ABSTRACT
This chapter examines when people tell the truth about sex and when they seem not to, and whether people seem most interested in lying to themselves or to others. In 1992, the Southern Baptist Conference created a pledge program to encourage teenagers to wait to have sex until marriage. They called the program True Love Waits. Shortly after the 1992 emergence of the virginity pledge, in 1996 the federal government started funding abstinence-only sex education. Many survey respondents report past sexual behavior they are uneasy about, as with the Southern Baptists who reported premarital sex that they regretted. More than a dozen comprehensive sex education programs have been found to be effective in promoting both safer sex and delaying sex among adolescents. Obama administration passed legislation allocating $185 million to evidence-based sex education, an amount similar to the funding for abstinence-only sex education during much of the Bush administration.
