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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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At the young age of 20, Miss Moscoe gets what Shields, at age 44, doesn't. Moscoe tells Cosmo: "My roommates always tell guys I'm dating about my virgin status, and tease me. I think it's because they are insecure and want the guys to get scared off or because they're jealous that I'm stronger than they've been."

And when Moscoe weakens and starts looking longingly at Mr. Okay -- or Mr. Right Now -- she ought to talk to some Newark public-school students. The nonprofit Best Friends Foundation sponsored an essay contest asking participants in its abstinence-education program to explain the program's significance in their lives. Hannah, a sixth-grader at Louise A. Spencer Elementary School, explained that the program taught her that she has "the right to say no to sex and drugs ... to respect myself and the ones around me ... to have trust, faith and self-esteem."

In other words, Hannah's self-worth isn't determined by her scores in the "Love Game," as the Lady Gaga song crudely terms what is far, far from real love. Quonia, a student at Chancellor Avenue School, also understands this important lesson. "There are plenty of times when boys have told me things that I wanted to hear just so I would have sex with them. But I didn't and I am proud to say that I'm in the eighth grade and I am not sexually active," she declares.

Best Friends' abstinence-only mission would be deemed "unrealistic" by many well-funded sex-ed wonks. But according to a 2005 study in the journal Adolescent & Family Health, students in D.C. public schools who participated in Best Friends' program were 6-1/2 times less likely to have sex than their peers. But while Best Friends challenges children and teens to say "no," it provides much to say "yes" to as well; showing inner-city kids they can have a full life that doesn't get its purpose from sex. Imagine: sex could be a beautiful expression of happiness and love instead of a casual, reckless or desperate search for a shabby substitute.

As sixth-grader Hannah puts it: "it's about sisterhood. Best Friends is about teaching young girls how to be smart, successful and beautiful. Best Friends is about self-respect, self-control, responsibility and love. It's about respecting your body and not having sex at a young age. Best Friends is about being truthful and being yourself."

Maybe they should quote her in the next issue of a certain women's glossy. Hannah and her friends might be the inspiration that Cosmo girls need.

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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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