College Virgins - Tackling the Question: "To Do It, or Not to Do It?"

While walking through one of the local parks in the city where I currently attend school, I was stopped by a few college students who were conducting a survey on relationships and sexuality. They wanted to ask me a few questions about my own personal relationships. Eventually, one of the questions was "Have you ever had sex?" When I answered that I had not, the young woman's response was "Never?" I assured her that my no meant no, to which her response was: "This is confidential . . . you don't have to lie."

This experience seemed to raise some serious questions about the state of the common college aged young person. With constant messages being broadcast to twenty-something-year-olds concerning "safe sex," the risks of STDs, unexpected pregnancies, and so on, the focus has been predominantly on those who have made the decision to explore their sexuality through sexual intercourse during college. Yet very little attention is paid to those who have made the choice not to engage in sexual relations at this stage in life. Are college-aged virgins really so few? Are the token peer pressure lines of high school abstinence chats-"Everybody's doing it"-actually become facts? And moreover, if sex is really in, why are some choosing not to do it? In hopes of answering some of these questions, I conducted many weeks worth of interviews; these are the results.

Note: The names of respondents in this article have been changed to respect the privacy of those who have shared their personal stories.

Some on-sight interviews on a local university campus yielded some interesting viewpoints from college-aged students. For many, experimenting with and experiencing sex was indeed a very important issue. As one respondent stated, "I never had to deal with it much before now. Now it's always coming up in conversation. Everyone wants to know if I'm doing it." To others, sex is hardly an issue at all. "I don't really think about it," one female student replied. "If somebody wants to do it, fine. If not, fine. It's everybody's choice."

Yet even the reasons sex is or is not an issue vary between students. One young man, Billy, responded that sex wasn't an issue. For him, it was not because he wasn't doing it but because no one "will remember what we do in college anyway. I'm having a good time." For Billy, remaining a virgin in college was almost laughable. "I wasn't a virgin when I came here," he said with a laugh. Yet when asked what he thought of people who made the choice before college to remain virgins through their college career, and even until marriage, he simply replied, "That's cool, then, if they can do it."

For many, the major question was whether or not remaining a virgin in college is actually possible. To a few, the answer was simply, "No."

"There's too much pressure," said Julie. "I'm not saying you have to do it, but it's hard not to."

In an online interview another respondent, John, stated his opinion on the matter.

"I have no real opinions on whether virginity is good or bad at that age," he stated. "The good part is no diseases and no pregnancy. The bad part is that it is a very hard choice to keep and you miss part of the college experience. I think either choice is neutral to me. I personally would not take any vow of chastity. It puts too much pressure on the people you date. I would not date a virgin who wanted to stay that way."

For others, the idea of remaining a virgin in college is not difficult at all. As Rebecca stated, "I know I wanted to save myself for my husband, so I make sure I don't put myself in any positions that would lead to [having sex]. I still have fun and go to parties . . . I just don't have sex. A lot of people respect that, too."

For Jane, her choice to remain a virgin changed with her experiences during college. "I was actually a virgin all the way through high school and college," she stated in an online interview. "I come from a Southern Baptist background and decided when I was fourteen I would wait until I got married. My experiences that last few years have caused me to broaden the acceptable terms, but even then I didn't lose my virginity until I had been with my boyfriend a year."

The same applies to Tom, who had thought he would remain a virgin until marriage until he and his girlfriend decided they could handle a sexual relationship. "We'd been together for a really long time, though," he stated in his online interview. Neither one of us was pressured into it. The timing just felt right." He also added that they are now engaged, and plan to be married shortly after they graduate.

After finding many varying opinions on the matter of sex during college, the focus turned to those who have made and maintained the choice to remain virgins through their college careers. One online interview respondent, Kelly, had this to say:

"I'm twenty-five years old and voluntarily took a chastity pledge when I was seventeen. I took it to God himself, not in front of anyone or because anyone forced me to do so, and I've kept my pledge in every way. My relationship with God was the main reason I took the pledge. It was just an oath to God that nobody else knew about. It was my idea and my choice."

For Kelly, her relationship with God and her Christian faith were major issues, but the health implications of having sex were also a consideration. "[In] the back of my mind I was also thinking about all the diseases sexual encounters expose you to, and I hate being sick, so that was a small factor in the decision as well." Yet in the end she believes that if she "didn't have such strong religious beliefs . . . keeping [herself] pure until marriage would probably be very difficult."

For another online respondent, Mary, her Christianity also played a role, but she admits it wasn't her "only, or even main, reason for saving [herself] for marriage."

"My main reason," she states, "is that when I'm forty or fifty years old, I don't want to look back on my life and see a whole line of men who've been with me."

Many respondents who stated that they had made the choice to remain virgins until marriage also stated that part of their decision took the form of a purity or chastity pledge. Many had been given the opportunity, either in their homes, high schools, or churches, to sign actual pledges sponsored by organizations such as "True Love Waits." One respondent who chose to sign a True Love Waits commitment pledge card remembers reading the card over and over before she signed it.

"I read it so much I have part of it memorized still," she joked. "I didn't want to sign anything weird. And I wanted it to be honest, something I could really agree with."

Others, both who had and had not had the opportunity provided to sign prepared pledges, made the choice to create their own pledges.

"I wrote out my own when I was sixteen," Ruth recalls. She laughed as she recalled that the wording has "changed a bit" over the years.

"I was more naïve when I first wrote it," she admits. "I kept trying to leave loopholes, I think, just in case something happened and I broke my promise. But as I got older I realized I had to make it a promise I was going to keep no matter what."

One male respondent who was particularly eager to share his story remembers being surprised when he was presented with a chastity pledge by his then-girlfriend. "We hadn't been dating that long, but we were both really serious about our relationship, and apparently she'd been planning for this. At first I thought it was weird, but then I thought it was kind of cool that she'd done it. I'd never signed a commitment card or anything, and I didn't really know what it was for at first." He admits that he didn't sign it; but he also states that it wasn't because he didn't agree.

"It was a real commitment card," he says, laughing. "I thought it was great that we would both agree not to pressure each other into sex, but this was like I was committing to this until we got married . . . and I wasn't thinking about marriage. We broke up later, but not because of that. But after we broke up, I wound up taking my own pledge. It wasn't written out or anything, but I always keep it in mind."

Mary, an earlier respondent, has a different opinion of purity pledges.

"As for pledges and rings," she stated, "I think they're ridiculous. Pledges were created to give parents peace of mind; that's it. I think you really have to believe something like this in your heart and have a certain level of self respect to carry it through. It's not something you can be taught. And statistics show that those virginity pledges don't exactly hold up."

Kelly, who earlier stated her own pledge experience, stated that she was against the use of "'Scare Tactics' that some of my fellow Christians unfortunately use to frighten dim-witted and guilt ridden teenagers into signing chastity pledges."

"There is a study out now," she said, "that says these scare tactic pledges cause [teenagers] to have intercourse in other ways, often without protection . . . Chastity pledges are great, of course, as long as the one taking the oath is doing it because they want to, not because they're scared of some Bible thumper's ravings about eternal damnation, fire, and brimstone."

For another online respondent, Rachel, the choice to remain a virgin was more than a pledge. For her, it was more about respect for her body and her future husband.

"I wanted to wait for my husband since I knew what sex was, and how special it was," Rachel wrote. "My body is mine, and mine alone, but I wanted to give it to one person in my life, and I did so. He did the same for me.

"I feel that a person's body is something sacred," she continued, "and should only be shared with the one true love of their life. With so many diseases, STDs or not, I didn't want to take the chance that I'd catch something, that could make me sick, or ultimately kill me, all because I wanted to have a quick roll in the hay . . . There were more cons than pros to having sex before marriage. I never really considered them as pros and cons, just that I knew, all along, I didn't want just anyone. I wanted the one."

Some respondents made it clear that while maintaining their virginity was not a choice they made, or was not a choice they were allowed to keep, they still consider it a precious gift. One male interviewee, Dave, confessed his regrets about his sexual relationships.

"I ain't gonna lie," he said, "I've made mistakes. I kind of wish I had stayed a virgin until now [his senior year of college]. I've got my girlfriend now, and we want to get married, and I haven't told her all about my stuff. I've got a baby boy to some girl I met freshman year. She knows about that and all, but I still feel kind of bad about it. I love my son and everything, but I've still got to live with the fact that if I marry [my girlfriend] it'll be like having two families, 'cause I've still got to take care of my baby, you know? It just would have been easier."

Another female respondent, Beth, said her choice to have sex led to decisions she'll regret for the rest of her life. "I had sex [freshman year] with some guy I met at a party. First off, I knew I shouldn't have done it 'cause here I am singing in my church choir and doing this at a party. Second, my mom had me when she was [young] and always told me she didn't regret having me but I shouldn't make the same mistake. I got pregnant, and I didn't know what to do. I got an abortion without telling anybody 'til I couldn't keep it a secret anymore. I regret that every day. Now I talk at my church all the time about why kids my age shouldn't make my mistake. I'm proud that I've changed my life, but I'll always have that."

An online interview respondent stated that she started her "young life not having the choice of keeping [her] virginity."

"I am now a mother of four beautiful children," she stated in her writing, "two of which are girls, the other two boys, of course. But, not having my own choice has really made me very protective of my children. I love having the ability to give my children a safe and nurturing atmosphere. I can only hope that my children will pledge their virginity and take advantage of the pure nature of it. There is something special about a young person starting their adult life who is strong enough to make that decision. I just wish they understood the full magnitude of having that choice."

At the end of many of the in-person interviews, I asked respondents whether they thought the choice to remain a virgin was one everyone ought to make.

"Maybe," said one respondent. "But you can't force the choice on anybody. They've got to feel it."

"It's not for everybody," said another. "Some people just couldn't do it. Others can. It's a personal thing." "Whether people chose to do it or not is important, yeah," said yet another. "But the really important thing is that no matter what choice they make, they've got to live with it, you know? It's got to be their choice no matter what."