The Virginity Movement, Rebranded

[ccharles000]

Keith Deltano has a high school student tied up onstage and is precariously dangling a cinder block over the young man's genital region. Deltano is not a school bully or an escaped lunatic. He's an abstinence proponent, a comedian who uses this brick trick to demonstrate the ineffectiveness of condoms (although the actual lesson learned may be to steer clear of comics brandishing bricks).

Under the Bush administration, stories like this were commonplace. There was the Virginia Beach teacher who told her ninth graders they could be arrested for having premarital sex. And the abstinence teacher who explained to the young women in his class that women are like wrapped lollipops, and that after having sex they're nothing more than "poorly wrapped, saliva-fouled suckers."

This would be comical if not for the fact that these people have been teaching--or not teaching, more accurately--young Americans about sex. And then there are the assorted ridiculous sex-scare policy decisions--like the FDA holding up over-the-counter status for emergency contraception out of fear that it would make young women promiscuous or even lead to teens forming "sex-based cults."

Thankfully, the Obama administration has brought some measure of sanity to public health policy, cutting most abstinence-only education funding from the 2010 budget. But abstinence organizations are not going away. In fact, they're getting organized. Well aware that their cause is in trouble and unpopular, purity proponents are revamping their image to appear more mainstream. And with Obama's faith-based initiative lending them an ear, it just might work.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090706/valenti

[RagAss]

1. Viva la Ignorance !

[liberalmuse]

2. When I was a teenager...

at a Mormon all-girl function, one of the teachers passed a flower around. We all had a chance to touch the petals. Then when she got the flower back, she said, 'This once beautiful flower was handled by many people, and it isn't so beautiful anymore, is it? You can see it is wilted and bruised and broken. That is why you must keep your chastity.' It's sad that I grew up actually believing my worth was wrapped up in my staying a virgin. To people like this, females are merely cherries to be popped, and after that, baby-making machines. It's rather revolting.

[TahitiNut]

7. Unless it was an orchid, it's not even symbolically apt.

:shrug:

[Fovea]

3. Does that mean no more purity balls?

Those squicked me to the max.

[rurallib]

5. those things are so perverted - incestuous I would say.

[stanwyck]

11. I tried to tell some co-workers about the purity balls, and

they thought I was joking. Until they googled. Then, there were aghast. Nobody can believe how totally bizarre purity balls are unless they see the pictures and read the "pledges". Little girls made up like debutantes, with Daddy as their date, no adult women present, and then the pledge to stay intact with Daddy as the guardian of the hymen. And these are LITTLE girls. Little girls made up like beauty queen contestants.
I second your squickiness.
.

[riderinthestorm]

16. Actually I think the virginity movement believes purity balls ARE an evolution of the movement.

Disgusting.

[TahitiNut]

4. The Virgin Mary, the Virgin Queen, Virginia, Virgin Airlines ...

... what's the Bernoulli effect on a hymen?? :dunce:

[givemebackmycountry]

6. I too, am a staunch abstinence proponent

A staunch abstinence proponent of no illegal wars of choice.
A staunch abstinence proponent of no greed and thievery.
A staunch abstinence proponent of no Christian fundy whack jobs in my bedroom, courthouse, school, and hospital room.
A staunch abstinence proponent of no fucking BUSH spawn in elected office again.

[NMMNG]

8. Those people are sick, twisted freaks.

And to think that they proclaim themselves the arbiters of morality. :puke: They're a menace to society.

[ccharles000]

9. I agree

[Buzz Clik]

10. This weed has been in business for some time.

This thread contains a link to a video with his clown act.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x306845

[ohheckyeah]

12. One of the consequences

of the abstinence only movement that is never talked about is the rush to the altar some of these kids make because they have taken a vow not to have sex before marriage. I can't imagine that is going to turn out well.

[Mnemosyne]

13. Bondage and sadism are the best way to teach the 'Christian' teens,

Seriously sickening bunch.

[Wabbajack_]

14. "ineffectiveness of condoms"

Yeah they're only like 98%+ effective if used properly. :p

[ColbertWatcher]

15. Kick and Rec! The backward policies of the GOP need to be out in the open.

Everyone needs to see the shit they were doing so that we may never allow it to happen again.

[nadinbrzezinski]

17. We need to keep them women barefoot and pregnant, hold it them girls

these people are doing so much damage it ain't even funny