in this book, "[Virginity] pledgers were just as likely to have sexually transmitted diseases as non-pledgers. Communities in which 20% of teens had been pledgers had higher rates of STDs according to the study. The study also found that pledgers were less likelyto use condoms the first time they had intercourse, and were less likely to have ever been tested for an STD or to have seen a doctor over worry about an STD."

Exactly. A big reason for this is that many people who take part in virginity pledges don't view oral sex in the same way as intercourse and take part in oral and anal sex without any protection.

 

[Itz tha Dreila]

Things like this do not help. If people want to have sex, they will and there's nothing anyone can do about it. So instead of teaching abstinence, PROVIDE frackin CONTRACEPTION! When will people get the point?

 

[the_alliance]

Things like this do not help. If people want to have sex, they will and there's nothing anyone can do about it. So instead of teaching abstinence, PROVIDE

CONTRACEPTION! When will people get the point?

again, abstinence and contraception are both important in sex ed.

 

[Julia_Thorne_]

ah... Family Life. images shown that a twelve year old should not see. fun fun. you guys ever have to see a little video called "The Miracle of Life"?

 

[Azhria Lilu]

I think abstinence-only education endangers the health of students.

I don’t have a problem with abstinence support programs, when in the context of comprehensive sex education, except that people should only enter into them if they are truly committed. The riskiest behavior occurs when people plan not to have sex but then change their minds, and thus don’t have effective (or any) protection and haven’t fully thought about its ramifications.

I thought I read somewhere that programs like this are effective in delaying the time when someone has sex (they wait until they are slightly older), but have no effect in them waiting until marriage and actually increases their risk of getting pregnant or getting a sexually transmitted infection (because, again, they’re less prepared).

 

[Jamison]

I thought I read somewhere that programs like this are effective in delaying the time when someone has sex (they wait until they are slightly older), but have no effect in them waiting until marriage and actually increases their risk of getting pregnant or getting a sexually transmitted infection (because, again, they’re less prepared).

You're correct. I don't remember the exact article or text, but we talked about this very thing in one of my current issues classes.

 

[SydneyAnneVaughn]

while this program is an effective concept for some, it's not quite the same for others. however, i happen to be one such person that went through a program like that and i've kept my abstinence pledge. my only problem is that i'd technically be breaking my pledge later in life because as a lesbian, i won't get to marry. but that's another topic in another thread...

anyway, i think part of the reason this program doesn't work is (1) the "tell me not to and i'll do it anyway" attitude that happens with most of the youth of America today, (2) the gay/lesbian issue, and (3) the lack of contraceptive education. just because you're promising to save yourself until marriage doesn't mean you'll know how to be safe about it once you get there!

 

[Jamison]

While this study doesn't specifically name "the silver ring thing", it is safe to assume that it was included in their testing of how well virginity pledges work.

"Virginity Pledges" by Adolescents May Bias Their Reports of Premarital Sex
Most Adolescents Disavowed Their Pledge Within a Year

For immediate release: Tuesday, May 2, 2006


Boston, MA -- Adolescents who sign a "virginity pledge" and then go on to have premarital sex are likely to disavow having signed such a pledge, according to an analysis of survey data by Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) researcher Janet Rosenbaum published in the advance online edition of the American Journal of Public Health's June 2006 issue. Conversely, adolescents who have had premarital sex and then decide to make a virginity pledge are likely to misreport their earlier sexual history. This misreporting of sexual experience will make it difficult to accurately assess virginity pledges’ effects on early sexual intercourse, according to the author.

Moreover, the fact that the majority of adolescents recanted their vows within a year may suggest that the virginity pledge programs have a high drop-out rate and that adolescents do not make a strong affiliation with the pledge, said the author.

Rosenbaum, a doctoral student in health policy at HSPH, examined data from 13,568 adolescents who participated in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, a survey sponsored by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the only large national study of its kind that has asked questions about virginity pledges, defined as "a public or written pledge to remain a virgin until marriage."

The analysis of this nationally representative sample compared respondents' reports of virginity pledges and sexual histories in an initial 1995 survey with their reports in a follow up survey a year later. The researcher looked for whether participants failed to report either a previously reported pledge or sexual experience during the second survey.

The conclusion was that adolescents inconsistently report their histories of sexual intercourse and that reports from virginity pledgers were less reliable than non-pledgers.

Recanting sexual experience: Almost one-third of non-virgins in the first survey who later took a virginity pledge recanted their experience with sexual intercourse in the second survey. Adolescents who took virginity pledges or who later became born-again Christians were more likely to repudiate their earlier reports of having been sexually active. Of teens who reported a sexual experience at the first survey, those who later took a virginity pledge were four times as likely to retract reports of sexual experience as those who still had not taken a pledge at the second survey.

Recanting virginity pledges: The analysis also found that 52 percent of adolescent virginity pledgers in the 1995 survey disavowed the virginity pledge at the next survey a year later. Additionally, 73 percent of virginity pledgers from the first survey who subsequently reported sexual intercourse denied in the second survey that they had ever pledged. Adolescents who end their affiliation with born-again Christianity or who had sexual intercourse were the groups most likely to deny their virginity pledges.

The author concludes that adolescents' self-reported history of sexual intercourse is an unreliable measure for studies of the effectiveness of virginity pledges. Moreover, the research suggests that teens’ pervasive recanting of sex makes general research on teen sexuality of particular difficulty. Most worrisome, said Rosenbaum, is that teens who do not acknowledge their sexually active past may perceive their new history as correct and will underestimate the sexually transmitted disease (STD) risk stemming from their prepledge sexual behavior. On average the retractors had more than two sexual partners.

"It's very tempting to craft stories about what may have been going on in these adolescents' minds as they changed their recollections," said Rosenbaum, "but survey data doesn't give us enough information to substantiate the stories. We can say that evaluating the effectiveness of virginity pledge programs is more difficult and complex than we may have thought. A better and more reliable measure than adolescents' self-reported sexual history might be the straightforward results of medical STD tests."

The project was funded in part by the Milton Fund of Harvard Medical School in a grant to HSPH Assistant Professor Michael Ganz.