Pure as the Wind Driven Mud
Oct 7th 2008Bull MooseGeneral
Another demonstration of how my timing sucks: A book called “The Purity Myth: How America’s Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women” (discussed, among other places, here) doesn’t come out while I’m in high school / college but after I have a daughter. I would have carried that book along to bars and house parties. “Hey baby, take it easy. Why don’t you read the highlighted passages of this book while I get you another Long Island Ice Tea? Then we can have an intellectual discussion of feminist issues.”
In other news, America has an obsession with virginity that I am unaware of. I finished college just before the hook-up culture fully took off (at least in my geographic locale) and I don’t really remember a lot of emphasis placed on virginity, I seriously doubt there is an obsession with it now.
I remember the big hubub when one of the 90210 (the original one) characters finally had sex with her boyfriend (I didn’t watch the show, but I knew about it, that’s how big of a deal it was) now I doubt you can find more than a handful of teenage characters on TV that aren’t having sex regularly. (Not counting John Connor, because his mom is always hovering.)
A girl who had only slept with one or two steady boyfriends by the midway point of college was completly normal. Three or four was not too unusual. Now that’s apparently a low number. (Seriously, how did I miss this?)
If obsession with virginity is a threat to our young women, I think they’re safe.
1 Comment »
CB on 08 Oct 2008 at 12:54 pm #
I’ve heard that teenagers now give a lot of blowjobs, but not as much sex. The numbers are probably all exactly the same, just a difference in perception by the parents/elders.