Oh man, Abstinence Clearinghouse has started a blog, presumably so people can write about all the sex they’re not having. It’s brilliant, like almost like it’s a parody, except it’s not. I loved this post.
Virginity is an asset that holds its value well.
Well, actually, as an asset, virginity ranks below toilet paper in terms of holding value, because after you use the toilet paper, it’s still there. But virginity is gone the second you make use of your “property”. If an asset is utterly demolished to non-existence after one use, it’s not really an asset by any real measure.
And if you hang onto your virginity, unlike other assets, it pretty much is guaranteed to lose its value over time. Though it’s a result of unfair prejudice, the reality is that the older the virgin, the more people tend to classify the virginity as a social awkwardness to outright weirdness. Most virgins over a certain age feel their virginity is an albatross. Even if you’re holding onto it for religious reasons, there’s a point where you choice drifts from “cute example of religious devotion” to “eccentricity bordering on antisocial levels of self-righteousness, perhaps masking deep insecurities”.
I suspect the Abstinence Clearinghouse folks think the way to get around this is for women (who these messages are mainly aimed at) to marry when they’re really young, so that they don’t get a whole bunch of job skills and independent ideas and therefore escape hatches before the fateful day. But that’s just a guess; I suppose we’ll have to keep reading to find out the whole story.
56 Responses to “The anti-sex blog”
Leave a comment
Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>
They need to read their Andrew Marvell:
Hey, I’m a poetry teacher. What do you expect?
“[…]presumably so people can write about all the sex they’re not having.[…]”
Ha! Well, at least when it comes to the kind of sex that involves other human beings. Or are they still teaching the “wanking off makes you blind, hair will grow on the palms of your hands, and the baby Jesus will abort himself“-superstition, or something similar?
PseudoAdrienne, you don’t think they’re going okay with people taking matters in their own hands (so to speak) do you?
That’s way too big a loophole to leave open, as it were…
There goes my evening. I’m starting at the beginning, “Cell Phones and Nude Photos.”
For me, that wasn’t “a certain age” in the sense of “a woman of a certain age,” but more of “at a certain age, you start thinking of where you’re going to college.”
Oh, christ, I’m only on the second post and already I know that Annie is a stone cold moron.
Well, the certain age differs from person to person, but there’s a point where virgins start to really feel burdened by it. Could be 16 or 25, depending on the person, but it does kick in.
If I were to redesign that blog. I will put Barbara Bush on the masthead and say…..
LET’s have sex baby!!! (for the boys)
and then the next week, George Bush on the masthead (for the girls)
I promise you, it will reduce sex drive by 98% for next 6 months. That blog masthead is completely wrong.
Hmm. Well I do remember reading a post on Feministe a few months ago, citing some wingnut woman verbally-farting on how masturbation–especially among women– “ruins” marriages and makes spouses–especially wives– “anti-children” and “anti-family.” Really, it wouldn’t surprise me if these rip-offs of 1984’s Junior Anti-Sex League included anti-masturbation propaganda into their curriculum. Anything to prevent sexual freedom and access to comprehensive and factual knowledge about human sexuality and reproduction, especially among women and girls. “All your genitals–and hands–are belong to us (and Jeebus)!“
Oh dear. I could only read so far before the hilarity started to hurt. Must take in small doses so I don’t die of asphyxiation from laughing…
How dare she!!!
Except, not, as recent studies (and basic common sense) have proven.
Except for using condoms if you have sex.
Good grief.
Also, shit dude, if your car lost 100% of its value as soon as you drove it off the lot, we’d all be riding bikes.
Let’s ride bikes.
The “Need a Laugh” post is very revealing. It’s a joke email in which patriarchal marriage is wrapped in a clunky software metaphor. The setup is an email exchange with tech support about difficulties encountered while upgrading from Boyfriend 5.0 to Husband 1.0. It’s supposed to be a “funny because it’s true” thing, but its really quite sad — especially the tech support recommended fixes: Tears 6.2, Guilt 3.0, Food 3.0, and Hot Lingerie 7.7.
Not only Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress”, but John Donne’s “The Flea”:
“Marke but this flea, and marke in this,
How little that which thou deny’st me is;
Me it suck’d first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled bee;
Confesse it, this cannot be said
A sinne, or shame, or losse of maidenhead,
Yet this enjoyes before it wooe,
And pamper’d swells with one blood made of two,
And this, alas, is more than wee would doe”
Yeah, that marriage tech blog seems to be an argument for never getting married, and instead fucking around and enjoying a life where you get your partner-assisted orgasms without the misery that is marriage as they describe it.
My favorite part of the whole website was this:
“LATEST NEWS : UNBALANCED HEARING CONCLUDES
POSTED: APR 23, 2008
WASHINGTON, APRIL 23, 2008 � In the face of mounting evidence supporting the efficacy of abstinence-until-marriage programs–”
(click)
That was my brain shorting out. Wheee!
Of course contraception, even barrier style, does not eliminate the risk of getting an STD. Pretty much only being dead completely eliminates the risk of getting an STD.
And of course the rapidly-dropping value of virginity with age is why fundies get pressured into marrying young and have higher divorce rates than their nonfundy peers. Use it or lose it, so to speak.
Both of which are a response to Sir Robert Aytoun’s “To His Coy Mistress,” which is one of the creepiest poems I’ve ever read.
Wow, that is pretty creepy.
Yeah–the stalker is not a new phenomenon, that’s for sure.
Reminds me of a Pratchett quote (from memory): “Nanny Ogg had long gotten rid of her innocence, having never found a use for it.”
Well, actually, as an asset, virginity ranks below toilet paper in terms of holding value, because after you use the toilet paper, it’s still there. But virginity is gone the second you make use of your “property”. If an asset is utterly demolished to non-existence after one use, it’s not really an asset by any real measure.
And aren’t “assets” meant to eventually be sold off to the highest bidder?
Hey, I’m a poetry teacher. What do you expect?
[Sotto voce] An inability to afford an Internet connection…
The author of the virginity as an asset post goes by Hotmama247… I’m not sure what to make of that.
Favorite quote from those hotmama247s:
“What PP really is saying: “There’s nothing wrong with abstinence as long as it’s done in moderation.” That’s like telling a drunk that sobriety is OK as long as it’s done in moderation — but meanwhile, here’s one for the road — now drive careful.”
Yes, safe consensual sex is SO like drunk driving…the risks aren’t even comparable.
Can we conclude from that analogy that abstinence is also risky, since fatal accidents occur during sober driving?
This whole website brings back memories of when Lakita Garth spoke at my high school.
[Sotto voce] An inability to afford an Internet connection…
You learn to sacrifice to keep the necessities. Underwear? Not a necessity. Broadband, however…
I’m still wondering where I can turn in my thirty-year-old virginity for cash. It’s not like I need it more than I need to pay off my student loans and credit card debt.
Although, hey, if the government wants to start paying me not to have sex, I’ll be more than willing to stay permanently celibate. (Well, as long as masturbation’s still on the table.)
Slogans of yesteryear:
Virginity is curable!
Chastity is its own punishment.
Plays well with self.
Off topic. Apologies for that. I need advice asap. An acquaintance of mine is going through rough times, the exhausting weight of many problems. You know the feeling.
One issue is that the people closest to her, family and boyfriend, don’t listen or won’t allow her opinion to count. “Every choice I make is wrong; no matter what my opinion, it is wrong.” Now, we’re all familiar with this phenomenon, but as a man I’ve only picked up the message of “listen to women, assume they are not idiots or children.” I realize that I have no advice for her, whatsoever.
She’s young, about 20. She isn’t going to uproot from her family, and she probably isn’t going to leave her boyfriend. She needs practical advice for actively changing her interactions so that she is taken seriously, and “allowed” to be right.
Anybody have a word to share? So that we don’t threadjack, please reply over at http://grwa.wordpress.com/2008/05/09/always-wrong/
As an asset, virginity is like cash: Once you use it, it’s gone, and it loses value over time (which explains diamonds, in a way). Whether it gets you nice things is open to debate.
As an asset, virginity is like cash: Once you use it, it’s gone, and it loses value over time (which explains diamonds, in a way). Whether it gets you nice things is open to debate.
I would say virginity isn’t an asset as much as it’s a…jeez, I don’t know the word. What would be a word that describes something that is arbitrarily valuable, the consumption of which displays the status of the recipient? You know, like spending thousands of dollars on a truffle or a bottle of wine.
Once you spend cash it’s gone, but you can always go out and earn or steal more. Once someone pops your cherry, you can’t get another one to raffle off and the status belongs to the guy who bought it. So saying virginity is an asset is like saying a truffle grows to increase its equity, or that a man who buys a $3,000 bottle of champaign and drinks it is investing in the luxury market.
Grammar, you can’t change or control the people around you, especially if they think you’re stupid or have nothing to say worth listening to.
There are two time-honored ways to disengage. One is the best way, to leave. But barring that, there is always passive aggressive rebellion. I wouldn’t usually recommend that, since once you start being passive aggressive, it’s a hard habit to break. But it is a way to preserve your self-worth when everyone around you refuses to let you have any. Offer your opinion, and when it’s ignored, wait for shit to go wrong. Then say, “I told you so,” and get out of the way. When you want to do something and everyone condescendingly tells you no, just do what you want anyway and lie about it. But in order to minimize the use of passive aggression to survive, she should minimize her exposure to their opinions. And why not? They don’t respect her, so she shouldn’t respect them. Don’t inform anyone of plans. Do not solicit advice. When opinions are offered unsolicited, ignore them and play deaf. Call a unilateral strike against hearing opinions from those who won’t hear yours.
Again, it’s the last ditch survival method. She should leave.
George Bush on the masthead (for the girls)
Well, that won’t work for all the Flight Suit Swooners. What about that Exxon exec with the chin that hangs down onto his man-breasts? The memory of that photo still makes me shudder.
The setup is an email exchange with tech support about difficulties encountered while upgrading from Boyfriend 5.0 to Husband 1.0. It’s supposed to be a “funny because it’s true” thing, but its really quite sad — especially the tech support recommended fixes: Tears 6.2, Guilt 3.0, Food 3.0, and Hot Lingerie 7.7.
And it’s plagerized. That thing (along with it relatives, Girlfriend-to-Wife Upgrade, Cat Tech Support and Dog Tech Support) have been haunting cyberspace since the dark ages of magic, Gopher, and BBS systems, where anything beyond Compuserve was marked with “Here there be dragons” in Unix syntax.
(Have I just told everyone how old I am?)
PseudoAdrienne, you don’t think they’re going okay with people taking matters in their own hands (so to speak) do you?
That’s way too big a loophole to leave open, as it were…
Believe it or not, I remember having read a book for teenagers written by James Dobson (given to me by my fundie parents, back when I was still brainwashed) that approved masturbation, albeit in a very wishy-washy way. It was basically like, “well, I hope you never feel the need to masturbate, but if you do, it’s okay.” The book was written in the 80s, though, Daddy Dobson may well have taken a more hardline stance by now.
after you use the toilet paper, it’s still there… If an asset is utterly demolished to non-existence after one use, it’s not really an asset by any real measure.
Amanda, that is a very strange thing to say. Many assets are used up after a single deployment… including toilet paper. (Please tell me you understand why your statement about toilet paper retaining its value after being used strikes me as a little gross. I mean, yes, it’s “still there”, but… eeew.)
From a patriarchal perspective that primarily values women as young, attractive, virginal bodies to fuck and impregnate, your second statement about virginity losing its value rapidly is of course correct, as is your third statement about this resulting in (and perhaps being motivated by the urge to encourage) people getting married young. Marriage and procreation turn socially destabilizing elements (sexually available, free, aimless youth) and roots them in the community and the status quo. They also result in more workers/worshippers/soldiers in the next generation. This one’s a no-brainer for any social/economic regulatory institution like religion.
Sir Robert Aytoun’s “To His Coy Mistress,” which is one of the creepiest poems I’ve ever read.
Yeah, definitely creepy. Of course, it’s mitigated somewhat when we stop projecting our modern assumptions about how women act: one of the really fucked up consequences of growing up in a hard-core patriarchy (like 16th-century Scotland) is that it actually produces behavior in both men and women that affirms this kind of thinking. Women — particularly aristocrats — of the time were taught quite explicitly that “no means yes”, and courtship was understood to consist of a series of refusals. So while Aytoun certainly sounds creepy, it’s not so much that he’s stalking a woman who’s clearly not interested as that he lives in a social context where men and women are incapable of communicating with each other frankly about their sexual interest (or lack thereof).
George Bush on the masthead (for the girls)
Well, that won’t work for all the Flight Suit Swooners.
Dorothy, since the counterpart to George was Barbara, I assume squashed meant George H.W., not W. While Junior Bush is a bit of a sexpot, his dad getting a little long in the tooth.
Oh hell, let’s go ahead and get Shakespeare in on the act.
What is love?
‘Tis not hereafter,
Present mirth hath present laughter.
What’s to come is still unsure.
In delay there lies no plenty.
Then come and kiss me, sweet and twenty.
Youth’s a stuff will not endure.
Anyone wanna bet on how long it is before that blog, like so many other corporate-produced, foundation-bankrolled oh-so-hip’n-modern patriarchy-freak blogs, disables its comment function? Or institutes moderation so strong that the only visible comments are things like “great post!”?
Looking at the two very similar (in sentiment) poems, I’m guessing Shakespeare probably had more success with the ladies than Marvell.
I claim no extraordinary expertise, but “Kiss me, you fool” will always charm more than “When you’re dead, it’ll be all like grody and with worms and stuff.”
Sorry…should have added that my models for this are tripe-filled sites such as:
http://solofemininity.blogs.com/
http://girltalk.blogs.com/
http://ylcf.org
Anyone wanna bet on how long it is before that blog, like so many other corporate-produced, foundation-bankrolled oh-so-hip’n-modern patriarchy-freak blogs, disables its comment function?
If they ever get any comments.
Can someone answer a question of mine? I’ve always wondered why blogs like that one make you register to comment. Nearly every single progressive/liberal/left-leaning blog I’ve come across lets anyone post without having to register. I can think of maybe only one conservative/neo-con/rightwing blog where one didn’t have to register.
One thing about virginity as an asset is that it’s only valuable if someone wants to destroy it. The woman who’s virginal because no one wants to have sex with her, or because she doesn’t want sex with men isn’t accorded any extra value for being a virgin. And the patriarchal husband wants his bride to be a virgin when she comes to him, but would be devastated if she stayed that way (cue Stephen Sondheim).
It’s like the “Never Removed From Box” fetish of some collectors, only creepier.
(And I’m not entirely surprised by someone calling themselves Hotmama247 writing about virginity as an asset. The idea of virginity as cock tease has been around since long before the younger Britney Spears. In fact, in a patriarchal society, “look but don’t touch” is pretty much the only power a young woman may have to wield.)
/high-fives Jennifer@26
Let’s start a club, my friend!
>Most virgins over a certain age feel their virginity is an albatross.
Well… yeah. I don’t make a big secret out of it, but I don’t exactly advertise it, either. All of us older virgins know that packin’ the cherry after a certain age means that people make assumptions, mostly on the order of: what’s wrong with you?
I don’t feel any guilt or weirdness (okay, much weirdness) about being a 30-year-old virgin; but it is something that I don’t view as an asset (well, except to the extent that I don’t have to worry about pregnancy or STDs) but as something I’ll have to explain to Mr. Right if and when he shows up.
(I’d also like to take this opportunity to assure any teenagers who may be reading that no one can tell if you’re a virgin. Take it from me. And it’s nobody’s business but yours anyway.)
“I’ve always wondered why blogs like that one make you register to comment.”
“Comments” might introduce alternative/independent thoughts and ideas which are antithetical to the wingnut way of life, so their use must be discouraged…
…countdown to first troll here complaining that the Left is exactly the same…10…9…8…7…
“Well, the certain age differs from person to person, but there’s a point where virgins start to really feel burdened by it. Could be 16 or 25, depending on the person, but it does kick in.”
I have a friend who is waiting until marriage for religious reasons. She is 29 and has been having a really difficult time just finding men to date in her age range that are understanding of her decision. She get about two dates in, sex comes up and the guy bails. And she has no better luck at her church because all the guys are already married. Her virginity has definitely become a burden, in my opinion.
Amanda, thank you. I will pass that along and encourage her to at least keep thinking about getting out of that relationship.
Aw, they’ve started deleting comments over at the Abstinence Blog. They’re no fun.
I wonder what it must be like to live my life according to a set of principles I believed so tenuously that I couldn’t even defend them in a reasoned debate.
How sad and pathetic to be one of the sheeple, living according to The Script.
Ophelia, I read that same book! It’s embarrassing, but I have Dobson to thank for getting over my hangups about masturbation.
http://www.ironhymen.com/
Hi. Reading this made me wonder, honestly, what is virginity anyway? If Monica Lewinsky had an intact hymen and had only engaged in forms of sex other than vaginal penetration, would she,could she, be a virgin? Is a woman who masturbates a virgin?
Interesting review of an interesting book in the history of virginity at:
http://feministreview.blogspot.com/2008/05/virgin-untouched-history.html
Wait a minute. We were supposed to have hangups over masturbation? Fuck, I miss all the good memos…
Although, hey, if the government wants to start paying me not to have sex, I’ll be more than willing to stay permanently celibate. (Well, as long as masturbation’s still on the table.)
Please. Use a bath or a bed like the rest us us.
(I mean, ewww…)
Layin’ on my back
In the newly mown grass
Rain is coming down
But I know the clouds will pass
You bring me tea
Say “the babe’s a-sleepin’”
Lay down beside me
Love ain’t for keeping
Black ash from the foundry
Hangs like a hood
But the air is perfumed
By the burning firewood
The seeds are bursting
The spring is seeping
Lay down beside me
Love ain’t for keeping
Lay down beside me
Love ain’t for keeping
Lay down beside me
Love ain’t for keeping
Lay down my darling
Love ain’t for keeping
An interesting theme in these “abstinence” blogs is that they seem to think that young people have to be convinced to have sex. Therefore, there must be a plot by teh evil librruls and Planned Parenthood to convince your teenage daughter to have sex.
Curiously enough, these are often the same people who talk of sex in marriage as an obligation and a duty, not only for the woman, but for the man as well.
Nobody is selling sex. Sex sells itself. Normal people have a natural and very strong desire for sex. Most people are ready for sex between puberty and their early 20’s. Most people are not ready for marriage until their mid 20’s or later. That’s why 95% of the population has premarital sex (and a large percentage of the other 5% avoids it by marrying young.) There is no vast left wing conspiracy.
26-year-old virgin here. It doesn’t bother me, really, but neither do I view it as much of an “asset.” That’s just the way it’s worked out. I don’t base my value on it in the least, nor do I think I’m suddenly going to be a different person, or more or less valuable, whenever I do finally have sex.
Do I recognize that woman from a French movie? Where did they get that photo? Why does it look so 1972? Who is that woman?