F^#k Abstinence! Help Me Jeebus!

Sin So Well - Rebekah (mp3)
The Way the Wind Blows - Rush (mp3)

Ninety-five percent of Americans are deflowered before their wedding night. Only five out of every 100 of us make it to the altar as virgins. Mormons, atheists, Catholics, the Amish, Moonies, Protestants, agnostics, Jews, blacks, honkeys, dwarves, all of us.

This ain't the first time I've carped about this topic. Or even the second time. It won't be the last. For every single uncontrollable lusty urge we adults have, teenagers have, like, 200 of them. They have one for, like, everytime they say "like." Except they're expected to fight every single one of those urges, where we can go wake our spouse or significant other and have quick emergency sex. [NOTE: I've never done this, but I've read about it. OK, I've never even read about it, but we still have more options than teenagers.]


So long as there's millions of jackasses with blinders on who prefer their fairytale pretend 14 A.D. world where dinosaurs roamed with St. Paul over the one where actual people with blood and reproductive organs happen to reside, this topic will continue to fascinate me.

They act like Jesus was this unsympathetic block of ice who only spoke to or tolerated perfect people. If I weren't such a Christian, I'd want to bash their skulls with a dildo.

My dander got raised this time because of two recent stories. First, I just got around to reading the Newsweek issue that includes an article about the fading strength of the "Abstinence-Only" sex-ed movement. Then, in a conversation with a co-worker last week, I learned about a TV show called -- and I'm not even kidding -- "Purity Balls."

Stop chuckling. If you would like to know more about ... um ... Purity Balls, you can read a New York Times article, or if that rag is too socialistic and liberal for you, read the Glamour magazine article.

Mama doesn't like when I sin so well
Heaven's kinda far but I swear that when I'm comin' it's close
'Cuz I sin so well
Lead us not into temptation
Oh but what a way to go...

If Promise Rings rate a 7 out of 10 on the Awkard 'n' Icky Scale, then Purity Balls go to 11. It's one level of odd for a young lass to make a pledge to her Creator and wear a ring to symbolize that promise. It's an altogether different universe of FUBAR for a girl and her father to exchange vows.

The father vows to protect his daughter's chastity until she marries?!? Duuuuude, the only way in hell you can be absolutely certain to make good on that promise is to lock her up and eat the key (in a very non-sexual way). Who the f*#k do these guys think they are, Superman?? Do they have super-hearing? Can they hear the zipper on their daughter's jeans as she sits in her boyfriend's basement on the other side of town? And can they fly at the speed of sound over to his house, vibrate through the walls, and rescue her before that damn boy's fingers and other digits can do the walking?

"Are you ready to war for your daughter's purity?" Did a pastor really say that? Did he say it out loud? As if chastity could be protected like Fort Knox? As if a teenager's vagina can be defended like Iraq? What would a "troop surge" look like?

This pastor said it to a room full of men who, odds are, impregnated their wives prior to their being married or otherwise had sex with multiple women before settling down with the Missus. (OK, there's always those few dorks who couldn't get laid in a morgue who can, thanks to rose-colored glasses and revisionist history, look back on their virginity as some badge of honor, even though they had absolutely no say in it whatsoever.)

God might have to forgive me, but I just don't think He wants us to bury our head and ignore reality. Humans are not ostriches. That's why God made ostriches.

We can only go the way the wind blows
We can only bow to the here and now
Or be broken down blow by blow

What does it do to a child to be raised by a father who actually thinks he can control her virginity? What does it do when she believes having sex banishes her from the grace of God? How many Bristol Palins must there be before we stop shaming kids into dark corners in abandoned houses and right into teenage pregnancies?

Jesus wasn't trying to program us to walk into walls, like we're malfunctioning robots or something, too stupid to adjust to the shifting sands of time. Deep down, these people -- who are my brothers and sisters in faith no matter how much it pains myself or them -- know it. They know it because most of them work on Sundays (or condone those who do), and most of them happily condone the touching of a dead pig on Saturdays and Sundays, not to mention allllll that tasty, scrumptious, pulled pork BBQ! If you want more fun examples, just watch that oh-so-awesome clip from The West Wing.

White weddings were a brilliant idea for kids who married at 12 and 13. But Americans today get married, on average, at 25 years old. Sorry, but I don't believe Jesus ever intended people to wait 1/3 of their lives and stave off the most insanely hormonal phase of their lives anymore than God intended to make Sunday football punishable by death. Otherwise, Jeff Gordon is going to hell for failing to keep the Sabbath holy every time he gets in that damn car.

To SuperChristians, that makes me The "R" Word: a Relativist.
In SAT-speak, Relativist : Evil :: Uppity : "N Word"
Apparently, when they call someone a "relativist" is, well, relative.

Extremist religion -- particularly conservative Christianity -- is going to either be the death of all of us, or it will end up choking on its own vengeful angry bile. What do they care if they destroy us, since they're so hellbent on getting to heaven, and so very confident that they're the most specialest superduperest Chosen People among all of God's people? They've got nothing to lose, in their minds. Meanwhile, I'm happy to wait a while, enjoy the ride before having to step onto that great escalator to the sky.

Take these Purity Balls and shove 'em. And stop exchanging vows with your daughters; that's just sick, dudes. Besides, she's just in it for the bling of the ring. And just like her Mommy and Daddy, she ain't gonna deserve that white dress she wears when you give her away.

"Sin So Well" is from Rebekah's only album, Remember to Breathe. "The Way the Wind Blows" is from Rush's 18th and most recent studio album, Snakes + Arrows. Both can be purchased through iTunes or Amazon.com's mp3 site.

Promise Rings (Part II): A Gateway to Putting Your Finger in Other Places

Hurry Up and Wait - Stereophonics (mp3)
Ten Days Late - Third Eye Blind (mp3)

Continued from Part One.

I'm also secretly suspicious that Promise Rings might be the new gay bars. I know several dudes after college who made their sexual living off of going to this local gay bar, where women would go to dance thinking they were safe from the prying eyes and drooling tongues of hets. In would swoop Mr. Straight Swave dude for another score.

Can you imagine an easier method of misdirection for a conniving horndog in his pursuit of getting laid than a Promise Ring?

There Joe Horndog is, on the couch with Sue Ann Virgin, making out and getting increasingly farther down the base path. "Don't worry Sue Ann," Joe says, "I'm saving myself for marriage. I'm just petting you. It's not like any clothes are off."

"Don't worry Sue Ann," Joe says. "I'm saving myself. I just wanna see what it looks like up close."

"Don't worry Sue Ann," Joe says. "There's nothing in the Bible about oral sex. Believe me, I've looked. Besides, I wouldn't do it if it was wrong, because then I couldn't wear this lovely Promise Ring."

A few weeks or months later, Sue Ann is wondering how Joe Horndog, bearer of that Promise Ring, managed to steal her virginity. And mostly she's jealous of Jodie Chastity, the girl Joe is now dating, because Sue Ann can't admit to anyone that Joe has deflowered her, lest she get kicked out of her church youth group and lose all her friends who wear Promise Rings and believe having sex before marriage sends you straight to Hell.

Statistically, a Promise Ring makes no difference, and this point can't be repeated enough. Wear it, don't wear it; your odds of making it for a White Wedding are equal.

If it doesn't make a difference, then the reality is that it creates as much disillusionment and deception as it does prevent anything. And when they break that promise, do they remove the ring? The minute they take off that ring, they might as well get a Tramp Stamp, because they've officially announced themselves as sluts (or, thanks to the hypocritical world in which we live, studs). So they keep wearing them and begin what risks be a lifelong practice of two-faced method acting.

I was a virgin until well into my college experience. You wanna stay a virgin? I've got a guaranteed method for remaining a virgin throughout your teen years in three simple steps:

1. Read some comic books. 
2. Believe that getting good grades is important.
3. Listen to lots of Rush.

I didn't need a frakking Promise Ring; I had three Batman T-shirts, a 3.8 GPA, and knew all the words to "Red Barchetta." I might as well have been trapped in the fucking Forbidden Zone with Zod and his Superman II cronies.

While I'm trapped in Anecdoteville, I can't resist: Bristol Palin. You just know Mama Palin and Daddy Todd were sure their sweet thing was saving herself for her wedding night. If that chick wasn't wearing a Promise Ring when she got knocked up, I guaran-damn-tee you it's only because she couldn't find them at the Wal-Mart in Wasila. Better to let the whole family live with this two-ton weight of illusion hanging around your child's neck than to have open and honest conversations about sex and love and responsibilities, right?

I will neither teach nor encourage my children that Jesus wants them to keep their legs shut until they marry. Call me a relativist heathen Christian all you like, but I couldn't count the number of FCA or Young Life or Campus Crusade people who got more frequently bopped than myself (which in algebraic terms is "x > 0"). And in the binary world of Conservative Christianity and sex, anything not equal to 0 is fucked.

My children will know that their God and their father love them no matter what, and they'll know that the best promises about sex and their bodies are much like the best prayers -- made humbly and silently to oneself.

"Hurry Up and Wait" is from the Stereophonics' second album, Performance and Cocktails. "10 Days Late" is from Third Eye Blind's second (and final legitimate) album, Blue. Both are available at iTunes and Amazon.com's mp3 site.

Promise Rings (Part I): Flashin' My Biznass (Or Lack Thereof) In Yo Grill

It's Late - Queen (mp3)

If the road to hell is indeed paved with good intentions, then the road to deflowering must certainly be as well. And is there a more twisted and misguided gimmick destined to disillusion American teens more disastrously than Promise Rings, currently climbing the national charts thanks to the Jonas Brothers and Jordin Sparks?

If you didn't already know, select teenagers -- usually kids brought up in uber-conservative Christian households or churches who are kept as in the dark as possible about sex -- wear Promise Rings as an outward sign to the world that they are going to wait until marriage to have intercourse with another human being. Here's a Chattanooga Times article about them.

Statistically, from everything I've read, a Promise Ring has no impact on teenage sexual patterns. It doesn't stop sex any more or less than anything else you could give your teenage child. On the bright side, if you're looking for a perfect way to teach your adolescent child about how easy it is to break a promise, then please, by all means, go buy him or her a Promise Ring.

"Sweetie, you'll wear this ring as a promise to me and to God that you'll never ever ever let a boy touch you down there with anything, not his finger or his tongue or his privates, until after you have vowed your eternal dedication to him before a priest and a host of witnesses in a house of God. And you won't break this promise, because... well, just don't break the damn promise, OK? Because you'll burn in hell, and I won't be able to do anything about it from my cloud, even with my wings and all my angel friends."

Please don't get me wrong. I'm happy as a clam that the Jonas Brothers are virgins, if indeed they are. All the better if their proclamations of a chaste premarital lifestyle provide comfort and courage to hundreds of thousands of teens whose bodies are constantly telling them to screw anything and everything that will give permission.

But taking pride in one's choice to remain a virgin goes four steps too far when you start wearing a ring for the express purpose of letting everyone know your business (or, well, lack thereof). The Promise Ring is the chaste answer to the Tramp Stamp.

Neither are admirable. Both suggest things about a person which need not necessarily be true. Both are a reminder that we live in a TMI world where we just have to make sure everyone knows everything about us.

We post our Current Status on Facebook. We "Twitter" our most minuscule movements. Some idiots even put far too much personal information in their blogs and include inappropriate pictures of women's backsides. Have we traded away all respect for our own privacy?

Can we please get our culture back to a time when we didn't have to wear every damn decent and normal thing we did like we deserve a trophy? If you want to proclaim your indifference to the pressures of the modern world, join the Amish. You get to wear clothes that stand out in a crowd, and they'll kill you if you break your promise. No ring needed.

Otherwise, you're just posing and giving into the very same peer pressure that in other circles would have you smoking pot and dropping X.

"It's Late" is from Queen's fantabulous album, News of the World. If you think this album begins and ends with "We Will Rock You," you should flog yourself with studded whips repeatedly until forking over some cash and checking out one seriously amazing piece of work. It's available at iTunes and Amazon.com's mp3 site. It's a stretch to put this song with this topic, but I needed to answer Bob's claim of "Sweet Jane" with one of my own Top 10 All-Time Favorite songs.