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Why Do Evangelicals Have Sex So Early and Liberals So Late?

By Matt Zeitlin - Nov 17th, 2008 at 3:35 pm

Margaret Talbot has a must-read piece in The New Yorker from earlier this month looking at differences in sexual behavior between culturally conservative Christians, especially evangelicals, and the rest of the country. Her basic conclusion seems counter-intuitive, but makes sense.

She cites research showing that evangelicals are more likely to have sex earlier and to do so without using contraception. This is despite the fact that they tell researchers that they plan to wait until marriage and that they don’t see sex as pleasurable. Socially liberal teens, on the other hand, are more likely to have sex later and use contraception, but don’t plan to be abstinent until marriage and see sex as primarily pleasurable.

While one could draw any numbers of conclusions about the nature of evangelical culture or the need for comprehensive sex education from these results, the most striking bit of data was about which teens, despite their religion, were most and least likely to have sex:

Even more important than religious conviction, Regnerus argues, is how “embedded” a teen-ager is in a network of friends, family, and institutions that reinforce his or her goal of delaying sex, and that offer a plausible alternative to America’s sexed-up consumer culture. A church, of course, isn’t the only way to provide a cohesive sense of community. Close-knit families make a difference. Teen-agers who live with both biological parents are more likely to be virgins than those who do not. And adolescents who say that their families understand them, pay attention to their concerns, and have fun with them are more likely to delay intercourse, regardless of religiosity.

Talbot then goes on to show that children living in liberal, blue states are much more likley to be in family siutations that mare most conducive to delaying sexual activity. How come those who actually practice sexual conservatism (liberals, by and large) and those who don’t (evangelicals) act in such tension to their stated views? Obviously, it’s a complex phenomenon which has many different causes, but I think one could view attitudes towards sex in evangelical communities as a response to high rates of divorce and teen pregnancy.

What seems to be happening is that teens see the family structure falling apart and decaying all around them and form conservative views about sex (which their community supports), but because they form weak attachments to their families, they are less able to make prudent, long-term decisions about sex and instead just succumb to popular culture’s pro-sex message.

Tags: religion, sex