What’s a mother to do? Many moms tend to take a stand against premarital sex but where does the HPV vaccine fit in to that?
 

In college, the virgin-until-marriage is a rare exotic species. But even though having sex is a common practice, it doesn’t make the dreaded conversation with the parents any less awkward.
 

A study from the University of Texas explored whether this parental anti-sex mentality keeps mothers from allowing their daughters to get the shot (though as you get older, you don’t need your parents’ permission).
 

Surprisingly, an article in the Houston Chronicle explains, it does not:

The survey, by a team at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, appears to refute the perception that mothers who opt against their daughters receiving the vaccine for the human papillomavirus do so because they oppose sex before marriage.

The vaccine was the subject of heated debate in the 2007 Texas Legislature, after Gov. Rick Perry issued an executive order that would have required schoolgirls to be inoculated with it. Some legislators argued that Texas girls shouldn't be "the study group" for the vaccine. Others argued it would encourage teenage sexual activity.

UTMB researchers didn't ask whether mothers feared such an effect. They found, however, that mothers who wanted their daughters to remain virgins until marriage were just as likely to have them get the vaccine as those who didn't expect their daughters to wait until marriage to have sex.

So moms don’t want their daughters having sex, but just on the off chance, shot in the dark, one in a million, slim possibility that they do accidentally fall into bed with someone, moms better make sure their precious little girls don’t get out of bed with a serious cancer-causing STD.
 

Smart.