So, it's all about what the word "sex" means...

[randomness]

redbird says: "Here's an interesting definition implied by a CNN story on pledging virginity:"

quotes from the story:

"The latest study, published in the April issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health, found that teens pledging virginity until marriage are more likely to have oral and anal sex than other teens who have not had intercourse."

"Among virgins, boys who have pledged abstinence were four times more likely to have had anal sex than teens who have remained abstinent but not as part of a pledge, according to the study. Overall, pledgers were six times more likely to have oral sex."

One of the commenters on her LJ observes that the abstinence pledges are specifically heterocentric, and that the "abstinence" movement is also apparently afraid to define closely what they mean by "abstinence", for fear of saying too much.

Ah, unintended effects.

Comments

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

A few years back, chorale and I went on a tour of Tijuana organized through her Spanish class. At one point we visited a large store that sold books and magazines. As she was standing in line to buy a couple of books, I noticed a magazine on the rack near the checkout stand. It was clearly, by the cover imagery, typography, and layout, a young women's magazine much like those to be seen in similar locations in American supermarkets, and its mostly prominently displayed story had the title "Como puede iniciarse en el sexo anal," which I would not have expected to see on the cover of Cosmopolitan, Glamour, or Seventeen.

This bemused me for a while. But apparently what is going on is that Mexican culture still has a big thing about "virginity"—but it defines it strictly in terms of vaginal penetration. So young women who are not willing to allow their boyfriends that specific gratification are willing to grant access to the other two bodily orifices. By doing so, they don't risk pregnancy and they can still show up on the wedding night with intact hymens. Of course, it does nothing to protect them from sexually transmitted diseases, but I suppose Mexican adolescents and young adults are just as immortal as American.