Survey: More Teens Saving Sex for Marriage

Nov. 8, 2005 — -- "Saving yourself for marriage" -- once considered the norm -- has been seen as old-fashioned and out of date.

But a new survey in Seventeen magazine reveals that more teenage girls have decided against premarital sex for a number of reasons. Seventeen calls these young women members of "Generation Pure."

Nineteen-year-old Shelby Knox is one of those young women who has decided to wait to have sex. Of the 1,000 13- to 17-year-old girls surveyed by Seventeen, 44 percent have or plan to take an abstinence pledge. The Seventeen poll defined "sex" as vaginal intercourse.

"I think that purity and not having sex before marriage is an important personal decision," said Shelby. "When I was 15, I took a pledge to remain pure, sexually pure, until marriage. That was four years ago."

And despite hyper-sexualized images of young women in the media, 70 percent of the girls said they want to maintain a pure image.

"I don't want to do illegal drugs," Shelby said. "I don't drink to the point of getting drunk, and when I have sex with someone it will be with someone I love and not some person I met at a frat party."

"This is a generation who has had one of the biggest icons be Jessica Simpson," Atoosa Rubenstein, Seventeen's editor in chief, said. "She's very pure."

Simpson, the popular actress, singer and reality TV star, decided to wait until she married singer Nick Lachey to have sex. Her father and manager, Joe Simpson, is a former Baptist minister.

Declaring one's "purity" is an increasingly popular fashion statement. Many teens are wearing shirts with slogans like "Virginity Lane: Exit When Married." Rubenstein said girls go to sites like www.waitwear.com to pick up clothes that proclaim things like: "Notice: No Trespassing On This Property. My Father is Watching."

Judging Others?

Many of the teens surveyed say their religious convictions play a major role in their decision to remain abstinent -- 82 percent call themselves "very" or "somewhat" religious and 80 percent say they pray regularly.

This generation, having witnessed Sept. 11 and disasters such as Hurricane Katrina, is "looking for deeper answers," Rubenstein said.

Fifteen-year-old Annalise Wuerch has made the decision to stay a virgin until marriage.

"I am a Christian and I have been for the past 10 years," she said. "I attend church service on a weekly basis."

Shelby also says she is a practicing Christian, but a "liberal" Christian, who doesn't judge others for their choices. But the Seventeen poll suggested teens are more conservative than many adults might think. Forty-eight percent of those surveyedthink it's not OK for anyone to have sex before marriage, and 38 percent don't think condoms should be available without consent from their parents.

Rubenstein said that sometimes girls who become sexually active are ostracized by their peers.