Ian On The Red Dot

Reading the discussion online surrounding AWARE and their Comprehensive Sexuality Education programme (i.e. CSE), one might get the idea that machiam only homosexuals engage in anal intercourse.

Which of course is not true.

What is even most interesting is that individuals who pledge abstinence (something which Christians push for) are most likely to engage in anal sex.

From a study ‘After the promise: the STD consequences of adolescent virginity pledges‘

Condom use at first intercourse is a powerful predictor for subsequent consistent use. As found earlier, pledgers are significantly less likely to have used a condom at first intercourse than nonpledgers. However, pledgers are not less likely to use condoms at most recent intercourse reported in wave 3, or in the 12 months preceding the wave 3 interviews.

Because virginity is often culturally linked only to vaginal sex, to preserve virginity, adolescents and young adults may engage in other sexual behaviors that involve exchange of fluid and are thus salient for STD acquisition. Overall,oral sex and anal sex are prevalent behaviors in this population,most commonly in conjunction with vaginal sex.

Here we consider those who have oral or anal sex without vaginal sex. Amongst those who have only oral sex and/or anal sex, pledgers are over-represented. Overall, about 3% of respondents reported oral sex with one or more partners but no vaginal sex. Although just over 2% of nonpledgers fall into this group, 13% of consistent pledgers and 5% of inconsistent pledgers do. Similarly, 0.7% of nonpledgers report anal but no vaginal sex, compared with 1.2% for pledgers. Although too few females report anal but no vaginal sex, for males we find a significant difference between pledgers and nonpledgers. Specifically, slightly more than 1% of male nonpledgers report anal sex but no vaginal sex, compared with almost 3% for inconsistent pledgers and 4% for consistent pledgers. For oral sex, condom use is almost completely absent—respondents reported condom use for first oral sex for only 4% of the relationships that involved oral sex. For anal sex, condom use is also lower than for vaginal sex. Condoms were used in about 30% of relationships involving anal sex when partners had anal sex for the first time. The combination of low condom use and over-representation of pledgers provides some support for the hypothesis that this behavioral pattern is associated with greater than expected STD acquisition among pledgers, although the numbers are small and provide an insufficient basis from which to make inference.

Interesting point is the disparity between the percentage of females who report anal sex with no vaginal sex and that of the percentage of guys who report anal sex with no vaginal sex. One might suspect that this percentage of guys are gays; sadly the study does not make such explicit conclusions.

Still, it is an interesting study about abstinence and one should be mindful in the discussions that anal sex is not an activity just enjoyed by homosexuals.

A link to the study.

Dan Savage has an interesting take on the results:

I’m old enough to remember when getting fucked in the ass was considered a sex act, something that virgins, almost by definition, shied away from. But that was before kids were subjected to religious indoctrination masquerading as sex-ed. Abstinence “educators” emphasize the importance of virginity—but they only talk about vaginal intercourse because they figure if we don’t tell kids about anal sex they’ll never figure out what brown can do for them. But they do figure it out. And lacking accurate info, kids aren’t just concluding that anal sex isn’t really sex. (”Otherwise it would’ve been covered in our sex-ed classes, right?”) Kids are telling researchers that anal intercourse, unlike the premarital vaginal intercourse they were warned about (STDs! Pregnancy! Eternal damnation!), carries no risk of disease. (I can’t wait to tell all my dead friends!)

I wanted to scream and yell about this study—and a DTMFA letter leaves plenty of room—but then I figured, you know, fuck it. I’ve been ranting and raving about the idiocy of abstinence education for 10 years. Obviously I can’t beat ‘em, so I might as well join ‘em. All my life I’ve had to listen to fundamentalist Christian bigots like Pat Robertson and Rick Warren—Rick Warren, Obama?—fume about all the terrible, no good, really bad sodomy gay men get up to. But I haven’t been sodomizing the boyfriend all these years! I’ve been preserving his virginity.

I’ve been preserving the shit out of my boyfriend’s virginity for 14 years now. If my boyfriend ever decides to marry a woman—miracles can happen!—he’ll be able to wear white at his wedding. Hell, he’s so pure he can wear Saran Wrap at his wedding. And his wife will have me to thank for delivering him to her with his virginity intact. (Unfortunately, the boyfriend can’t preserve my virginity. As a teenager, I had actual vaginal intercourse, under duress, with an actual female’s actual vagina.) But until the boyfriend meets the right girl, I’m going to keep preserving the living shit out of his virginity. His virginity isn’t going anywhere—not on my watch.