Pledging Abstinence

Jessica Grose examines the poor track record:

According to Mark Regnerus, the author of the forthcoming Premarital Sex in America, among women who made virginity pledges and are now married, only 13. 9 percent waited until their wedding night to have sex. There aren’t good data on women who make virginity pledges after they are sexually activewho try to become “secondary virgins,” as researchers put it. What we do know is that some young womenoften born-again Christians, like Bristolbelieve that repledging virginity can erase their sexual histories. These teens “typically reconcile their memories with their present beliefs,” according to a study called Reborn a Virgin: Adolescents’ Retracting of Virginity Pledges and Sexual Histories, published in the American Journal of Public Health in 2006.