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Madeline Riese

Psych 101

Dr. Harrison

16 November 2015

Red Sex, Blue Sex

Would you expect socially conservative or socially liberal families to have more

occurrence of teenage pregnancy and mother/fatherhood? If you answered liberal, you are

wrong. This article mainly addressed the surprising juxtaposition between the socially

conservative (red) states and the socially liberal (blue) states when it comes to opinions on

abstinence, sex before marriage, contraception, and teenage pregnancy, and how these ideas

come to play out in marriage and divorce statistics across the country.

The author starts the article off by bringing up an important case of teenage pregnancy-

Sarah Palin’s daughter- and how the evangelical response to it reveals their multi-layered attitude

when it comes to teenage sex and pregnancy. Rather than being upset at her pregnancy, many

evangelicals expressed support for Palin’s decision, saying it was much better that she was

choosing to have the child rather than “sneaking off” to have an abortion. They even went so far

as to say they respected the values she was raised with, as those were instrumental in her

decision to take responsibility for her choices. Although the media mostly respected the request

to leave Bristol Palin’s pregnancy alone, the range of reactions to it revealed a wide cultural

divide between “blue” (democratic) and “red” (republican) states in their views on sex education.

In “blue” states, social liberals tend to be much bigger supporters of sex education, and

are mostly accepting of the fact that teenagers will most likely have sex before marriage, despite

viewing teenage pregnancy as catastrophic. However, in “red” states, social conservatives

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typically only advocate for an abstinence education, and condemn sex before marriage while

being generally composed when it comes to teenage pregnancy.

Many social scientists, fascinated by this contrast, have been researching this

phenomenon. One in particular, Mark Regnerus, conducted a national survey of approximately

3,400 13-17 year olds. Through his research, Regnerus found that religion, while a good

indicator of attitudes towards sex, is a poor indicator of sexual behavior, particularly among

evangelical teenagers. He found that 74% of evangelical teenagers believed in abstinence before

marriage, compared to only about half of the mainline Protestants and a quarter of the Jews

surveyed. However, Regnerus also found that white evangelical teenagers are more sexually

active than Mormons, mainline Protestants, and Jews, and on average, only black Protestants

start having sex younger than white evangelicals.

Additionally, Regnerus found that white evangelical teenagers were far less likely to use

contraception than the other religious groups surveyed. He found that only half of the evangelical

teenagers who claimed to consult the Scriptures/God before a decision used contraception, while

69% of sexually active youth who claim to follow the advice of a parent consistently use

protection.

However, most interesting is the idea of “pledging”. A 2001 study estimated that some

two and a half million people had taken abstinence pledges. However, Regnerus found that more

than half of the people who took these pledges tended to have sex before marriage, and typically

not with their future spouse. Another study also found that the communities in which pledging is

more abundant also typically have higher rates of STDs. Bearman and Bruckner also found an

interesting phenomenon- people seem to enjoy pledging based on the fact that it differentiates

them from the rest and gives them an embattled sense of purpose. They found in a study that
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once pledging got too popular- the number of those pledged exceeded 30%- the entire system

collapsed. However, Regnerus argues that the degree of “embedding” a teenager experiences

surpasses the importance of religious beliefs when it comes to sex before marriage.

The article goes on to talk about how marriage statistics compare in “red” and “blue”

states, noting the marriage and divorce rates as well as the age at which people got married.

Regnerus talks about studies performed by Naomi Cahn and June Carbone that identify the states

with the highest divorce and teen pregnancy rates as all “red” states while the states with the

lowest teen pregnancy and divorce rates are mostly “blue”. Regnerus believes that the age at

which people get married is perhaps the most important difference between red states and blue

states. The article goes on to discuss marriage more in depth, particularly how these ideals of

abstinence can be reassessed to fix the broken institution of marriage and slow the divorce rate.

What really interested me within the article on a psychological level was the idea that if

30% or more of teenagers within a school pledged abstinence, that the whole institution would

come crumbling down. This surprised me, because I would have assumed that the “mob

mentality” would have driven such a movement and only strengthened it, particularly since many

of the people I have met who have taken such a pledge are extremely defensive about it. It

interests me that rather than being supported by a mob mentality, taking a pledge seems to serve

a much more egotistical purpose. It seems that subconsciously, the majority of people taking

purity pledges are doing it more a whole different reason- not for the sake of maintaining

abstinence, but so that they can feel special and important. It may almost be a hero complex,

where they want to feel like the embattled hero or the martyr, crusading for what’s right in the

face of opposition. Once everyone jumps on the bandwagon, they are not special anymore and do
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not feel it is worth it to keep up the abstinence pledge because it is too easy and not important

enough.

Additionally, I was interested by how cognitive dissonance and social identity theory

seemed to play a role in how purity pledges are made and kept. Cognitive dissonance can help us

understand the catching quality of purity pledges- the people making them are making enough

people uncomfortable that it prompts others to join them, creating a group-think kind of

movement. This also plays interestingly into social identity theory. Social identity is based on

grouping- the “in” and “out” groups. Something like a purity pledge would bond together a

group very strongly, creating a strong in group preference and strong dislike of outsiders.

However, with many outsiders coming in, as is chronicled in this article, the in-group would start

feeling like they are losing the social identity that holds them together as a group, inspiring many

of them to altogether abandon the original identifier- purity pledges- that held them together as a

group.

I was genuinely really interested in this article. While the issue was not anything I had

ever thought about before, the differences in the viewpoints on sex before marriage and teenage

pregnancy were initially surprising, but I found that I actually understood why. Although I was

initially really surprised by the fact that “red” states would be more accepting of teenage

pregnancy than the “blue” ones, it makes sense when contrasting socially conservative values to

socially liberal ones. The differences in views on abstinence make perfect sense- “red” states

tend to advocate for abstinence-only sexual education, while “blue” states advocate a total sexual

education. This makes sense, as it falls in line with the socially conservative and socially liberal

values advocated by the majority of residents in each of these states. The trend continues to make

sense, where social conservatives tend to condemn sex before marriage while social liberals are
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fairly blasé about their children having sex out of wedlock. However, this is where the path

breaks. While the social liberals are okay with sex before marriage, the idea of a teenage

pregnancy is nothing short of devastating to them, and “blue” states have far higher abortion

rates than “red”. Conversely, despite teaching abstinence-only, social conservatives are much

more likely to accept a teenage pregnancy as long as the teenager opts not to get an abortion and

chooses to marry the father of the child. This really interests me, because one would assume that

those preaching abstinence would even more vehemently despise the idea of teenage pregnancy,

while one also think that parents who accept that their children are having sex before marriage

would also accept that those children are more likely to get pregnant. It also surprised me how

easily this phenomenon could be linked to higher divorce rates and lower median marriage ages

in certain states (the socially conservative ones) while higher median marriage ages and lower

divorce rates dominated in the states that hypothetically would put less pressure on a pregnant

teenager to get married and have the baby rather than considering all options. I was not

particularly surprised by any single piece of the article, but fascinated by how easily all of it

could be linked.
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Sources Cited:

“Red Sex, Blue Sex”; The New Yorker