For the past several years more than half of teens surveyed in our occasional polls have told us that they wish they had waited to have sex. Martino and colleagues explore this concept in greater depth in the June edition of Perspectives in Sexual and Reproductive Health. They test the idea that TV contributes to these high levels of regret because TV sets unrealistically high expectations about the positive outcomes of sex (and teens might not actually experience these positive outcomes). The authors use data gathered from the same teens at 3 different time points from 2001-2004 to determine the impact of TV on feelings of regret about sexual initiation. They determine that their hypothesis is correct for teen boys who watch a lot of sex on TV, but not girls.

In other words, teen boys who watch a lot of sex on TV are more likely to report that their expectations about sex fall after they actually have sex. Girls' (who incidentally report much higher regret) expectations about sex remain consistent before and after they first have sex. Other reasons why teens regret having sex have to do with their readiness for sex, their partner, or the status of their relationship. Clearly this article raises a lot of important questions including...

Why do you think so many teens wish they had waited to have sex?

Do you think access to more sexually explicit material on the internet will influence sexual regret?

Yesterday on The Tyra Banks Show, Tyra interviewed Eric and Lauren, a couple who waited until they got married to have sex. After two years of marriage they are still virgins because Lauren freaks out every time they attempt to have sex. Click here to watch a clip of the interview and see what Jezebel had to say about it.

I don't know if religion played a part in their decision to wait to have sex. But as a card-carrying member of the Christian community I can tell you that I have heard this story before. It goes like this: boy meets girl, they fall in love, and because they are "good Christians" they wait to have sex until they get married, and then after the wedding sex is a huge obstacle for the woman. Why, might you ask? Because a ring and a marriage certificate do not erase years of being told: "Sex is bad. Don't do it, and as a Christian girl, with no sexuality of your own, it's your job to play defense because boys can't control themselves." I'm not saying that abstinence until marriage is a bad thing. But in my opinion, teaching women to fear sex and their own sexuality is emotionally and spiritually damaging.

The church teaches so many good things about relationships: love, respect, commitment, compromise, communication, and self-sacrifice. But I think it can do a better job of talking about sex and sexuality.

Polls suggest that teens feel that girls receive different messages than boys about sexuality. Do you think your church (if you have one) sends different messages to girls and boys?

Do you think churches should change the way they teach about sexuality?

I know, I know, provocative stories and breathless headlines about rainbow parties and middle school broom closet liasons almost always win out over staid research.  Even so, those interested in a heaping helping of sober should read a new analysis from Guttmacher about intimate teen sexual behavior. 

Primary finding?  When it comes to teens and oral/anal sex, things may not be as bad as many had feared but probably not as good as many had hoped. At the very least, the notion that a significant proportion of  virgin teens are out and about in the land protecting their virginity by substituting oral sex for intercourse seems to be a far-fetched notion.  Instead, not surprisingly, these activities tend to---as the social scientists might say---co-occur.

Back in September 2005, the National Campaign released a similar analysis of the icky stuff, check it out here.

It's like deja vu all over again at The New York Times.  For the second time in the past several weeks the grey lady is red in the face over virginity.  Today's entry: purity balls.  (See previous postings on the topic here and here.) 

Leaving aside everything else one might say about these father-daughter purity balls, I am left wondering--like so many others---where are the purity balls for fathers and their sons.  Don't these father-daughter gatherings underscore the sexual double standard still alive and still well---the double standard that tells young women to say "no" and young men to be "careful." 

Check out some polling data on this topic here (charts 5, 15, and 16)---65% of teens and 61% of parents of teens agree that parents send one message about sex to their sons and an altogether different message to their daughters.  Not too good.

Bill's post on Straight Edge got me thinking about abstinence and what it means to declare yourself a "Virgin" (you can almost hear the capital letter 'V').  I was a student at an all-girls, Catholic high school.  It was a wonderful academic environment and - contrary to what you might have heard - we had regular dances and social events, shared with the neighboring all boys' Catholic high school. 

With this proximity to (gasp!) the opposite sex AND a rigorous dedication to creating a sheltered...goody-goody...parochial  secondary education experience, one might assume that the administration would have jumped at the chance to present its captive audience of impressionable young girls with the chance to sign a virginity pledge. 

So, the New York Times has discovered virginity.  In the Sunday magazine article by Randall Patterson, we read about "ivy league virginity" (not to be confused with virginity among less well bred plants).  Question: would this article have been written about a virginity club at LSU or Ohio State?  Or is the core idea of this piece that people at Harvard should be too worldly wise--too smart!!!--to even consider restraint?  

Mind you, abstaining until marriage seems to be beyond rare; fewer than 5 percent of brides are virgins on their wedding day (silence reigns on the grooms, of course--nudge nudge, wink wink).  But is it really newsworthy  that a few young adults at Harvard and other exalted schools see room for taking sex and love a bit more seriously than so much of our culture suggests?  The "wait til marriage" message might be hard for some to stomach, of course, especially given the rising age of marriage and the increase in co-habitation.  But there is a moderate middle in all this.

The real club that I think we need is one that gives voice to a commonsense, centrist view -- that sex has risks and meaning along with real potential for intimacy, and that it belongs in committed relationships not one night stands.  What shall we call this new club at Harvard?  Any nominations?  And once it is formed, will the NYT write about it?