Rollo R. May (1953) commented almost prophetically ahead of his time that, "the most common problem now is not social taboos on sexual activity or guilt feelings about sex in itself, but the fact that sex for so many people is an empty, mechanical, and vacuous experience.” Haven't we evolved enough as a species to want more from the sexual experience?
Marriage and Fatherhood
Then there is the issue of the declining rate of marriage in the United States, which negatively impacts the well-being of children in a variety of ways. There has been a 500% increase in the number of births outside of marriage in the U.S. since the early 1960s, so that one in every three births in the U.S. in 2001 is to a mother who is not married (National Center for Health Statistics). Many of these single mothers either gave birth to their first or even second child as teenagers or began a pattern of having unmarried sex as teenagers. While having sex offers some perceived benefits of pleasure and affection, the long term costs are high indeed.Children struggle with low self esteem when they feel that they have been abandoned by their father. Hunger for absent fathers is at the root of many youth behavior problems in our country. Historically, the way that a man is reliably connected to his children is through marriage to the mother of his children. If we truly care about the well-being of America’s youth, the institutions of marriage and fatherhood have to be strengthened. The time to work toward this is adolescence, before teens have incorporated self-destructive risky behaviors, sexual habits, and patterns of exploitation and abuse which damage the likelihood of establishing successful marriages. While this is admittedly an issue that must be addressed sensitively, our experience is that there is widespread support for the institutions of marriage and committed fatherhood even in communities where they have become less common.
The majority of teenagers express a desire to get married someday, but see that event as far-off and not significantly connected to their present actions and behaviors. The challenge of an abstinence-until-marriage program is to help teens see that their current habits, actions, and attitudes will impact the success of their future marriages and roles as parents. Discussing this gives added weight to the abstinence message. Abstinence becomes not just a short-term strategy to avoid disease or pregnancy, it becomes an integral part of preparing for an important future life goal that most teens hold -- establishing a life-long love partnership, i.e., marriage.
When unmarried men and women practice sexual abstinence, they learn aspects of a good character such as self-control, deferring gratification in order to achieve future goals, and the ability to control sexual desire, an ability they will need in order to remain faithful when they do get married and become parents. Teen sexual abstinence is a behavior specifically connected with other healthy behaviors. A comprehensive abstinence-until-marriage program should clearly promote abstinence from alcohol and drug use, violence and other self-destructive behaviors.
There is growing evidence of the effectiveness of abstinence-until-marriage programs. Most recently two sociologists at Columbia and Yale Universities found that teens who promised to refrain until marriage delayed having sex about 18 months longer than others. Among those who formally promised to avoid unmarried sex, about 50 percent remained virgins until age 20. Among non-pledgers, 50 percent were no longer virgins by age 17 (Diana Schemo, “Virginity Pledges by Teenagers Can Be Highly Effective, Federal Study Finds,” New York Times, Jan. 4, 2001).
Even an 18 month delay in initiating sexual intercourse is significant because it provides extra time for teens to grow, finish school and to develop their abilities without the stress or problems that sexual relationships often create. In addition, it reduces the lifetime number of sexual partners, thus reducing the likelihood of infection with sexually transmitted diseases or of unmarried pregnancy during the high school years.
A girl who has first intercourse at age 14 or younger has only a 2% chance of having one lifetime partner and a 60% chance of having 6 or more sexual partners. If a girl can delay first intercourse until age 15 or 16 she reduces the likelihood of having 6 or more sex partners to just 12%. If she delays first intercourse until age 17 or older she increases her chance of having one lifetime partner to 45% and chance of having 2-3 partners to 32%. Each year of delayed first sexual intercourse greatly reduces her chances of becoming infected with a sexual disease or of becoming a single parent. The same pattern can be seen for boys. Each year that a boy delays sex reduces his risks for disease or becoming an unmarried, often absent, father. Thus, abstinence education succeeds even when most teens do not reach the highest, recommended standard of abstinence-until-marriage (“Trends in the Well-Being of America’s Children & Youth: 12996,” U.S. Dept. of Health & Human Services, 1996, as reported in “America’s Youth: Measuring the Risk,” Institute for Youth Development).
