Abstinence, Sex, and Virginity: Do They Mean What We Think They Mean?

The current issue of the American Journal of Sexuality Education is a special, themed issue on abstinence.  One of the articles,  "Abstinence, Sex, and Virginity:  Do They Mean What We Think They Mean?" by Jason Hans and Claire Kimberly, includes an analysis of what teens and professionals mean by "sex" and "abstinence".  Below is the abstract and selected tables.  The complete article is available for purchase here.  And the table of contents for the special issue can be found here.

From Hans, J. & Kimberly, C. (2011)."Abstinence, Sex, and Virginity: Do They Mean What We Think They Mean?" American Journal of Sexuality Education 6(4):329-342.

Abstract

Ambiguous definitions concerning which behaviors constitute sex, abstinence, and virginity may lead to arbitrary interpretations of meaning or miscommunication, which could be particularly problematic in health care, educational, and research contexts. The purpose of this study was to examine and compare definitions of sex, abstinence, and virginity between samples of 454 university students and 126 AASECT-certified sexuality professionals. Compared to the AASECT professionals, students were less likely to classify 10 of 11 behaviors as sex, they were more likely to indicate that oral-genital contact maintains one's virginity, and they were more likely

to indicate that oral-genital contact and hand-genital contact is consistent with abstinent behavior. Relative to previous studies, these findings also suggest that conceptualizations of abstinence and the classification of oral-genital contact may be changing among young adults. Overall, the primary implication of these findings is that sexual health professionals should be mindful of the interpretative latitude afforded to individuals when using terms intended to refer to a range of sexual behaviors rather than explicitly identifying the targeted behaviors.

Table 1. Percentage of respondents indicating that vaginal intercourse, anal intercourse, oral-genital contact, and genital touching is abstinent behavior, maintains virginity, or is not sex.
Study	N	Vaginal Intercourse	Anal Intercourse	Oral-Genital Contact	Genital Touching
Abstinent Behavior
Bersamin et al. (2007)	480	11.9	14.3	33.4	44.2
Horan et al. (1998)	1,101	10.2	24.3	36.9	61.2
Maintains Virginity
Bersamin et al. (2007)	453	5.8	16.1	70.6	83.5
Carpenter (2001)	61	0.0	44.0	72.1	–
Not Sex
Bogart et al. (2000)	223	6.5	7.3	56.4	–
Gute et al. (2008)	463	0.0	19.2	60.3	84.3
Hans et al. (2010)	477	2.5	20.2	80.7	88.5
Sanders & Reinisch (1999)	599	0.5	19.0	59.9	85.5

Table 3. Percentage of the definitions given on sex, abstinence, and virginity
Descriptions	Students (n = 409)	Professionals (n = 111)
Abstinence
No penile-vaginal intercourse	56	29
No heterosexual penile-anal intercourse	43	16
No homosexual penile-anal intercourse	41	17
No oral-genital contact	20	14
No sexual arousal	12	20
No genital contact (vaginal or penile)	11	29
Waiting until marriage	6	2
No anal contact	5	12
No fondling breasts	5	5
No pregnancy	2	7
No orgasm	2	2
A subjective experience	0	13
STI/STD prevention	0	3
Virginity
No penile-vaginal intercourse	84	76
No heterosexual penile-anal intercourse	48	36
No homosexual penile-anal intercourse	48	41
No oral-genital contact	3	9
Pure and/or innocent	3	2
No genital contact (vaginal or penile)	2	5
No sexual arousal (no sexual behavior or activity)	1	4
Socially constructed term	0	6
No orgasm	0	4
Sex
Penile-vaginal intercourse	89	34
Heterosexual penile-anal intercourse	55	21
Homosexual penile-anal intercourse	54	21
Oral-genital contact	10	32
Genital contact (vaginal or penile)	5	39
Orgasm	2	5
Sexual arousal (sexual behavior or activity)	1	19
Anal contact	1	8
Fondling breasts	0	4
A subjective experience	0	4
Masturbation	0	3