Ed Vitagliano
AFA Journal news editor
June 2003 – The conflict over sex education in public schools is one of the most bitterly contested battles of the culture war, frequently dividing state legislatures, communities and local school boards.
Nothing is simple or clear-cut when it comes to the problems that sex education is meant to solve: sexual activity among teens and the myriad of consequences resulting from it. Neither are there simple answers when it comes to choosing which perspective on sex ed is most useful – that of the “safe sex” crowd, which relies on the use of condoms, (See related article, here.) or the promoters of abstinence.
However, in the battle over what to teach kids about sex in school, our culture may be missing the obvious: the best place may be off school grounds entirely.
Abstinence to the rescue?
That is not to say that there shouldn’t be a debate on the success of abstinence programs in the school. And there is room for debate. To be fair, the research on abstinence-only education has not demonstrated its effectiveness beyond all doubt.
For example, in a cover story on abstinence, Newsweek spot-lighted the data gathered by researcher Stan Weed, who examined four abstinence-only programs in Virginia. Weed found that two of the programs reduced the rate of teens losing their virginity by 65%, while the other two appeared to have no effect.
The difficulty in appraising the value of some abstinence programs, however, may be due to the fact that not all abstinence messages are the same. While some books and materials teach kids how to remain abstinent until marriage, others reflect the belief that abstinence refers only to a lack of intercourse. Such materials recommend “outercourse” (having sexual encounters while fully clothed) and even mutual masturbation as part of their abstinence message.
Nevertheless, study results are beginning to tip the scales in favor of abstinence education. Two years ago the American Journal of Sociology published a government-funded study on teens pledging to remain abstinent. Researchers from Columbia and Yale universities found that adolescents who pledged to remain abstinent actually delayed their first intercourse for three years longer than teens who did not make such a pledge.
According to World magazine, even the Alan Guttmacher Institute, which is the research arm of Planned Parenthood, has been forced, at times, to admit that abstinence works. Its own research found that an abstinence program in Atlanta public schools reduced sexual initiation rates among 8th-graders for both boys (by 60%) and girls (95%).
In April of this year the Physicians Consortium, a coalition of state-based physicians groups representing more than 2,000 practicing doctors, published a four-year study on abstinence in the Journal of Adolescent and Family Health. The study examined data pertaining to the drop in the birth and pregnancy rates of teens between 1991-1995, and found that “abstinence accounted for 100% of the decline in the teen birth rate and 67% of the decline in the pregnancy rate to single teens” during that time frame.
What really matters
Beyond what kids are taught in school, however, is what they are taught at home and church. According to a growing body of research, parents and religious beliefs are a potent one-two combination when it comes to influencing a teen’s decisions about whether or not to have sex.
A study conducted at Fordham University, for example, established a relationship between the strength of a college freshman’s religious faith and sexual experimentation. The study, published in a 2000 issue of the Journal of Adolescence, found that students “who strongly identify with religious teachings and traditions” were “less likely to engage in … sexual activity.”
Another study performed at the University of Otago in New Zealand demonstrated the same relationship. Examining the data collected from over 1,000 men and women, researchers could not find any differences between 21-year-olds who were abstinent and those who had become sexually active – except one: religious faith. According to The Family in America, the study found that “persistent religious involvement showed the strongest relationship with abstinence.”
Pat Ware of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy agreed. Citing a report released by that organization, Ware said, “We found that religion plays a very positive role in the lives of young people – what we call a ‘protective factor.’ The more frequently a young person attends worship services, the more likely that person is to delay sexual involvement.”
A study released this year by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) also found this link. According to a NIH press release, the study found that “religion reduces the likelihood of adolescents engaging in early sex by shaping their attitudes and beliefs about sexual activity.” The reason? The NIH said it was “largely because their religious views lead them to view the consequences of having sex negatively.”
On the other hand, the study found that, “for both girls and boys, more permissive attitudes – meaning more positive or favorable – toward sex increased the likelihood that they would have sex.”
Factoring permissive attitudes into this equation leads to what is perhaps the most critical determinant for teenage sexuality: the involvement of parents. A study published in the Alan Guttmacher Institute’s Family Planning Perspectives showed that parents can best keep their teens from becoming sexually active by doing three things: maintaining a warm and loving relationship with their children; letting teens know that they are expected to abstain from sex until marriage; and avoiding the discussion of birth control.
Psychology professor James Jaccard of State University of New York at Albany and his fellow researchers found that each of these factors by themselves doubled the chance that a teen would abstain from sex. But parents who did all three influenced their kids so strongly that their teenagers were twelve-and-a-half times more likely to remain virgins.
Two studies published last year in the Journal of Adolescent Health found a similar relationship between parent-teen relationships and teen sex. In one study, researchers at the University of Minnesota examined data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, a regular federal survey involving tens of thousands of American teens. The results showed that girls who had been close to their mothers – and whose moms clearly articulated parental disapproval about teen sex – were more likely to avoid or at least postpone sexual activity than those girls who felt less connected with their moms. (The effect of fathers on those girls was not examined by either study.)
The other study, conducted in 2000 and also based upon National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health data, showed comparable results. The research determined that the moms of girls who were still virgins tended to know where their daughters were when not at home, knew their daughter’s friends, and insisted on things like shared family mealtimes.
Commenting on the corresponding conclusions reached by a government study released in 2000, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention psychologist Daniel Whitaker said, “A lot of parents are afraid to talk [to their kids about sex] because they think they might say the wrong thing. But this suggests you should try to communicate your beliefs openly.”
Parental involvement in teaching their kids about sex may even increase the effectiveness of abstinence-only classes taught in school. Researchers, led by Susan M. Blake of the George Washington University Medical School, split more than 350 eighth-graders into two groups. One received five abstinence-only sex education classes in school, while the other received the same instruction in school plus sexuality homework assignments to be completed with parental help. According to USA Today, the results, published in Family Planning Perspectives, showed that the kids receiving parental assistance said they felt more prepared to resist sexual pressure and indicated a firmer desire to remain abstinent than the other group of teens.
In fact, some of the most successful abstinence-only approaches actually teach kids more than simply, “Just say no to sex.” In addition to a strong abstinence message, these programs are teaching character, self-discipline, and responsibility, and giving them information on how to make commitments and resist pressure. (See AFA Journal, 5/03.) These are the very things kids would presumably be learning from involved parents.
Studies such as these indicate that parents who are involved in their kids’ lives, and who confidently transmit their religious and moral values to their children, have the greatest success in preventing risky and immoral behavior.
That reality may mean that the battles being fought in public schools over sex education, while important, may be missing the point. Questions about sex outside marriage flow directly from issues of morality – and those are best handled in the two places best equipped to do so: the home and church. 
