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Like A Virgin? Teens Think So

Wendy Norris on September 10, 2007 - 11:09am
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While Colorado school districts work to adopt the new science-based sex education standards into their curricula, a new groundbreaking study finds that teens have very loose definitions of "abstinence" and "virginity."
The study published in the August 2007 issue of Journal of Adolescent Health yields surprising results on how kids respond to abstinence pledges and interpret vague language in sex education classes.

More than 1,100 teens of representative gender, age, ethnic groups and sexual experience were asked several questions (at right) to gauge how they personally define virginity and abstinence in terms of specific sexual behaviors.

Virginity is maintained after participating in:

  • genital touching (83.5%)

  • oral sex (70.6%)

  • anal sex (16.1%)

  • vaginal intercourse (5.8%)

Virgin status, as far as adolescents are concerned, may also be related to whether orgasm is achieved. While that variable was not measured in this study, other research with college students has found clear differences in how "sex" is defined based on whether the behavior resulted in achieving orgasm.

This apparent dichotomy may also explain why some sexually experienced youth still attribute virginity to girls who have had vaginal sex after a first encounter because its less likely that the girl will experience orgasm.

The study also finds that abstinence is viewed quite differently by adolescents than virginity.

Abstinence is maintained after participating in:

  • genital touching (44.2%)

  • oral sex (33.4%)

  • anal sex (14.3%)

  • vaginal intercourse (11.9%)

The researchers theorize that the differences may be related to a universally shared definition of vaginal intercourse as "going all the way." Since most abstinence-only and science-based sex education focus heavily on intercourse prevention as a moral lesson and/or a method to avoid unintended pregnancy, teens across the board have a fairly fixed sense of how it relates to virginity.

Abstinence, on the other hand, appears to be linked to the time frame in which sexual behavior occurs. Whether a teen engages in genital touching or oral, anal or vaginal sex may be immaterial. It's all about how recently it happened.

Young people also appear to apply a broad definition of "abstinence" to other non-sexual behaviors, such as drug and alcohol use and viewing explicit media.

Further, the vague language used in classrooms or by parents to describe a range of sexual behaviors may result in teens responding that they are not sexually active to health care professionals because they interpret the term as either applying only to vaginal intercourse or not engaging in sex recently.

Though it generated enormous national controversy, the frank Council on World Affairs discussion on sex and drugs at Boulder High School last May might just be the right approach to encourage young people to avoid risky sexual behaviors.

The researchers conclude that the need for "educational programs to discuss a wide range of sexual behaviors, including genital touching, oral and anal sex, and their potential psychological and physical risks, especially given recent findings suggesting that some adolescents estimate little chance of contracting STIs from oral sex."

This study was conducted by the Prevention Research Center and the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation and is the first of its kind in interviewing adolescents in middle and high school on definitions of sexual behavior. Previous work has focused exclusively on college-age men and women.

 


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8 comments
Abstinence/Virginity

Isn't that interesting?

If you examine the root ideology behind the concept of virginity (in particular, and by extension, abstinence), the fact that anyone could consider themselves a virgin after anal intercourse is beyond me.

I mean, if the central idea is to assert or maintain your "purity" in your deity's eyes until you get married, and you expect to be queried or evaluated on that when you reach the Pearly Gates, I just can't see your deity saying, "Well, since you just took it in the ass, you still pass the purity test. No problem at all." The same would be true for vaginal penetration without an orgasm. It is contingent upon whether either or the both of them achieved the O, just the guy, just the girl...?

The logic there just defies description.

Submitted by Caitlain on September 10, 2007 - 3:08pm.
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the easy answer would be...

...kids will be kids. If you have ever spent time with adolescents they have a curious ability to rationalize behavior. From this study, the mindset that other-sexual-behaviors-except-vaginal-intercourse-isn't-really-sex appears to be a very unfortunate by-product of the narrow focus on vaginal intercourse in abstinence and sex ed classes. I hope the researchers consider a continuation of this study to determine if achieving orgasm through any sexual behavior affects an adolsecent's view of virginity status as it apparently does in studies of college-age students. Moral lesson: Parents, talk to your kids about every aspect of sex.

Submitted by Wendy Norris, New Journalist Fellow on September 10, 2007 - 9:39pm.
questions posed in this study

Unfortunately, this part of the story didn't carry over on the RSS feed. Following are the questions posed to the teen-aged subjects: 

Virginity question “Is a boy/girl still a virgin if he/she has:
(a) touched someone’s genitals for a long time, 
(b) given oral sex to someone, 
(c) gotten oral sex from someone, 
(d) had sexual intercourse, 
(e) given anal intercourse to someone, and 
(f) gotten anal intercourse from someone.”
Abstinence question “Is a boy/girl still abstinent if he/she has:
(a) touched someone’s genitals for a long time, 
(b) given oral sex to someone, 
(c) gotten oral sex from someone, 
(d) had sexual intercourse, 
(e) given anal intercourse to someone, and 
(f) gotten anal intercourse from someone.”
Submitted by Wendy Norris, New Journalist Fellow on September 10, 2007 - 9:47pm.
call me a queer (no,

call me a queer (no, really, i am), but...
what about queer youth?
this entire study, unsurprisingly, is incredibly heterosexist.
what's more surprising is that this write-up about the study follows that same hetero-only line.
i know that, for women who have sex with women at least, the definition of "sex" is pretty different from women who have sex with men. (not that there's a set definition of "lesbian sex" anyway, but it goes beyond the simple vagina-penis intercourse definition.) same with men who have sex with men; oral sex and anal sex are, obviously, a lot more important to what counts as "virginity" and what counts as losing it.

What i'd love to see?
a study that actually acknowledges that there's more to sexuality than just heterosexual contact.
and educating these teens that are being studied with a non-hetero-based curriculum.
then, maybe, their answers and the "findings" of these virgin-or-not studies would be a little more relevant to queer youth.

Submitted by Jen L. on September 10, 2007 - 10:46pm.
Jen- No offense, but the

Jen-

No offense, but the population at large is incredibly heterosexual, especially among youth who are still developing their identities and may not understand their sexuality. It's very hard to get a sufficient sample size of GLBQT youth, which makes it harder for a study such as this to include the 1-2% gay population.

Secondly, there are studies that acknowledge homosexuality, and even, study it! Imagine that...so just because these researchers aren't studying your sexuality doesn't mean they are discriminating against you! It seems pretty narcissistic to criticize something on the mere basis that it doesn't analyze yourself (or your population).

Finally, I've never heard of a curicula being labled "hetero-based." They usually fall into two categories: comprehensive (teaches kids about contraception and how to have sex) and abstinence-only (teaches kids the failure rates of contraception and advocates abstinence). Neither of these curicula are "hetero-based"...in fact, both sex-ed types generally teach that teenage sex is (whether homo or hetero) is unhealthy and ill-timed (especially for young women who have sex with men, because they are more vulnerable to STIs).

Submitted by Anonymous on September 11, 2007 - 9:07am.
Abstinence/Virginity

I would suggest that before this study can be meaningfully interpreted the formal meanings of virginity and abstinence must be made clear. Leaving aside moral considerations, I personally believe that loss of virginity should probably be defined as any act that leads to the possibility of pregnancy. Yes,I know that many adults will vociferously disagree but in my estimation that disagreement is on the basis of moral judgement.
Abstinence,on the other hand,has a much broader general meaning(i.e.one may abstain from food or drink or a country may abstain from war). A policy of promoting "abstinence" as has been done politically recently is almost meaningless because is is a moral and not a scientific definition and thus is again based only on the moral values of the person being questioned

Submitted by Anonymous on September 14, 2007 - 9:20pm.
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Sex Education

I enjoyed this post and thought that it was very informative and dealt with a very important topic. However, I cannot agree with the reasons you state are behind the confusion over certain sex-related terms. You talk about how teens are confused when it comes to the meanings of the words “abstinence” and “virginity.” You claim that this is due in part to “vague language in sex education classes.” I would argue that the reasons are far more basic than how this subject is being taught. I think that the confusion arises because many students do not take their sex education classes seriously. They look at them as jokes and disregard the information as unimportant or funny. I have experienced first hand the offhand manner in which students talk about sexual diseases and different sexual acts. Perhaps it is not what we teach that is the problem as much as it is how we teach. You also argue that “Abstinence . . . appears to be linked to the time frame in which sexual behavior occurs.” Yet, I do not see any statistics in your post that support that idea. I am not saying that there is no basis for that statement, but that you should always include facts that support your opinions.

Submitted by JEL on September 24, 2007 - 6:56pm.
interesting point

Your question on how students perceive sex education would be an interesting reserch study. I'll do some digging to see if that has ever been addressed. 

With respect to your concerns, this story reports the conclusions drawn by the researchers. I didn't offer any commentary or opinions. 
From the study that is linked to in the story: 

"Abstinence appears to be a broader concept relating to participation in a variety of sexual acts, as evidenced by the fact that 55.8% of adolescents reported that a person who engaged in genital touching was not abstinent versus 83.5% that indicate one is still a virgin. Youth may perceive abstinence to be a condition that is based on time (i.e., how recently an individual last engaged in sex) and thus one which individuals can move in and out of, whereas virginity is a more fixed status based on whether one has ever engaged in vaginal or anal intercourse. Therefore, once a person has engaged in intercourse, he or she may thereafter be considered a non-virgin, but depending on how recently sex has occurred, he or she may be considered to be currently abstinent."

 

Submitted by Wendy Norris, New Journalist Fellow on September 28, 2007 - 11:14am.