Yale and Columbia Universities have released a study which shows that teens who take virginity pledges aren't any less likely to catch sexually transmitted diseases than teens that don't make the pledge. The pledging teens may wait longer before having sex, but when they do, they're less likely to use a condom and are more likely to experiment with riskier sexual behavior.

"Virginity pledges emerged in the early 1990s based on the theory that young people would remain chaste if they had stronger community support - or pressure - to remain abstinent. Programs vary, but in most cases teenagers voluntarily sign a pledge or publicly announce their intention to abstain from sex."

Over 60% of the young people who participated in the survey-based study and took virginity pledges reported having sex before they were married. Additionally, just 2% of teens who didn't take virginity pledges said they had had anal or oral sex, as opposed to 13% of those who had taken the pledges. Read more at WashingtonPost.com.

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Labels: abstinence, risky_behaviors, sex