Just tell them about the Super-AIDS virus laying waste to New York's gay community.

Just tell them that AIDS is the leading cause of death for African-American women of childbearing age.

Just tell them that the viruses are mutating much faster than our ability to develop medications.

Just tell them how good it feels to wake up in the morning and look yourself in the mirror comfortably.

I waited until marriage at age 26. I didn't explode. Neither will anyone else. 'Nuff said.

One serious nitpick - The analogy of sex to 'test driving' a car is seriously flawed. Sex is more like putting on some major mileage, getting out of the warranty, and placing several dings in the car. Also, your transition is probably inoperable because there's no backing up from that first time.

I find that some people who claim that they are abstinent really aren't--but rather they are celibate. The distinction of course is that celibacy [often] describes a state and abstinence is a voluntary, self-produced and accepted lifestyle.

I'm not gonna front, I have gotten very, very, [i]very[/i] close to losing my virginity. But only because at that time my heart was not right. I didn't have Heb. 11:25 faith, and I didn't understand what true intimacy was. Thank God that I was convicted before I did...that.

But anyway, as always, great post Ambra.

And as a side note: Can the schools effectively teach abistinence without teaching morality? It seems to me that promiscuity is an identity issue, and as long as the schools liken our identity to apes, sexual perversion wins.

One of the biggest paradigms in life is the fact that true freedom has boundaries.

SO TRUE!

Ambra, I am so glad you wrote on this issue. It truly is disgraceful... the state of our society. Everyone wants and emphasizes "freedom" without consequences, but it just leads to an empty shell of a heart and a life of constantly searching for more satisfaction, but never finding it. I chose abstinence because I chose to learn from the mistakes of my friends and acquaintances. Now, many of them wish they had chosen abstinence too. I am 27 and still not married, and I still have not exploded or gone crazy. It appears that society is wrong. Go figure? I have not been damaged by failed relationships, I have not contracted any venereal diseases, I have not found myself pregnant with a child that I am not able to care for... I feel whole and self-assured. I am extremely grateful for God's influence on my life. His path leads me and my heart is full of peace. I couldn't ask for anything more. I don't need sex to be satisfied, I need God.

Good post. You, Ambra, are a true revolutionary and countercultural. It's too bad there are not more people who see your attitude as the truly countercultural one it is.

C-SPAN 2 aired a panel about Tom Wofle's "I am Charlotte Simmons" last weekend, and every panelist, male and female, challenged Wolfe's notion that Ivy League or Duke-type campuses are overwrought w/ students obessed with "hooking up" (which one panelist defined as ranging from kissing to intercourse). A couple of presenters felt the undegrads now are less focused on sex than boomers were. Try to get a transcript or air date.

You are so right, Ambra. From experience I can tell you that you're investing in a wonderful future. Sex welded to the marriage bond makes for a wonderful meaningful sexual relationship and a powerful marriage bond. You're not "giving something up." You're keeping your eyes on the prize.

I made a similar commitment nigh on ten years ago now. At the time I thought nothing could shake that commitment, but like Alex my heart drifted and I came very, very, very close to breaking it. I don't think any of us, when we make the decision to abstain from sex until marriage, really understand how difficult that course is going to be. Anyone who survives it deserves a medal or something.

Gerard E. - My concern is, as a retrovirus, HIV may eventually manifest into a super gene that allows it to fly like the common cold. Of course this is all hypothetical, and by man's terms it is also highly unlikely.

It is interesting, however, that the first cases of this super-aids occured in New York instead of a place where the disease is moving much quicker through the human and animal populations.

*Janna: Right on. I believe you bring up the important issue: wholeness. Man that's a whole other topic.

*Bijan: I wouldn't doubt that promiscuity is going down on college campuses. The thing is, it's up on Middle school campus. It's the creep factor.

*Alex wrote: "One serious nitpick - The analogy of sex to 'test driving' a car is seriously flawed."

Right. I don't subscribe to this analogy, but many do. It was stated tongue-and-cheek.

"I find that some people who claim that they are abstinent really aren't--but rather they are celibate. The distinction of course is that celibacy [often] describes a state and abstinence is a voluntary, self-produced and accepted lifestyle.

Agreed.

"And as a side note: Can the schools effectively teach abistinence without teaching morality? It seems to me that promiscuity is an identity issue, and as long as the schools liken our identity to apes, sexual perversion wins."

I think abstinence and morality have to go hand in hand. Most people who are holding out for "health reasons" don't last. There's got to be a greater goal in mind. I think a lot of problem could be solved if young people were taught about purpose and vision. You don't have to bang people over the head with the Bible to use God's principles in the classroom.

There's a fine line.

The case for abstinence shouldn't just be about not getting somebody pregnant. It's about living a better life. It's kind of like my progression from abstaining from sex out of fear to abstaing from sex out of love...for God that is (and my future husband).

Wow.

I submitted my life to Christ in April of 1993. Since then I made a committment to wait until marriage. Unfortunately in my life before then I had no such committment.

I really, truly wish I had waited. There's always a better cook, a richer person, a smarter person, a better poet and so on. There is only one thing in life that you can give to your spouse which no one else in all of creation can give them: you. When I eventually marry, it is with the knowledge that I gave away what should have been her precious gift and I mourn that.

I know that I can still give her me, but I could have given her more. Like the feeling she would have gotten from knowing that she was the one and only.

Something I tell the young (and older) people around me is that every time you give in to sexual temptation and that relationship fails, you've thrown a portion of your soul to the winds.

Sorry, I ramble.

You should be commended for your stand not ridiculed!

As a "reborn" virgin, I have experienced the pain that sex outside of God's timing causes, and I would not wish that kind of pain and regret on anyone. I know that I have been forgiven, but I also know that I will not be able to share my first sexual experiece with the man that I will marry. I don't totally agree with using fear tactics to convince teens to wait until marriage, but if that is what it takes to keep our generation safe, I'm all for it. Thanks for the post.

Well, I'm no advocate of fear tactics either (although it worked on me until about age 14 1/2). I am an advocate of telling young people the truth and setting high expectations.

I think one of the most important sentences you wrote was this:

"Call me crazy, but I believe life as a teenager can be made easier and more purposeful without sex and complexly short-sighted relationships."

And I wonder why everywhere I go, I see hoardes of teen-age children not only dressed like tramps (girls) hanging out with and being suggestive to the boys. Do parents teach self-worth at all? These children ASK to ogled and treated like objects and they don't even know that it's wrong.

I don't know about you, but when I was a teenager, I had a ton of homework, a ton of responsiblity at home and wasn't even allowed to be out of my house if it wasn't a Friday night and I was at a football game with SOMEONE's parent(s). Sat. night wasn't allowed because we had church on Sunday morning, early.

I think more responsiblity, more supervision and little God time can't hurt these kids. It might just wake them up.

I have to disagree with Mr. Raspberry when he says: "They are, willy-nilly, in a hookup culture that they (the girls, at least) don't remember asking for but feel powerless to change."

Women did ask for it, remember the feminist revolution? Women wanted to be treated JUST like men. Suprise, it ain't exactly like you thought, was it?

Another nice one.

I emailed Raspeberry's piece to some teenagers I know.

I definitely see your point, and am really disgusted with the uberhedonism that's associated with sex. BUT, I think that you're tagging "progressive" with some negative traits - here, progressive merely meaning people who are super-hedonistic and don't have any rules for themselves (and don't quite care). The opposite end of this spectrum would cultural traditionalism.

This doesn't square with my experiences, as among progressively mindful friends, although they feel more sexyak freedom, this freedom does *not* come without self-imposed rules. There is a morality about sex that doesn't require abstinence. (I'm not saying you'd have to agree, but it's still there, we don't need to pin "progressives" with all this very negative stuff the culture is producing out.)

I have 3 grown children, ages 25, 22 and 18. Two married (and were virgins along with their spouses). Selling abstinance is the wrong way to go. It starts with beleif, not behavior.
Last October my 18 year old took a group of non-religious friends to a FCA event before the Wake/FSU game. Her first inkling that it would be a long day ocurred when they opened with cheers for Jesus... "We love Jesus- yes we do! We love Jesus, how bout you!" Things went quickly downhill from there.
Next came a series of talks, all prempted with... "There's a devil at the door." Among the demons was premarital sex. So here is my sweet, cool Lander putting her rep on the line by taking popular friends to hear about Jesus... you feel her pain? Not yet.
Next they were asked to sign abtinate pledges for each demon, ie: drugs, alcohol, sex, gambling. I can just imagine those speakers bragging at the next conference, "I speak to thousands of highschoolers each year and have them sign..."

am i the only one totally disgusted by that?

steven, you can hardly blame the promiscuous behavior of a few on the feminist movement. there have been people-- male and female-- who have consistently engaged in sexually irresponsible behavior since the beginning of time. why? because sex is pleasurable and people like things that feel good. (some more so than others.)

personally, i'm offended. you seem to be inferring that women ought to go back to being confined solely to the home and having their bodies owned by their father/husband, because our having personal freedom somehow "ruins" society. (nevermind that the vast majority of sexually active women are having sex with very willing MEN. if you want to lay blame, wouldn't you agree that men would need to absorb at least 50% of it?)

kim,

There is a HUGE difference between "being confined solely to the home, with their bodies solely owned by their father/husband" (Which isn't what the Bible says, btw.) and what steven is talking about.

I do not believe I am "confined solely to the home"
Though, actually, my body IS owned by my husband -- just like I own his -- joint ownership. "The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does; and likewise also the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does."

However, ultimately, our bodies are temples of God. "Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?"

This is before and after marriage. And this is the call to holiness that asks women (and men. It is just as important for a guy to be a virgin as a woman. I'm not sure where you got the idea this was all about girls alone. Though I'm sure nykola, as well as I, will talk more about the female side because that is what we are and what we have lived.)

Personally, I would feel perfectly free and equal even if women were treated differently than men. We keep cleaner restrooms. I certainly prefer to hear the less rough language that they used to do in respect of a "lady" being around. And being afraid to do anything that would bring down the honor of a woman -- avoiding the appearance of evil, etc.

Women tend to be more nurturing than men -- which means that we do tend to react differently to situations. So why not appeal to that? Let the guys handle the heavy, physical jobs. Let the woman handle the empathetic, let each person cater to their own strengths instead of struggling to pretend to be "exactly equal" when we have different gifts, even within a gender.

Men can not give birth to new life, for one very physical difference between us.

My Boaz's Ruth,

steven's comment seemed to imply that the feminist movement had a completely negative effect on women and consequently, society as a whole. what it actually did do was give women choices they had been previously denied.

i don't know you or what your situation is... but i never said that you or anyone else were currently confined to the home. thanks to the feminist movement, we're not. if you choose to work within the home, that's your choice. if you choose to work outside of the home, that's also your choice. that's the beauty of the movement!

i get what you mean about you and your husband owning each other's bodies in the spiritual/marriage sense... but that's not what i was talking about. i was referring to the way things used to be, when a woman had no legal rights and was basically owned by her father, who would eventually sell her off to her husband.

And this is the call to holiness that asks women (and men. It is just as important for a guy to be a virgin as a woman. I'm not sure where you got the idea this was all about girls alone.

that's the same basic idea i was trying to convey. (not so much that one needs to be a virgin, because i don't subscribe to that school of thought, but that if there's a promiscuity issue, you can't just hold only the women accountable, as steven implies. the majority of them are engaging in heterosexual intercourse, meaning that there are men engaging in equally promiscuous behavior.)

as for differences between men and women: yes, there are some physical differences, but i don't think they're all that important most of the time. i mean, sure i can give birth... but i can't fertilize an egg, which is just as important to making a baby. (and hell, a female cat, cow, or horse can give birth too, so it's not that awe-inspiring to me. i think humans are much more amazing than their reproductive process.)

"My Boaz's Ruth"

Greatest-Name-Ever!

I doubt that you are the only one "disgusted" with my remarks - but should you be?

While you are correct that I can't blame promiscuous behavior on the feminist movement, I do believe that, contrary to what Mr. Raspberry said, modern feminism did ask for the "hook-up culture."

Please do not infer things that I did not say. I have found that when feminism is challenged, one of the first responses that you hear is "oh, you want women barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen." I don't think that I have ever heard a man (in America) ask for women to be property. But then again, I have heard one man ask to be "married" to another man, so anything is possible.

My beliefs are very close to My Boaz's Ruth's. I leave others free to choose their lifestyle and people's relationships are their own business.

I have heard feminism broken into to two brands: "equity" feminism - the right to vote, equal pay, etc... - and "gender" feminism, the belief that men and women are the intrinsically same, it is society that "constructs" roles for them. It is the so-called "gender" feminism which I am attacking. This brand of feminism does not respect women who choose the married life, but rather criticizes and mocks tradition. It is this brand that has led us to the predatory, promiscuous female that, while present in the past, was never this prevalent in our society.

I expect more from women because I respect women more than men. And let's be honest, women have much more power in the sexual arena than men. Women can say no. There is plenty of time to criticize men, we probably deserve most of it anyway!

If you want to better understand my stance, feel free to look up "What Do Feminists Want?" on my site. I go into greater detail than I can here.

I hear ya Ambra!

I'm 30 and still trusting in God to deliever my wife to me (whether it is my current gf or not...that is still to be decided) and at that time we (or at least I) will be with her and only her.

Brave and tru tru post

steven,

i still disagree. i don't see anyone mocking married women. in fact, i'd venture to say that most women, even those with careers and life goals of their own, do aspire to be married. there's a plethora of tv shows, books and movies chronicling the attempts of some career woman trying to catch herself a husband. women keep watching and reading because they relate.

when people do express disdain for marrige, i think it's much more of an americanism issue: we're a nation of people who want to stay forever young. getting married and having kids means you have to be an adult in the biggest way possible. and despite the cringe factor, it seems that most people eventually bite the bullet, hook up and spawn in the end anyway.

finally, i think it's unfair of you to hold women to a higher standard because you "have more respect for them." surely, having a vagina, ovaries and a couple of breasts doesn't make me automatically more worthy of respect than a man? respect is a thing to be worked for and earned: not acquired along with certain body parts. and if feminism has spawned a predatory promiscuous woman, what movement can account for the predatory promiscuous man? and shouldn't they BOTH shoulder equal parts of the blame? (yes, "women can say no," but men DON'T HAVE TO ASK.)

Kim:

The feminist movement is a complete cave-in on the part of women. Women used to be proud of being mothers and home-makers, it was their domain and area of expertise they carved out. Men went to work and earned money, and had that as their domain they carved out an expertise in.

But men respected women in their domain: the whole thing associated with Victorian manners (men standing and removing their hats in the presence of women, the extensive and flowery poetry praising their mothers, etc.) was that era's expression of men's =respect= for women. Your comments that a woman was "owned" by her father and "sold" to her husband are gross exaggerations and distortions of the way things used to be.

Was there a tendency for men to think that because they were out in the workplace they were "better," or that because they had the vote their opinion mattered more? Certainly. Temptations to pride exist everywhere, and everyone can fall to them.

But feminism didn't call for reform; it called for revolution and a complete overthrowing of sex-roles. The feminist movement basically said "Men, your domain is more valuable that women's. Ladies: out of the house and into the workplace. Kids: over to daycare." Instead of supporting women and stating that the work of looking after a house and raising children is difficult, valuable, and worthwhile, it proclaimed that wife/motherhood was useless and demeaning and something from which women ought to be "liberated."

Which is the biggest load of hogwash ever to be foisted off on anyone.

One might note that God, in the Bible, makes many suggestions about how to get along with your relatives, how to raise your children, how to deal justly with your neighbours in interpersonal relations....but it lacks any career suggestions, any political programme, or any investment advice.

Seems mighty clear to me that the traditional "female" domain of home and family is far more important in God's eyes than the traditional "male" domain of the workplace.

Women used to be proud of being mothers and home-makers, it was their domain and area of expertise they carved out.

who says they still aren't? i know housewives who love what they do and are marvelous at doing it. but you know what? not every woman likes that sort of thing. personally, i'd rather work at my passion, outside of the domestic sphere. doesn't mean that homekeeping is a bad thing: it's just not what i wish to do. (and anyway, it's not what i'm good at: children and i don't mix and i'm a neat freak who blows up over other peoples' messes.) and thanks to feminism, i have the ability to make that choice, rather than being forced to do things i am neither well-suited for nor interested in doing. it's hardly a cave-in on my part.

my basic point is this: everyone ought to have choices. (and deciding to work in the home is not better or worse than deciding to work outside of the home. it's about doing what best fulfills you. it's not about doing what other people think you SHOULD do, or what they try to tell you will make you happy.)

you shouldn't have to do a particular job because of your gender. the reason why women are now openly less chaste is that we now have the option of managing our sex lives any way we wish. that's the same reason why men have been unchaste for eons. it hardly seems fair to condemn women for unapologetically doing what men have been doing since forever.

finally, the god argument only works when everyone is of one faith. (and the bible and i have never been friends.)

also, this is off-topic, but i'm wondering on your position concerning stay-at-home dads? do you think it's wrong for a man to do the brunt of the housework and childrearing, while the woman works?

That's fine Kim, I like living in a country where we can disagree.

Man-hatred and anti-marriage sentiment has always been a part of the sufferage/feminist movement. When I was researching my post mentioned above it was quite easy to find quotes.

You may be right, maybe I am being unfair expecting more from women, but I still do. And I believe the fact that women do not think that they are special, do not think that they are worthy of more respect, is part of the problem.

Many men will be more than happy treat women poorly. What's stopping them?

Women are more than just their sexual parts. Women are special. Demand more and that's what you will get.

For what it's worth, I am a woman and mother. My husband, a former police officer, is now a stay-at-home dad with our kidlets, and I work full-time as a mechanical engineer.

My husband tells me looking after our daughters is the hardest job he's ever had.

Engineering is fun: I love seeing something go from being just and idea to something I can hold in my hands. But I am not deluding myself: things I design will last 30 to 50 years, tops, then be ripped out without a thought and replaced by other, more modern, things. I am not "making my mark on the world" with engineering.

On the contrary, what is really important is how we are raising the kids: will they grow up happy, well-adjusted, caring, adults. =That= will last much longer than any mechanism I can come up with as an engineer. My kid's relative degree of screwed-up-edness (or, hopefully, lack thereof) will affect their lives and my grandchildren's lives and on down. Not only is it good for them (certainly a good in itself), from my selfish perspective of "wanting to make my mark on the world" this is better done in my role of mother than my role of engineer.

In summary, why I think feminism has failed women:

(1):--The harmony of one's home/family of origin is more important to one's successful psychological integration as an adult than the specific occupation of one's parent(s). Therefore, home/family life is a higher calling than any outside career.

(2):--Home/family life, the higher calling from (1) above, has traditionally been considered the expertise of women. Feminism at best de-emphasizes home/family life and at worst actively disrespects it with respect to outside careers. Therefore, feminism exchanges the higher calling for the lower.

(3) Feminism's purpose was to raise the profile of women. Yet from (2), feminism has exchanged a higher calling for a lower one. Therefore, feminism has failed in its purpose.

Q. E. D.

Now, a thought experiment: what if feminists had instead focussed on raising the social profile of the stay-at-home-with-the-kids role instead of pushing the go-out-to-work role? Women who stayed home would be valued instead of being seen as "just" housewives. Men who stayed home would be seen as making a serious contribution to the family instead of being "too lazy to go out and work." And the work world, for men or women, would be more supportive of employees roles as parents.