The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health has found that although the relationship between religiosity and sexual activity is complex, in general, more religious youths tend to delay first sexual intercourse (Hardy & Raffaelli, 2003) and have fewer incidents of premarital sexual activity and fewer sexual partners (Nonnemaker et al.,
2003) . This correlation may be due to the fact that young people who attend church frequently and who value religion in their lives have less permissive attitudes and are less sexually experienced (White & DeBlassie, 1992). Not only do major Western religions and many other world religions discourage premarital sex, but religious adolescents also tend to develop friendships and relationships within their religious institutions and thus have strong ties to people who are more likely to disapprove of early sexual activity. However, newer research indicates that once sexual intercourse occurs, religious affiliation and frequency of religious attendance has little impact on sexual behaviors (R. Jones et al., 2005).