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June 20, 2005
Study Skewed Facts on Sexual Conduct of Virginity Pledgers
The results of a study on sexual activity by young people who have taken a virginity pledge were purposely skewed, according to an analysis by the Heritage Foundation.
[Heritage researchers Rector and Johnson] conclude that virginity pledgers are substantially more likely to not engage in risky sexual behaviours, and that those who do break the pledge are still less likely than non-pledgers to engage in more risky anal or oral sex – a direct contradiction to the supposed conclusions reached by [the study’s researchers Bearman and Bruckner.]
“The centerpiece of their argument about pledgers and heightened sexual risk activity is a small group of pledgers who engaged in anal sex without vaginal sex,” Rector and Johnson explain. “This ‘risk group’ consists of 21 persons out of a sample of 14,116. Bearman and Bruckner focus on this microscopic group while deliberately failing to inform their audience of the obvious and critical fact that pledgers as a whole are substantially less likely to engage in anal sex when compared to non-pledgers.”“This tactic is akin to finding a small rocky island in the middle of the ocean, describing the island in detail without describing the surrounding ocean, and then suggesting that the ocean is dry and rocky,” they add. “It is junk science, a willful deception of the American public.”
Posted by Jim at June 20, 2005 08:57 AM