Virginity 2.0 – Post Cherry-Pop Purity.
Bjorn | Monday, February 1st, 2010 | 33 Comments »
Equally a source of bellyache laughter, fascination, and sincere belief, the brand of premarital sexual purity hawked by evangelicals has made headlines for decades. Everyone from Justin Timberlake-era Britney Spears with her purported virginity to right-wing Christian writers like “I Kissed Dating Goodbye” Joshua Harris, cashed in on pooh-poohing pre-knot-tying nookie. But what were you supposed to do if you weren’t married but had already gotten laid? Just how screwed were you?
Enter Bristol Palin. About a year ago, the young Alaskan claimed that sexual abstinence was not at all realistic for teens. Last month she announced an about-face. The former vice-presidential hopeful’s daughter said in a January 2010 interview with “In Touch” that she has now decided to be sexually abstinent before marriage: ”I can guarantee it.” Challenged later on her statement by Oprah Winfrey who asked her if she was setting herself up to fail, Bristol was adamant, “It’s a realistic goal for myself.”
Danielle Bean in the National Catholic Register reacted angrily to Oprah’s questioning: “I’ll bet Bristol had big plans and dreams for her life that did not include becoming a mother at the age of 19. Seeing premarital sex as risky behavior with potentially devastating consequences shows maturity, not naïveté. Every one of us should applaud and encourage a young woman like Bristol Palin who dares to put chastity and life-long goals ahead of her hormones.”
Lashing out at cultural liberals, Bean commented: “Apparently… the advice anti-abstinence types would offer young women like her is: Dream big! As long as those dreams don’t include anything unrealistic like waiting until you are married to have sex.”
That isn’t so much the point though. Bristol has had sex and what she is attempting is what evangelical “purity culture” calls “born-again virginity” and what researchers call “secondary virginity”. To qualify, you renounce your sexual past and swear off additional intercourse until marriage. ”Secondary virgins” consider themselves absolved of their sexual history in a lump deal, closely linked to the Christian concept of absolute forgiveness/salvation that renders the forgiven spotless in the grander cosmic sense.
The concept of born-again virginity has taken a lot of heat, even for basic sexual health reasons. A study by the American Journal of Public Health, titled Reborn a Virgin: Adolescents’ Retracting of Virginity Pledges and Sexual Histories, found that adolescents that (often out of religious conviction) take virginity pledges until marriage “recant” their sexual pasts, basically seeing themselves as having never had sex. The past is gone and forgiven and they are now pure. The study notes that this is a dangerous tendency as adolescents that take this approach “may incorrectly assess the sexually transmitted disease risks associated with their prepledge sexual behavior.”
On the other side of the debate are people like Donna Freitas, author of “Sex and the Soul” and a religion professor at Boston University. She is all for born-again virginity. In a Christianity Today interview, Freitas says of college students that claim the term: “They’re not denying that they were sexually active, but they’re owning it….I think it is a way out of hookup culture.”
Revirginization is not powered solely by evangelical thought, it can be seen as consistent with American culture. Laura M. Carter wrote the book “Virginity Lost: An Intimate Portrait of First Sexual Experiences”. She claims that the idea of “revirginization” is consistent with elements of the American psyche: “In America there is the idea of the remade person… We are all in an endless state of becoming. You can remake yourself. That has been deeply ingrained in the culture for a long time. So why not virginity? Why not sexuality?”
And so we return to the Bristol makeover. There may be more than just purity points in store for Bristol if she can successfully revirginize. Double X’s Jessica Grose points out that Bristol may be cashing in on brand recognition as a spokesperson for pro-abstinence organizations. She is already teen ambassador of the conservative Candie’s Foundation (although she apparently does not receive a paycheck from them). Grose points out that Bristol has also formed her own company, BSMP LLC, a handy arrangement that Rachel Maddow says can allow her to be paid from multiple directions as a freelancer. Grose also makes the point that a rehabilitated Bristol would be a great asset in a possible 2012 run for president for her mom.
But let’s not get too cynical. If there is one thing America loves more than seeing famous people fall, it’s seeing them reinvent themselves. It’s Bristol’s turn.
Bjorn Karlman
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Oh, where to even begin on the subject. One of the BIGGEST issues in developed world today is the sheltered “children” and the “legal age”. The teens are in essence sub-people until they turn 21. In essence, we treat our children like incapable and irresponsible idiots.
If you take a look a couple hundred years back… people learned self-sufficiency early on, and they were ready to have kids at 17-18 and perhaps earlier.
It’s commonly though among the scholars that Mary pregnant with Jesus was a teen pregnancy
. Now, why would God do such a thing?
I certainly don’t advocate sex before marriage, but I see how people raise their children in developed world, and it seems to me that there’s a lot of spite to it, granted that there are many exceptions… but in this case I’m talking about Christian, and especially Adventist right.
It’s like the fightclub
. This first rule is, you don’t talk about sex. The second rule is, YOU DON’T TALK ABOUT SEX. You are not responsible enough engage in sex and to have family. You are uneducated, and you can’t provide for yourself until you at least finish the high-school… and getting aroused when seeing a beautiful woman or a man…(deep voice and lightning SFX) IS SINFUL!
So, what do we have here? We have young people who were told that they are not responsible enough… living in essentially pornographic culture of “just do it”. And their parents, instead of adequately equipping them to face certain challenges … they essentially pour the proverbial oil on fire.
How can it be better? How about stop telling teens that they are not responsible enough? It takes great amount of responsibility for raising family, but likewise it takes great amount responsibility to maintain purity.
I like my “heathen” parent’s approach, who sat me down when I was 13 and said: “Son, we know you already know a great deal about sex, you will probably be tempted to drink and smoke too. We can’t stop you from doing that, and if that’s your choice, we’ll respect it. But know that there are consequences for every choice that you make… and sure your friends may seem to have all of the fun now, but several years down the road they’ll still be doing the same thing. You can do much better. The next few years will determine how you will spend the rest of your life. Don’t waste these…”
Guess what, it worked… My “heathen” parents successfully helped me to avoid drinking, smoking and SURPRISE… obtaining from sex till marriage, however impossible people think it is in our culture.
People who know they are responsible and capable can accomplish much more.
I think I just found the script I’ll use on my future children! Excellent wording/communication of the issues. I suspect that we do coddle adolescents for too long. Of course, it could also be argued that they need this because we live in a far more complex society than that of people a couple hundred years ago.
@culturemutt interesting read bjorn!
Agreed, we need to be talking about sex with our kids. It’s everywhere and teenagers need the perspective of older more experienced people. Rather than dwell on dogmatic Biblical statements, why not describe what sex is all about within marriage and what is lost in a marriage when sex is not held within its confines? Almost everyone wants to be happily married one day. Very few seem to be aware of how rare truly happy marriages are.
Ellen White talks quite a bit about sex in her letters to young people; considering her time, it took courage.
Who should have that talk with kids? Parents or other trusted mentors… Perhaps a conversation with the latter would make the process more painless.
It depends on the type of parents. If the parents are the type that are not use to talking to their kids about serious issues, than sex is probably not the place to start. But if the relationship is such that there is an openness and trust between parent and child, than parents are the ideal.
Yeah, I am still not convinced. I feel like I have a good relationship with my parents but I still preferred to talk to a mentor, somehow that was less awkward.
I respect her decision and hope God blesses her. But it’s hard not to get too cynical, when the right has been known to hock Jesus like snake oil for personal/financial/political gain.
But God bless her
Yeah, it’s a fine balance. I was tempted to be more critical but then remembered I was dealing with a 19 year-old and thought that, as suspect as this all looks, give her some room to prove herself… Her mother makes it so much more difficult.
Personally, I always think it’s hypocritical when a person of “religious convictions” has to proclaim to the world about how religious they are acting. If you have to SAY how religious you are, you probably aren’t. The fact that Ms. Palin has spawn trolling the earth is proof enough to her past proclivities, and her now-proclamation of “I was bad, but now I’m being good” smacks of self-aggrandizement and narcissism. These are hardly Christian traits.
Taking it a step further, I do always find it intriguing that the Christian faith has evolved into a religion that is fixated on genitalia and reproduction, and making sure that its followers don’t use their sexual organs except as how the church dictates.
Think about the current major Christian hot-button issues: Marriage before sex; abortion; birth control; fornication; masturbation; pornography; homosexuality; gay marriage. All of these issues revolve around genitalia and reproduction.
And don’t even get me started on “celibate” priest pedophiles.
Sex is power. Controlling other people’s sexual activities is the *ultimate* power.
Maybe it’s time for the Christian church to pull its collective mind out of its pants (and everyone else’s pants), and focus more on taking care of the poor and impoverished, and nourishing the souls of the spiritually hungry. Wasn’t that Jesus’ original vision?
Of course, that would mean giving its power over to its congregants, and allowing them to think for themselves, sexually.
Well, I agree with the need to focus more on social justice issues. As for human sexuality issues, gay rights is an area that Christians routinely fail miserably with, stumbling over themselves in either outright condemnation of homosexuality or dramatic squabbles about the orientation of clergy. Life is messy and nuanced and as much as faith impacts all of life (including sexuality), I think that overly neat answers and the present “purity culture” is, at times, a substitute for thinking.
Kirk, have a look at what Micah is saying… I have a reply but I’d to have one from you too…
This issue always really annoys me. When a person tries to stay a virgin until they are married and fails, it somehow proves that they shouldn’t have tried in the first place? A person would have to be functionally retarded to truly believe that.
Let me give you a parallel example. If you have a policy to always be nice to others, that would normally be considered a good thing by others. When you mess up (as you would inevitably do) no one would ever say, ‘see you should have never had that unrealistic policy to begin with. You are just peddling some holier than thou pie in the sky nonsense…blablabla.’
That is total BS. People will always fall short of their own moral standards. If a person doesn’t fall short, then their standards are not high enough.
I think the real debate here is whether or not premarital sex is a bad thing or not. I understand many people don’t think it is. That is fine. However, when you acknowledge all the side effects that rampant premarital sex has had on our society, I really don’t see how a person can realistically make that argument.
I mean, hasn’t history already proven that abstinence is a much more realistic way to prevent STD’s and out of wedlock childbirth? Isn’t the rise in both those numbers an unintended consequence of sexual liberation, not the rise in unsafe sex? When people were much less sexually active, STD’s and out of wedlock childbirth were not serious problems.
One thing I always ask of the condom advocates (who seem to be just as dogmatic as any religious person I have ever met) is if they would have ‘safe sex’ with someone who has HIV. The answer is always no.
David, nobody on this post so far has said that virginity pledges are a bad thing. I simply think the issue is more complex than purity culture would have us believe. The culture seems to replace solid thinking, as evidenced by the tendency to ignore sexual pasts after pledging…
Oh yeah, I am not saying you or anyone here, but a lot of people who argue against abstinence take that stance.
Very true… and I was definitely tempted to as I find virginity pledges cheesy and stagey… a product of the nauseating hallmarkish drivel that is being encouraged in many a xian circle. But I think that someone as young as Bristol should get some breaks and the benefit of the doubt.
I would hardly call a virginity pledge ‘hallmarkish drivel’. It is a historically tried and true way to live a quality life. It is certainly superior in every way to the Sex in the City/Bonobo chimpanzee model.
The problem is that abstinence has been slandered by the contraception industry. There is a new study that was just released. According to its findings, the type of sex ed received did not effect condom usage.
http://phibetacons.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NDMxYzhiZTJhMTVmMjg3ZGNlZjIxNDk3YWUxNTU3OGY=
Also, one thing to keep in mind, I don’t believe Palin took a virginity pledge prior to her getting knocked up. I have never heard or read that she had anyway.
I was talking more about a general culture of cheesiness in a lot of pop Christianity… I respect the idea of virginity until marriage but the purity rings, corny vows, etc. I could do without. Interesting finding on the noneffect on condom usage among the sexually active. And as far as I understand it, Palin did not take a pledge before the Levi period…
Perhaps she (Bristol)meant, she wasn’t going to get screwed in the sense of getting prego again… Not “not screwing” as in not having sex.. But only time will tell…
She did specifically state that she would not have sex again until marriage. But you are right, time is the ultimate determinant. Check out http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/28/AR2008122801588.html.
It looks like purity pledges make next to no difference and people have sex anyway. In fact, many of those that pledge, later have unprotected premarital sex, more so than those that do not pledge abstinence.
@eileensoriton glad u liked CultureMutt. How’s the spa?
@culturemutt the spa is still going strong!
Going to jkt and Bali in 2 weeks time – looking forward 2 sharing some culture with reubs!
@eileensoriton wow… I am jealous… I need to get a business that means trips to Bali… have fun!
Ok, my first thought when reading this is ‘too bad…her ship has sailed.’ It’s nice she’d like to start fresh, but the damage is already done. Sure, she can make a new pledge, but does that “remake” her virginity? Nice try! That’s the beauty of life; we make some good decisions, some that are not so good. We learn from those decisions (good or bad) and move on. Sure…I’d love to go back to 17 and do a lot of things over again, I’d make a ton of different decisions. However, I’m here now and making the best of every day!
On another note, I disagree with your last comment in your post…I think Americans like to see famous people fail more than reinvent themselves.
Tough love, huh? And I stand by my statement: Americans love reinvention more than they love cynicism… why do we love the underdog so much if cynicism is our raison d’être.
Quoting Kirk: “Personally, I always think it’s hypocritical when a person of “religious convictions” has to proclaim to the world about how religious they are acting. If you have to SAY how religious you are, you probably aren’t. The fact that Ms. Palin has spawn trolling the earth is proof enough to her past proclivities, and her now-proclamation of “I was bad, but now I’m being good” smacks of self-aggrandizement and narcissism. These are hardly Christian traits.”
Judge not lest ye be judged. I get kind of hot under the color when I see well meaning Christians go so far in the direction of being accepting of those who have fallen that they are disdainful of those who actually try to pick themselves up and live according Biblical principles. Do we not believe in forgiveness AND sanctification? Do we not believe that it is possible to live a pure life? What is wrong with publicly renouncing sin and pledging to go and sin no more?
Sure, it may very well be that Bristol made her move for her own personal gain (or to make life easier for her mother), but maybe she is genuine and she really just wants to be a good example and a voice of experience to other teens who are struggling with the same issues. That would be a noble motive in my view. So we just don’t know what’s in her heart, therefore we shouldn’t judge.
As for the Church staying away from issues of sexuality and focusing exclusively on helping the poor: if the Bible has something to say about it, the church has something to say about it. The Bible has a lot to say about adultery, homosexuality, fornication, and life, therefore I think the Church definitely should not be silent. According to the Bible adultery is a sin (and not only that, as David pointed out, it’s extremely dangerous), so it’s absolutely right for the Church to exhort young people to abstinence. And those who fail should be able to count on God’s grace to give them a second chance: “I will remember their sins no more” (provided they understand, as Culturmutt pointed out, that forgiveness doesn’t mean absolution from consequences such as STDs).
In our culture of tolerance we often demonize the so-called Religious Right for being too intolerant, but we need to be careful that we don’t go to the extreme of being intolerant of intolerance (a self-hating position if there ever was one). According to the Bible we are to love sinners but hate sin. So a nuanced approach is appropriate when dealing with people and their specific situation, but when it comes to the underlying principles there is little room for nuance, the Bible is clear about what is right and what is wrong.
Micah… I don’t know that Kirk is being judgmental. His critique doesn’t seem to be a blanket condemnation of the Christianity’s handling of sexuality. I think he does have a point with the near-obsession that certain parts of Christianity have with sex. It is an unhealthy balance and it seems to eclipse equally important issues of social justice. And no, there is nothing wrong with taking a stand. What I am concerned with is the naive emphasis on “purity culture” that seems to pull attention away from a nuanced approach to human sexuality and the consequences of unprotected sex and, instead, put faith in vows, purity rings and sappy ceremony. Good point about the left’s intolerance of intolerance. Very true!
I think it was the way the Kirk framed his critique that sounded judgmental to me. A person can take a public stand on an issue without being hypocritcal. Whether Bristol Palin is a hypocrite (a la Britney Spears) or not remains to be seen, we don’t know her true motives. We have to be careful about assuming the worst about someone just because we disagree with some of their political views.
I guess as far as the near obsession of Christianity with sex thing, I just haven’t seen it. Most Christians I know take issues as they come, I haven’t seen a lot of dwelling solely on the sex issues. I think I see your point, though, in the way that Christians spend so much time crusading against abortion and gay marriage to the neglect of other important issues. But those things certainly are important issues too and I think much of Christianity’s “obsession” with them is simply a reaction to the secular humanist’s constantly advancing these issues and trying to shove them down Christians’ collective throat.
It is the secular humanists who keep expanding abortion rights to the point where they trying to make the taxpayer funded, for instance, and who are constantly trying to force us to recognize their redefinition of marriage. To Christians who interpret “thou shalt not kill” to extend to babies within the womb as well as without, and who read homosexuality listed in the Bible as a form of sexual perversion, there is a need to take a stand and not simply go along with secular doctrines they believe are against the Bible.
On the other hand Christianity does have a long history of being sexually repressive, as Kirk pointed out, from celibate priests to outlawing contraception. These kinds of extremes are certainly wrong, and something we should be careful to guard against.
I think I’m understanding better what you mean by a “nuanced” approach to sexuality. It’s not that there aren’t clear Biblical principles, but that the application of these principles is a complicated matter and various between individuals. Purity pledges may work for some people, not for others; each person needs to figure out for themselves how to live a life that is pure for God. If that’s what you mean I’m with you.
Micah, like your acknowledgement of the complexity of sexual issues/problems. But I don’t think secular humanists are shoving their sexual views down the throats of conservatives. If anything, the Right has a tendency to try to legislate their take on morality with anti-abortion laws and denying gay rights. Religion and accompanying social practices should not be legislated. It is unAmerican. The Separation of Church and State is something that the religious conservative really struggles with. Oh,.. and what’s so wrong with celibacy? If you are a Christian then surely you agree with people’s right to following the Pauline model?
Of course there’s nothing wrong with celibacy if that’s your choice – as you pointed out, Paul actually said it’s the best choice for those who want to devote their lives to ministry. The problem is when celibacy is mandated.
I’ve heard this accusation about the Right legislating morality a lot from the Left, and to me it’s an oversimplification that doesn’t do justice to the conservative point of view. The reason many are anti-abortion is because they think that logically a child inside the womb is still human and so should be protected by the law like the rest of us. It’s not more legislating morality than it is to have a law against murdering someone, because that’s what abortion is to a large amount of people.
Additionally the Right’s attempt to pass laws against gay marriage is usually a reaction to the Left’s redefining marriage. Homosexuals can have the same rights as heterosexuals without redefining marriage to fit their agenda. Though there may be many on the right who don’t think homosexuals should have the rights of a married a couple, I have a problem with that because I think that is legislating morality. But it also doesn’t make sense to say that a homosexual relationship is the same as a heterosexual one. Men and women are different.
as an inner city public school teacher, I am heart broken by the amount of single mothers I teach, and I have pregnant teens in my classes every semester. Though I believe that abstinence is ideal, especially for teenagers, I live in the real world. Encouraging teens to abstain is great, but can we also educate them about how to avoid pregnancy if they choose to be sexually active? There are too many incomplete, non existent or unreliable sex-ed programs out there. (for example in Maryland they don’t have it until high school, most students are sexually active by then, many come in already pregnant or with children). The teenage pregnancy rate has grown in the united states over the last few years. Teaching teens to be responsible includes comprehensive sexual education. The question is why is it so rare?
Have you come across any model sex-ed programs in high schools that you would recommend? Sounds like there is a huge opportunity there…
Unfortunately most sex-ed programs seem to grow out of one group’s agenda or another. The Left wants to throw out abstinence as unrealistic, while the Right wants abstinence exclusively. A well-rounded education should, as Liz pointed out, teach that abstinence is the safest and best practice, but it should also teach young people who to be responsible if they do choose to become active. It needs to be taught in middle-school as well.
Though, I also think parents need to be able to opt out of any sex ed classes as long as they pledge to talk to their kids about it themselves. Parents need to have a say in this because it’s not about empirical information as most classes are, but about lifestyle, and parents have the right to choose what kind of lifestyle they want their children to learn from a young age.
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