Sexual Abstinence

Abstinence advocates recommend it as a way to avoid pregnancy and venereal disease. Without sexual contact, it is virtually impossible to conceive a child (other than through artificial insemination). By avoiding exposure of the sexual organs to other people, one will also avoid the sexual transmission of many diseases (STDs).

Note, however, that many STDs, including AIDS, can also be transmitted non-sexually. Some STDs (including genital warts due to human papillomavirus) are passed through skin-to-skin contact and are not prevented by using a condom. Advocates also claim other benefits, such as the freedom from teenage pregnancy and resulting ability to focus on education and preparing for their future.

Organizations such as SIECUS have called abstinence-only programs "fear-based", "designed to control young people’s sexual behavior by instilling fear, shame, and guilt." Author Judith Levine has argued that there might be a natural tendency of abstinence educators to escalate their messages: "Like advertising, which must continually jack up its seduction just to stay visible as other advertising proliferates, abstinence education had to make sex scarier and scarier and, at the same time, chastity sweeter." (Harmful to Minors, p.108) Humor sites such as abstinenceonly.com have been published to satirize the possibilities through abstinence.

In spite of these criticisms, abstinence has become the de facto focus of sex education in the United States, so that opponents frequently adopt the line that abstinence education is acceptable only if it is combined with other methods, such as instruction in the use of condoms and easy availability thereof. Most nations of Western Europe use more comprehensive measures, and in sharp contrast to the heated discussion in the US, abstinence is hardly discussed as an educational measure. The advent of AIDS helped restore the momentum of the favourable view of abstinence. But currently there are issues as to what abstinence means: is it an abstinence from sexual intercourse or from sexual behaviour? Movements such as True Love Waits in America which asks teenagers to refrain from sex before marriage are heavily subscribed but surveys of sexual behaviour indicate an increase in the popularity of oral sex. Oral sex is not perceived as being "real sex." Teenage girls are able to indulge in sexual practices while claiming the traditional virtues of the virgin in cultures that admire it.

The effectiveness of abstinence programs and movements remains debated. The study "Promising the Future: Virginity Pledges and First Intercourse" by Peter Bearman and Hanna Brückner examined the relationship between virginity pledges and first sexual intercourse. From the abstract:

Since 1993, in response to a movement sponsored by the Southern Baptist Convention, over 2.5 million adolescents have taken public virginity pledges, in which they promise to abstain from sex until marriage. This paper explores the effect of those pledges on the transition to first intercourse. Adolescents who pledge are much less likely to have intercourse than adolescents who do not pledge. The delay effect is substantial. On the other hand, the pledge does not work for adolescents at all ages. Second, pledging delays intercourse only in contexts where there are some, but not too many, pledgers. The pledge works because it is embedded in an identity movement. Consequently, the pledge identity is meaningful only in contexts where it is at least partially nonnormative. Consequences of pledging are explored for those who break their promise. Promise breakers are less likely than others to use contraception at first intercourse.