In 2008, sociologist Sarah Diefendorf spent a year attending a support group for young Christian men who’d pledged to remain abstinent until marriage, getting to know the 20-something bachelors whose lives revolved around an evangelical mega-church in the southwestern United States. Studies have found that teens pledging abstinence through large-scale national programs like True Love Waits and Silver Ring Thing are no more likely than their peers to remain virgins until marriage, but small peer groups may be more successful. “In these small groups, the men would really talk and grapple with issues of sex and sexuality,” Diefendorf, a PhD candidate at the University of Washington, told me. All 15 men in the group kept their pledges (as far as she could tell). But their struggles with sexuality didn’t end on their wedding nights. Diefendorf followed up with the men five years later, after they were married, to see what kind of issues they were still facing.

Diefendorf will present her research to the annual convention of the American Sociological Association in San Francisco on Sunday. I talked to her about what she found out—and what it’s like to be a secular woman at a virginity support group for religous men.

Alice Robb: Was it awkward for you to be there?

Sarah Diefendorf: I initially was worried about being a woman entering this space. They had a Facebook page at the time that said, “Men only”; I didn’t even think they would let me in. But I found that my secular identity trumped my gender identity. It didn’t matter as much that I was a woman as it mattered that I was someone from outside the church. They see a very clear divide between the evangelical community and the secular world. They wanted to tell their story to someone from the outside.

AR: What does the church teach them about sex?