had a livejournal long before wordpress and have a folder on this computer with some of the writing i did on it:
I wouldn’t find out about this stuff if it weren’t for FARK.
This from yesterday for example. I pull a quote:
The purity movement is a close cousin to abstinence campaigns, which have also been imported from the US [to New Zealand].
About 150 college-age girls are expected at the four-day event, which will feature forums with titles such as “dare to be beautiful’, “dare to be modest”, and “healthy relationships”, as well as beautician-style pamper sessions, a fashion parade, and a banquet at which girls will be waited on “like princesses”.
“Dare to be a tease” may as well be one of the events, too. I might be silly to suggest it, but by college age, isn’t it unlikely to find virgins anywhere these days? According to the rest of the article, New Zealand’s a place that ranks high for teenage pregnancy, so wouldn’t you have to start these balls at age ten or something? Are the guys are getting a similar camp to encourage them to keep their parts in their pants until marriage, too? The article doesn’t say, but it’s doubtful.
A “camp” aimed at making these “pure virgins” beautiful, pampered and treated like princesses may raise their self-esteem, but I expect it’ll also increase the likelihood of getting sex. If “purity” is the actual goal, I found that the best way to remain a virgin is to be far too ugly, fat and badly dressed for guys to take an interest. I stayed “pure” for years that way. (If it weren’t for an unfortunate hookup while in the UK, I probably still would be, but I digress…)
Quote again:
“It’s the way that we think, the way that we act, the way that we dress, the values that we have … It’s about saying I want to encourage my kids to live a life that is wholesome and clean.”
Abstinence and “no sex” is a hard sell in a society that revels in sexual expression at earlier ages than it used to (think Baby Bratz). I just finished reading Generation Me by Jean M. Twenge, Ph.D. and she wrote a chapter she called “Sex: Generation Prude Meets Generation Crude” that focused on the sheer volume of sexual content kids are hit with on a daily basis just flipping channels, hitting the net, looking at ads in magazines and walking through toy departments. I think my favourite quote in the whole book comes from that chapter where she quoted a teenager from a New York Times Magazine article: “Who needs the hassle of dating when I’ve got on-line porn?” (172)
Twenge also wrote that lower pregnancy rates in the States have a lot to do with kids taking birth control and carrying condoms and changes in abortion laws have also made an impact (176) and that “births to teens aged 15 to 17 were down 42% between 1991 and 2003” (213) according to this census site she listed in the notes.
The high school in my home town has had a day care since the early ‘90s. There was a rumour back in my junior high years about a girl who’d gone into the hospital for “collapsed intestines” that we figured was code for abortion. She was one of several girls that was sexually active (or assumed to be, based on gossip which was rarely wrong). I think sex was the last thing on my mind in grade 8, frankly. I was too worried about losing my stupid Social Studies binder and getting a good grade in Math and English. I did have a crush on several boys around then, but I was too flipping shy to talk to them usually (but I cringe as I recollect chasing one of them around a school dance hoping to get to dance with him…). Even now, my crushes are few and far between and if a guy smiles at me out of a natural habit of niceness, I’ll get the wrong idea that he’s attracted to me and then I make a fool of myself. I don’t even get to the dating part, let alone a night of wild monkey love.
I almost wish my folks would have pushed me towards the knowledge of how to attract a fellow, like how to dress, beautify myself, and behave in a way that would interest men – not tart-like, but just more extroverted and less bookish. I missed out on the dating scene in school and by university I was so far behind my peers socially. I didn’t know how to act or behave in many social situations. Totally clueless.
Still clueless. Maybe I should watch more TV.
—
haha on the last paragraph. could not see future and darling Hubs…He likes how bookish i am and has no care about my lack of interest in make-up…
My CFI group has a movie club and we watched the 2014 documentary The Virgin Daughters about these balls a few months ago. Also, if into podcasts, check The Dollop’s episode on this topic, too.
One Minion's Opinion 