Exposure to and Views of Information about Sexual Abstinence Among Older Teens

Abstract

There is scant research of adolescents’ understanding of abstinence. We conducted interviews with a sample of 58 teens to find out their exposure to abstinence information from a range of sources. Most teens had received abstinence information or messages from school, family members, and friends. For many teens, information about abstinence, or delaying sex, was somewhat superficial. Most had positive views about abstinence but also thought teens should receive information about contraception and safe sex. Information from the perspective of teens can help educators and advocates of comprehensive sex education more effectively discuss abstinence.

KEYWORDS:

• Adolescent
• sex education
• qualitative research
• sexual abstinence

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Luciana Hebert and Ruth Milne for their substantive contributions to this project. This project was funded by a grant from the Ford Foundation. Ann E. Biddlecom was formerly a Senior Research Associate at the Guttmacher Institute. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations.

Notes

We generally assumed that interviewees’ were referring to heterosexual, vaginal intercourse when they referred to sex and sexual activity. However, we seldom clarified this definition as the type of activity the respondents had, or had not, engaged in was not a primary, or even secondary, focus of the study. Four students indicated that they were, or potentially were, gay, lesbian, or bisexual; three related that they had not had sex; and one did not bring up her sexual activity status. These individuals, in particular, may have been referring to activities other than heterosexual vaginal intercourse when discussing sex.

In a separate manuscript we summarize teens’ exposure to and evaluation of a broader range of sexual health information on the Internet (Jones & Biddlecom, 2011).

Participation was more common among Indiana teens, but several New York students were also involved with religious groups or attended services regularly. Most of the teens who revealed an affiliation related that they were Christian, but we are aware that we interviewed at least one Jewish and one Muslim teen.