MyUSTINET News: Study: Virginity Pledge Delays Sex In Some

Lead author Steven Martino, a psychologist at the Rand Corp., a non-profit research organization, surveyed 1,461 adolescent virgins ages 12 to 17 in 2001 and re-interviewed participants one and three years later.

About one-fourth of the study subjects reported during the initial survey that they had made a virginity pledge. The study was uniquely designed to account for pre-existing difference between pledgers and non-pledgers on factors such as religiosity, parenting and friendship characteristics, Martino said.

The study tested the impact of virginity pledges by comparing pledgers with young people who had not made a pledge, but shared other characteristics with pledgers.

The study, published online by the Journal of Adolescent Health, 42 percent of those who did not make virginity pledges, but were otherwise similar to those who did, started sexual intercourse within three years, while just 34 percent of those who made virginity pledges reported having sexual intercourse within the same period.

"Virginity pledges must be made freely for them to work", Martino said in a statement. "If young people are coerced or are unduly influenced by peer pressure, virginity pledges are not likely to have a positive effect."

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