Once again the media are caught with their, if you will excuse the pun, pants down. A study was released a week or so ago that claimed there is no difference in the initial onset of sex between teenagers who took abstinence pledges and other teenagers. Sounds bad for promoting sexual restraint, doesn’t it? Not so fast. It turns out that the study actually compared religious conservative teens who took the pledge and religious conservative teens who didn’t, where there is indeed little difference. But between teenagers who took the pledge and the average teen—which is sure what I thought the story was about—there is a big difference. From the expose` in the Wall Street Journal, byline William McGurn:
The chain reaction was something out of central casting. A medical journal starts it off by announcing a study comparing teens who take a pledge of virginity until marriage with those who don’t. Lo and behold, when they crunch the numbers, they find not much difference between pledgers and nonpledgers: most do not make it to the marriage bed as virgins.In fact, Dr. Bernadine Healy, of US News and World Report crunched the numbers and discovered that the average age of initial sexual intercourse for most teens is 17, but the conservative teens—including abstinence pledgers—wait until age 21! That’s a huge difference that translates into fewer unwanted pregnancies, fewer abortions, a lower rate of STDs, and less suffering from the acute emotional difficulties that intense early sexual relationships can cause.
Like a pack of randy 15-year-old boys, the press dives right in. “Virginity Pledges Don’t Stop Teen Sex,” screams CBS News. “Virginity pledges don’t mean much,” adds CNN. “Study questions virginity pledges,” says the Chicago Tribune. “Premarital Abstinence Pledges Ineffective, Study Finds,” heralds the Washington Post. “Virginity Pledges Fail to Trump Teen Lust in Look at Older Data,” reports Bloomberg. And on it goes.
In other words, teens will be teens, and moms or dads who believe that concepts such as restraint or morality have any application today are living in a dream world. Typical was the lead for the CBS News story: “Teenagers who take virginity pledges are no less sexually active than other teens, according to a new study.”
Here’s the rub: It just isn’t true.
Why push the false story? Part of it is that the study’s authors seem to have been engaged in the ubiquitous practice of using the scientific study as advocacy. But that doesn’t excuse the media—who should be used to such deception by now, and who certainly check stories the import with which they disagree! But when a story fits the media’s own narrative, they often merely print off the press release. On a more fundamental level, I think it is part of the coup de culture. Media reflect the views—and indeed, many consider themselves members of—the liberal elite (as are social scientists), and liberal elites loathe moralizing, which I think they see as the real basis of advocacy for teenage abstinence.
Politicized science, a biased media—all part of the coup de culture that seeks to remake our society—and in my view, not for the better.
