It’s just another small town newspaper reporting on small town teenagers taking small town “purity vows” at a small town church….
“Waiting until marriage” is not just a phrase for some local teens, who have vowed to abstain from sex until they marry.
That’s not an easy road for today’s teens. They’re surrounded by a culture that celebrates sex in movies, even some rated PG-13, song, books and television. Ads during Sunday’s Super Bowl football contest used sex to sell Doritos and godaddy.com.
The reporter praises the pledging teens, condemns the sex-crazed culture (that dang Super Bowl ruins everything!), and promotes a local church’s efforts to keep kids pure and right with Jeebus. Predictably this reporter for the Emporia Gazette doesn’t allow reality to encroach on her report—she doesn’t reference, for instance, the results of this recently published study:
Five years after the pledge, 82% of pledgers denied having ever pledged. Pledgers and matched nonpledgers did not differ in premarital sex, sexually transmitted diseases, and anal and oral sex variables. Pledgers had 0.1 fewer past-year partners but did not differ in lifetime sexual partners and age of first sex. Fewer pledgers than matched nonpledgers used birth control and condoms in the past year and birth control at last sex.
In other words, kids who take purity vows like the ones being praised in the Emporia Gazette—the overwhelming majority of whom will one day deny ever having done such a stupid thing—are just as likely as non-vowers to fuck before marriage, contract sexually transmitted diseases, swallow loads, get fucked in their fool butts, etc., etc., and they’re less likely to use condoms than kids who don’t take purity vows. It seems to me that these inconvenient truths should at least get a mention in a piece about purity vows—even a puff piece—that’s running in a newspaper and not, say, a church bulletin. But here’s is my favorite part of the report:
Cody [said[ the candy bar illustration… helped him decide to abstain even before Cornerstone sponsored the Purity Banquet.
“He pulled out a Snickers bar, unwrapped it and put the whole thing in his mouth, then pulled it back out,” Cody recalled. The speaker then held that candy bar up with a second Snickers bar, still in its sealed wrapper.
“He asked which one we’d want.”
Yes, because hymens are kind of like candy-bar wrappers because, um, vaginas are kind of like candy bars—all long and phallic and brown. And speaking of the sex-drenched Super Bowl: follow the link to the Emporia Gazette and you can vote on who you think will win the Super Bowl. The Cardinals? Or the Steelers? Right now the Empire Gazette’s readers are predicting a miraculous win for Arizona Cardinals.
Those kids have problems if they can’t stand the idea of sharing someone’s saliva. Virgin or not, your partner’s mouth is full of germs. Are they going to be dry kissing their entire lives?
Maybe ‘Brownbacking’ could be when you fuck yourself in the mouth with a whole Snickers bar?
He can put the whole candy bar in his mouth?
Give him my number, please…….
I think he was trying to pick up the reporter.
That is just awesome. Please, let’s perpetuate the belief that a non-virgin is somehow used and damaged goods. What possible harm could that cause?
An aside…. I was just re-reading a journal I kept when I was a high school freshman — in it, I say that I am virtually positive that I will wait until marriage to have sex. I know I never took a purity pledge and I wasn’t a member of some crazy church, so WTF was I thinking? Really. I have no clue why I would have said that…
I admire the desire to abstain, even if a lame analogy helps someone decide that it is best for them personally. I have to say I failed abstinence only sex education (and therefore don’t support it as a means of education), but in my defense the the analogy I was told was far lamer. “If you give the milk away there is no reason for the farmer to buy the cow.”
I thought you already told us this morning a vagina is like an asshole.
Asshole or Snickers bar?
New Yorker had a thing on evangelical teen sex behavior a few months ago. Punch line: just as much sex, more pregnancy, more teen marriage, and a generation of young women who at 25 have already almost a decade into a marriage with the first guy they ever fucked. Blech.
Ted Three is a dildo shaped like a Snickers bar – true 100% fact!
Maybe he should have offered the teens the choice of eating a Snickers bar out of a vagina (the “Maryanne”) or, still in the wrapper and seen how the votes went?
I know, Kim! I resent being called a cow in any context.
It’s hard out there for a girl … my upbringing was that I had to appeal to all men on a sexual level at all times or else I had no value as a female, but never, ever under any circumstances give them what they want (or want it for myself) because that would make me a whore who would bring disrespect to myself and my family.
So I did it all, starting at way too early of an age, and was very good at not getting caught but I still have hangups.
It will be a long process for these kids to reconcile what they do with what they’ve been taught! Welcome to the club, kids!
OHHHH I love this line: “He has no women in his computer classes, so there’s little interaction.”
Praise Jeebus for not tempting him so, and praise Jeebus you’re still pure if you watch porn all day like this kid does.
Dan, you missed an obvious chance to use “saddlebacking” in this post.
Have you looked at this morning’s slog, Dan.
This might not be the day to criticize others journalism.
I thought “purity balls” meant a shaved scrotum.
And that’s ultimately what the fundies want, for everyone, especially women, to be as miserable as they are.
Virgins??? There are virgins out there? (I gotta get me sum o’ dat.)
That candy bar analogy must make those boys even more eager to get some virgin abstainer before somebody else does, which leads one to believe it will actually increase sexual activity.
So was this a king size Snickers bar, or one of the bite size miniatures?
hee hee.
I love you, Dan
Have you ever seen a virgin try to eat a candy bar? Not a clue what they’re doing.
Speaking of saddlebacking. Has Warren or the Saddleback Church responded in any way to saddlebacking? I would imagine they know that ignoring it will bring less publicity than if they attempted something as silly as a lawsuit.
That is a False analogy.
And realy gross. I didn’t know my boyfriend’s penis has a special chocolate coating on it that could be removed via oral, anal, or vaginal (never) sex. Of course, I didn’t see it prior to his de-virgining.
Greg you just reminded me of that scene in fast times where phoebe cates’ character is teaching jennifer jason leigh’s character how to give a blow job with a carrot in the cafeteria.
//Martin shared an analogy the teens have heard — comparing premarital sex and eventual marriage with buying a used car.
“We’ve got Fresh Start Auto,” Frank said. “You can go down and buy a car with 100,000 miles on it for a new price because you’ve got blemished credit.
“Why would you want to buy somebody used for full price?”//
WTF?
What about trading in my used model for a new one sometime in the future?
Did anybody detect more of an anti-condom-during-oral vibe from the Snickers explanation than a purity one?
And what sort of car do you want a teenager to learn to drive in–a brand new expensive one, or a beat up used one?
We’ll discuss the “three-car garage” metaphor later.
Orwell’s Junior Anti-Sex League lives.
A Snickers bar awash in saliva and rewrapped? What a weird analogy. Are they teaching kids that people don’t *wash* in-between sexual partners?
Oh, Gloria, you can slobber all over my Snickers bar any time.
you know what the “used” analogy results in?
girls (and boys?) who feel awful about themselves after they get pressured into sex, and then figure, “fuck it, I’m already ruined” and go out and engage in all sorts of risky behaviors because they are have already ruined any chance they have of being loved.
fuck the church for still pushing that bullshit.
Headline of the day.
@7 Snickers are the assholes of candy bar-anatomy.
Aren, I hear you.
That is exactly how I felt after my first time. And, I didn’t consent to it either, but my mom was more concerned that I would never find a man to marry me. She was wrong, but I was pretty messed up over it.
“get fucked in their fool butts”
None of the cute little internet acronyms adequately convey how funny I found this to be.
Abstinence, like pure socialism, or altruism, is an idea that looks good on paper, but does not work with primates.
And maybe the second demo, he should have put a condom on the candy bar and THEN deep-throated it.
Did you say you expect these church turds to face reality? Ha! Unreality is the very basis of their myths and cults.
These people irritate me so much. After all, they are the same people who want to outlaw porn because it “objectifies” women while simultaneously declaring that non-virgins are just as valuable and desirable as used candy bars. Seriously, what the hell? Unlike a candy bar, I do not exist solely for the consumption of others, and my value is not determined by how much others want to use me.
Well, not to mention that what was wrong with those particular superbowl ads wasn’t that there was sex in them, but that it was sex in which the women are unwilling participants, and there’s another word for that.
I just had a snickers…damn those things are good!
I accidentally the whole Snickers bar.
I remember years ago, a friend’s girlfriend told me “why should a man buy the cow when he can get the milk for free?”
My response – “it is more like shoes – I am damn well going to try them on first, before I settle on a pair.”
What’s wrong w/ virginity–think of it more like a lack of opportunity? What if you want to have sex, but you’re ugly? What if you’re shy? What if no one likes you? What if you’re a loser? What if no one will ever have sex or do other activities w/ you?
(I’ve been awake for too long. But I really did mean the first . . .nah, I meant all of them.)
A Snickers bar? Are you fucking kidding me? How about some Scriptural support for that? Those of us who have actually STUDIED the Bible know that sexual purity is “pleasing to the Lord, causing Him to grin.” (Lev. 29:17). The only Biblical comparison that is even close to this is where Abraham compares his unwashed penis to a Baby Ruth bar. And then God tells him he should murder his son. Turns out He was just kidding, though.
Yes, the candy bar example works because both Snickers and women are products that men wish to acquire.
… Right?
Funny Julie in Eugene, When I lived there. There were so many damn practitioners of the “pull and pray” birth control method. So many single mothers, so many people getting married too young.
Even among the “liberals” It was enough to drive this former New Englander MAD! So happy I was to leave that place behind! As someone who came from a broken family outside of New York, I never met so many young naive women swear on the fucking “mommy track” And they call themselves enlighted.
Enlightenment to those women, are when the shithead that knocks them up turns out to be the incompetent father he always was, and you are working AND raising a family. So much for you mommy track.
@ 23 – if my ex’s was like that, he wouldn’t be my ex. I LOVES chocolate!!
And don’t get me started about the nougat, whatever the hell that is…
@ 38 – Besides American fundie culture, do you what other culture has a similarly patronizing and disempowering view of women? Here’s a hint: it’s one the fundies seem to approve of our country going to war with. Yep, Arab culture. All the messes we’re in in the Middle East, collectively, is The War of Who Can Be A Bigger Asshole Toward Women. Also, The War of Who Can Generally Make Everyone’s Lives More Miserable.
Yead Dan cmon. Where was the saddlebacking?
Well, as a former SRT (Silver Ring Thing) pledge, I can tell you I still stand by the reasons I took the pledge in the first place. It helped me wait until I was ready, it gave me people who supported my decision, it made my parents happy, it helped me avoid unwanted pregnancy and STDs, and it agreed with my morals. Oh and I got to party!
When I was 13, I put on a ring and promised not to have sex till marriage. I broke the promise 6 years after putting on the ring. Now SRT promotes (after it was found out that a whole lot of kids saddlebacked), all sex (even oral and mutual masturbation) as real sex. So, I counted the first time I guy fingered me. If you want believe I was a virgin until intercourse, add an extra month onto the length of my pledge. That was about 6 or 7 months ago.
Anyway, I’ve used a condom every single time I had sex. A condom broke once and I went straight to the pharmacy and got the Plan B pills. I’ve been very safe, and I know my (so far only) partner very well.
I’m not stupid and neither are many of my fellow pledges. It’s just that some of these kids weren’t taught right.
My mother made sure I also learned about my body and how to protect it. She promoted abstaining from sex but also had me learn about birth control and answered all my questions as best she could. Though I know a lot more than she does. She didn’t want me to have any nasty surprises like her mother did when she got married. My mom waited for her wedding night and has still only ever been with my dad. They are still married and both my brother and I were planned pregnancies.
It also doesn’t hurt that I’ve been reading Savage Love every week since I was 14.
I just wanted to say that what the studies show isn’t true for all pledges. We aren’t stupid. We aren’t naive. Not all of us saddleback. There are those who fit the stereotype exactly. But there are others (like me) who are well informed, smart, safe, and relatively sane.