Editing Sexual abstinence (section)

==== Popularity and effectiveness ====
{{See also|Sex education}}
The advent of [[AIDS]] helped build a more favorable view of abstinence. However, a review of 13 U.S. sex-abstinence programs involving over 15,000 people by Oxford University found that they do not stop [[risky sexual behavior]], or help in the prevention of unwanted pregnancy.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6927733.stm|title=No-sex programmes 'not working'|work=BBC News|date=2 August 2007|access-date=17 March 2009}}</ref> Other studies have found that abstinence-only education does little to affect the "age of sexual initiation; number of sexual partners; and rates of sexual abstinence, condom use, vaginal sex, pregnancy, and sexually transmitted infections (STIs)".<ref>
{{cite journal |author=Abby Wilkerson |date=March 2013 |title=I Want to Hold Your Hand: Abstinence Curricula, Bioethics, and the Silencing of Desire |journal = Journal of Medical Humanities |volume = 34 |issue = 2 |pages=101–108 |doi=10.1007/s10912-013-9213-0 |pmid=23468394|s2cid=35152974 }}</ref> Recently, the United States Congress also found similar results in a study conducted by Mathematica Policy Research on abstinence.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.mathematica-mpr.com/publications/PDFs/impactabstinence.pdf |title=Archived copy |access-date=2007-06-22 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070613193447/http://www.mathematica-mpr.com/publications/PDFs/impactabstinence.pdf |archive-date=13 June 2007 |df=dmy-all }}</ref> Currently, there are also issues as to what abstinence means: is it an abstinence from sexual intercourse, or from sexual behavior? Movements such as [[True Love Waits (organization)|True Love Waits]] in America, which ask teenagers to refrain from sex before marriage, are heavily subscribed, but surveys of sexual behavior indicate an increase in the popularity of oral sex.<ref>{{cite journal|author=Lisa Remez |date=Nov–Dec 2000 |title=Oral Sex among Adolescents: Is It Sex or Is It Abstinence? |journal=Family Planning Perspectives |volume=32 |issue=6 |pages=298–304 |url=http://www.znetwork.org/0007.htm |doi=10.2307/2648199 |pmid=11138867 |jstor=2648199 |publisher=Family Planning Perspectives, Vol. 32, No. 6 |url-status=dead |archive-url=http://webarchive.loc.gov/all/20050421032424/http://www.znetwork.org/0007.htm |archive-date=21 April 2005 }}</ref>

{{as of|2017}}, "The rates of sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy in American teenagers and young adults are high relative to rates in other industrialized countries."<ref name="Gray Bjorklund 2017 p. ">{{cite book | last1=Gray | first1=Peter O. | last2=Bjorklund | first2=David F. | title=Psychology | publisher=Macmillan Higher Education | date=2017-12-22 | edition=8th | isbn=978-1-319-06035-0 | page=1044 | quote=The rates of sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy in American teenagers and young adults are high relative to rates in other industrialized countries.}}</ref>