ABSTRACT
Yet, the abstinence movement continues to attain substantial victories in public policy. Since 1981, more than $1.5 billion in federal grants have been committed to abstinence-only education (SIECUS, 2013). Despite the Obama Administration’s diversion of federal money to comprehensive sex education, Congressional Republicans reintroduced abstinence through an amendment to the Affordable Care Act, which includes $50 million through 2014 (Kopsa, 2011). Virginity advocates have also successfully lobbied to make marriage training a central component of HIV/AIDS prevention initiatives in Sub-Saharan Africa as well as a
precondition for social services (Valenti, 2009). Moreover, abstinence groups boast over 2.5 million teenage abstinence pledges since 1993 (Bearman & Bruckner, 2001).
