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Friday, June 05, 2009
Kathryn Lopez :: Townhall.com Columnist
Stop, In the Name Of Love
by Kathryn Lopez
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What was the biggest suprise of Election Day?



"I'm still holding out for Mr. Right, but with all the pressure my roommates place on me and the way they embarrass me, sometimes I think Mr. Okay will have to do."

That's not dialogue from a "Sex and the City" remake. It's Andrea Moscoe, 20, who is a "committed chick," according to Cosmopolitan magazine, preserving her virginity despite being in college and "living in a house with five sex-crazed girls." The women's glossy profiles several young virgins in its July issue.

*** Special Offer ***

Why would anyone not be having sex in this post-Victorian age? Brace yourself: Some young women consider sex an "intimate thing," according to the article. But holding out isn't easy; Cosmo finds their 20-year-old virgins on the brink of giving in.

Victoria Vikes, who at the ripe age of 23 is one of the older girls featured in the article, says, "Sometimes my virginity feels like a handicap. Dating is difficult enough without that hanging over my head. I might just settle for the next semi-decent guy who comes around."

Andrea and Victoria are representative of the women profiled. Most of these gals aren't even thinking the "l" or "m" words -- love and marriage. They simply want to wait in order to find a mate they will remember, or be "comfortable" with, or who will be "someone they trust."

Brooke Shields would tell them to just get on with it, already. In an issue of Health magazine, the "Blue Lagoon" actress and mother of two daughters named her biggest health-related regret: "I think I would have had sex a lot earlier! ... I think I would have lost my virginity earlier than I did at 22." Continued...
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About The Author
Kathryn Jean Lopez, editor of National Review Online, writes a weekly column of conservative political and social commentary for Newspaper Enterprise Association.
 
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(30 comments so Far)
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Reply # 1
Date: Jun 7, 2009 - 12:57 PM EST
con't
Here's some solutions.
1. Parents should be required to attend sex and relationship courses in advance of their children's courses in school so that they can better address the needs of their children. This should be non religious/ sectarian, non political when it comes to dealing with the realities of sexuality and emotional insecurity.

2. This education for adults and young people should also include gender and sexual orientation specific because gender variance and orientation rarely gets the treatment needed and deserved in mainstream education.

3. Young people and their parents don't deal with the emotional aspects that lead to unrealistic relationship and emotional expectations. This especially effects girls in ways mentioned by a few of the posters.

4. And NO, religious faith based and propagandist influence is VERY biased against females and the gender variant and leads to a distortion too of shame, guilt, expectations, and punishment.

5. If anything, some of you might remember if it was YOU who was socially awkward, lonesome or had little effective adult support for the worst of your insecurities. Empathizing with that, and remembering what you needed most goes a long way in reaching people where they need it most.

I'd rather discuss this idealization of virginity, sex and sexuality from that standpoint. I'm VERY conservative on this actually.
Don't try to shoot the messenger with trying to pinning on the liberal/lefty/feminist labels. Once you do that, then it's not hard to see that resolution isn't on the agenda here either.

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Reply # 2
Date: Jun 7, 2009 - 12:36 PM EST
con't
Ancient cultures required virginity as a means of keeping IDENTITY pure for one's clans.
Men in particular could only know a child was theirs by that means.
Which is why virginity had any value, even if the female in question really didn't.
This thread is almost laughable with the kind of ignorance displayed.
But young people pay a heavy price for it, and can't count on the adults to truly meet their most urgent needs.

Which are mostly about isolation, distortion of gender expectations and sexual expectations and gratification and not being able to read the emotional issues they have and mistaking them for something else.

Marriage is not an option for everyone, not even supportive social and family networks are either (as in the case of gay children in particular).
And when our society especially fails girls, gives boys the wrong expectations regarding themselves and females...then adults like yourselves STILL can't focus and get real, well, no wonder there are still dangerous and remarkably revisionist myopia about history and context.

Going on and on and ON about feminists, liberals, leftists and so on, conveniently is amnesia regarding that these are the groups who have never really been fully in charge, but challenged the status quo and for reasons the powerful never appreciated: that they weren't doing such a good job, and those whose lives they affected BADLY had every reason to assert the needed changes.

Now, I'm not hearing any especially good ideas, just complaints.

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