Purity Pathology

Tucson, Arizona. For those that have an interest, on Friday evening the Arizona Baptist Children's Services group called the New Life Pregnancy Center is hosting a prom style "ball" for daddies and daughters to attend as a couple, dressed to the nines in formal clothing, and dance. The father and daughter exchange vows in a ceremony where he gives her a silver ring to wear. His vow: be a responsible daddy. Her vow: remain a virgin until she is married. She vows to be "true to her daddy."

The Arizona Daily Star ran an article on the event, noting a 24 year old virgin who will attend, stating, "I want to be a role model for the other girls."

I have a nineteen year old daughter. If she told me she wanted to marry a guy before having any sexual experience with him, I'd ask her if she were out of her mind. While it is possible, women are far less likely than men to be lousy lovers. Qualitative analysis studies have shown that men are over four times as likely to be inept in the sack as women. Make no mistake. A woman can also be horrible. I know a woman that, while physically attractive, exudes emasculating energy so powerful almost no one can be with her. A rapist with a gun tried to take her, and at the risk of getting shot she ripped into the guy verbally, remarking after he dropped his drawers, "No wonder you have to resort to rape, you pathetic. . ."

This blog does NOT advocate ridiculing the genitalia of a man holding a gun in your face, but it worked. Unprepared to shoot her and unable to rise to the occasion, he fled and she got dressed. Consider the situation highly atypical as this woman could bitch the chrome off a Harley Davidson.

Returning to abstinence, I've linked to studies showing that kids in abstinence programs have as much sex as those not in such programs, but they are LESS likely to use birth control because they are less prepared. Less birth control = more pregnancies. More pregancies = the scarlet "A," but that's not the subject of this post.

I am not advocating irresponsibility. In fact, I advocate the opposite, but as a society, we could not be more ridiculous. Our corporations bent on wrestling every possible dollar from teenage spenders pump them full of sexually suggestive content. Think Hollywood films (they know what draws a crowd), beer commercials (the boys don't drink until 21 of course), and the music industry and its videos? We expect them to spend their money as provocative ads suggest but not absorb any of the content? What a charade.

The marketing professionals understand biology. The abstinence crowd is not known for its command of science. They say things like "The devil put fossils into rocks to fool the faithful into believing evolution" and God put "star light in transit" so we could see the stars even though they're too far away for the light to have reached us yet, and the glaciers never happened. Let's not kid ourselves. If velociraptors were in the Garden of Eden, the Bible would be complete before the second chapter of Genesis.

Our children are far better served by teaching them how to make responsible choices and providing them the means to act on them. I accept and believe the notion that sexual activity prior to puberty is a grotesque violation that inflicts damage. I completely reject the notion that responsible sexual activity after biology has run its course (around 16-18) is violating anything. They're just doing what nature wants them to do. We should empower them to proceed in a way that is safe (in every way) and responsible.

Abstinence until marriage and biology had little conflict when people got married at seventeen. Waiting until thirty or later has become common. The abstinence until marriage conversation is obsolete, and pressuring these young girls with events like this ball and telling them they are "ruined" and "devoured" if they have sex before wedding someone is repugnant and unhealthy.

Apparently the 24 year old role model likes to wear a T-shirt reading, "Virgins are hot."

Think about that.