Abstinence, Schmabstinence

Like every single similar study done before, a new study of federal survey data has shown that teens who take abstinence pledges are not any less likely to have sex before marriage than those who don't. They are, however, ten points more likely to engage in premarital sex without using condoms or other birth control methods. In other words, they're still doing it and doing it and doing it, but they aren't necessarily doing it well. I don't want to read too much into this study, but it's probably a safe bet to assume that anyone you meet in college who's still wearing one of those ridiculous virgin rings is probably riddled with STDs and/or owns a human child, which is really the worst kind of STD. Unlike previous studies involving abstinence-only "education", this one compared survey results from teens who took abstinence pledges with those who didn't take the pledges but still professed to have the same opinion that sex before marriage is wrong. So even among like-minded teens, there's no evidence that abstinence programs have any effect. This is probably good to know, since the federal government currently spends nearly $200 million a year funding these useless programs. Who knew stupid rings were so expensive? More details here.