Students of Virginity

[XemaSab]

There was a time when not having sex consumed a very small part of Janie Fredell’s life, but that, of course, was back in Colorado Springs. It seemed to Fredell that almost no one had sex in Colorado Springs. Her hometown was extremely conservative, and as a good Catholic girl, she was annoyed by all the fundamentalist Christians who would get in her face and demand, as she put it to me recently, “You have to think all of these things that we think.” They seemed not to know that she thought many of those things already. At her public high school, everyone, “literally everyone,” wore chastity rings, Fredell recalled, but she thought the practice ridiculous. Why was it necessary, she wondered, to signify you’re not doing something that nobody is doing?

And then Fredell arrived at Harvard. Sitting in a Cambridge restaurant not long ago, she told me that people back home called it “godless, liberal Harvard.” Some discouraged her from going, but Fredell went anyway, arriving in the fall of 2005. She wanted to study government, she said, maybe become a lawyer, and she knew that “people take you more seriously as a Harvard student.”

From the start, she told me, she was awed by the diversity of the place, by the intensity, by the constant buzz of ideas. There were so many different kinds of people at Harvard, most of them trying to change the world, and everyone trying to figure out what they thought of everyone else. “Harvard really puts pressure on you to define who you are,” Fredell said, and she loved everything about Harvard, except the sex.

Sex, as she put it, was not even “anything I’d ever thought about” when, as a freshman, she was educated in safe-sex practices. What she was told was the sort of thing found in a Harvard pamphlet called “Empowering You”: “put the condom on before the penis touches the vagina, mouth, or anus. . . . Use a new condom if you want to have sex again or if you want to have a different type of sex.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/30/magazine/30Chastity-t.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=magazine

[Warpy]

1. She's got a major axe to grind because

of what OTHER PEOPLE are doing. Hell I lived in Cambridge for a while. I also learned when and what to kick. What other people wanted or didn't want wasn't my job.

Janie needs to get a grip and realize the only life she gets to control is her own, maybe.

[bluestateguy]

2. Sex should only be for procreation, between a married man and woman!

And in the missionary position with the lights out and between the sheets.

And that's the kind of conservative values we need in this country!

(Do I really need a sarcasm icon for the obtuse among you?)

[Midlodemocrat]

7. LOL. Judging by the reading comprehension of some lately, you might.

[sasquatch]

3. Well at least she likes everything else about Harvard

:D

[Berry Cool]

4. Here's what I don't get.

I think she has a point--young people these days (and, to be honest, since the late sixties) feel pressured into having sex by their society. It's not just their bodies crying out for it, it's society telling them they're a nerd if they choose not to have lots of sex with lots of people as part of the "learning process" of their lives. And the honest truth is, all that sex may not really make them any happier, having it too soon may not do much for their serious relationships, and it does pose some serious dangers to them.

So it makes sense for there to be support on college campuses for the idea that students don't HAVE to have sex, or don't have to indulge in a lot of sex, don't HAVE to behave according to a Playa Boy/Girls Gone Wild ethic, if that's not their thing.

But what I don't get is why such ideas inevitably seem to get whipped up into the formation of campus clubs advocating that all forms of premarital sex are morally WRONG--BAD--UNHEALTHY for you--including masturbation!

All that does is set up another form of "You Must" for the poor pressured college kid. Instead of "You MUST have sex to be cool," it's back to the old-fashioned ways of "You must NOT have sex. EVER. Not even with someone you love and have known for a long time. You must not even THINK about it. You must not even touch yourself."

I imagine that when it comes right down to it, that's as effective as telling them not to think of an elephant. And it sure isn't going to make refraining from casual sex "cool." All it's going to do is get the very motion ridiculed and laughed at by the "cool kids" who are falling into bed with anything that moves.

I don't see why there can't be a happy medium. I don't know, maybe there is--and we just don't hear about it because there are no campus clubs called "Club for Students Who Want to Have Sex Someday But Not Yet, Who Don't Feel Ready, But Who Would Be Just Fine With It If They Met Someone Special and Got to Know That Person Really, Really Well First, But Who In the Meantime Don't Think Just Thinking About Sex Is Evil." Maybe it's just not as catchy.

[DadOf2LittleAngels]

8. Its a matter of personal perspective..

If you have a certain point of view, that sex should wait until marriage you are instantly mocked and disbelieved by society at large. People who would say just the riht or a nice person would not suffer such ridicule.

Most of the groups which advocate no sex in marriage are not reacting to the pathetic lack of respect for sex on college campuses (ggw, and guys who shoot at anything that moves) they are reacting to their beliefs in a society which tells kids from the time they are 13 that 'youre going to do it anyway' which is, of course, a voice condemnation on their beliefs..

I like the way some schools handle it at orientation just come up and talk to the kids about the fact college is an environment with much more sexual pressure than HS and then give them names and numbers of college resources to come talk to if they are planning on being sexually active..

[Smith_3]

13. Well...

Christian groups tend to be very prone to tell other people how to live their lifes. If they choose abstinence for themselve, its perfectly fine to me, but that's usually not how it works. Normally, they shove it in everyone elses face and go around telling people that their way is the only way that will lead to heaven.

[DadOf2LittleAngels]

17. When we take off our rose colored glasses

we are all rather fond of telling people how to live their lives we just focus on different areas. As far as shoving it in everyone else's face; when I was at university there was no lack of events on gay pride week and these were considered 'getting out their message; but when on the anniversary of roe v wade a pro life group held a rally it was considered, by most, hate speech...

Like I said its all perspective, if we would all just let other people use the first amendment the way it was intended a learn to get along we would all be better off..

[LeftyMom]

20. You don't see the difference?

A Pride rally isn't telling me, as a nonparticipating straight chick, to go lick a kitty. The focus is on the participants' commitment to and pride in their community.

A "pro-life" rally (and it's anti-choice, women die for "pro-life" policies) is all about changing non-participating women's behavior and restricting their health care options. That's the whole point of holding them on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, they want to end legal abortion. And yeah, typically there's a lot of anti-woman bullshit involved that could be considered hate speech.

[DadOf2LittleAngels]

24. Perspective

To people holding the gay pride rallies on college campuses part of the reason is to help cut down violence against homosexuals.. Trying to get other people to cut down on violence

To people who are pro life they want to cut down on violence on what they consider to be unborn human beings.. Trying to get other people to cut down on violence

--

Until we can realize that other than a tiny fraction of people there are very few haters out there we will continue to demonize anyone who disagrees with us on a 'hot button' issue and thus never be able to talk, as a people, about things that are of actual consequence..

[LeftyMom]

25. A medical procedure is not violence. Do not conflate gay bashing and abortion.

:grr:

[DadOf2LittleAngels]

26. From the perspective of some people in this world

Female Castration is a medical procedure...

--

All I am saying is people get far too caught up in their own beliefs and values to do anything but start spitting venom when someone disagrees with them... This is bad for humanity

Relax, sit back and have a drink with me

:toast:

Well toast to less than one more year of * in office!

[Smith_3]

11. It seems to me, USA is a country of extremes.

To virtually every topic you can think of there are two opposing views on it from which you may choose from and then hold it as a firm belief.

You can be "pro-life" or "pro-choice". Abortions are either always a deadly sin, or the same as going to get a haircut. You can be "pro-gun" or "anti-gun", a fundamentalist christian who believes the world is flat, or an atheist.

It seems to me that the lack of middle grounds is something our society suffers from.

[Kitty Herder]

14. Excellent post!! nt

[mondo joe]

15. I agree - and it's the absolutism, the binary: you DO or you DON'T.

I've gone through periods where I felt I just didn't want to engage sexually with others, so I just didn't. When I wanted to again, I did.

There's no grad inquisition forcing people to have sex.

[Firespirit]

16. I've decided to support letting both sides advocate

Let's face it, the conservative groups will never shut up, and neither will the media and the sex-obsessed commercial culture. Let both sides get their views out there.

I do have a bit of an axe to grind on this; I can tell you it's not easy to be of an asexual orientation and get told from ALL sides that I'm broken, damaged, or just a freak. The more discussion and debate about sex, the better it will be and the more acceptance people like me will get.

[KillCapitalism]

5. More power to her/them!

Hey, at least she doesn't have to worry about rampant STD's. Wasn't there just recently a report that over 1/4 of teen girls has an STD? Also not worrying about an unintended pregnancy is a good thing too.

[DadOf2LittleAngels]

9. Funny thing was

*nobody* talked about HPV until there was a vaccine for it... Now its suddenly something to worry about...

[XemaSab]

10. Nobody in the media talked about it...

I mean, when's the last time you saw a long article on gonorrhea, chlamydia, or herpes? :shrug:

[Zynx]

6. Am I wrong that I don't care one way or the other about this? This is a personal decision.

[mondo joe]

12. What a drama queen. If you don't want to have sex, don't. If you want to have sex, do.

If she was really comfy with her abstinence she wouldn't care so much about what others are doing.

[hunter]

18. I somehow managed to graduate from college as a virgin...

And it was one of those colleges where fricken' nobody was a virgin, or so it seemed.

I even had a girlfriend of sorts, and we had no problems skinny dipping and other sorts of casual nudity. Most people who saw us together probably thought we were intimate. When we were working out in the gym I'd get those "you lucky bastard..." looks from other guys.

Our situation was a combination of geeky Catholic/Orthodox cluelessness, sexual incompatibility, and I don't know what... autistic spectrum disorders???

I suppose we might have expressed some pride about our virginity, but that pride would have been entirely unfounded. It's easy to be a virgin when thoughts of having sex with the person you are with make you so uncomfortable and queasy that you'd rather not.

Presented with the opportunity to have sex, people either do it or they don't. I think the rationalizations come later. Intellectually one might understand the potential physical and emotional hazards of sex, and do what one can to avoid sex until a time of one's own choosing -- even the odd and often hazardous religious "ideal" of one's wedding night -- but it's a rare bird who loses their virginity on their wedding night, and when it does happen it is often the consequence of being kept in a cage, either a self-imposed cage, or a cage imposed by others.

When I met my wife a large part of the attraction was sexual, more so than with any other person I've ever met. The barriers came tumbling down. That's what eventually happens to most people -- they "lose" their virginity by having consensual sex. It's part of being human.

Miss Janie Fredell will be a virgin until she's not, much the same as everyone else...

[Wizard777]

19. Student? Virginity is not a learned behavior. You're born that way.

[Recursion]

21. "liberal Harvard"???!!?

How about, "rich stuck-up ultracaroline breeding ground for uber-privileged conservative preppies" Harvard? It's the Georgetown of New England, for Christ's sake...

[Taverner]

22. Why should she give a rats ass what other people do?

Stupid fundies!

Virginity is overrated

[undeterred]

23. Well it sounds like the school assumes

there is a typical student. There isn't.