Thoughts on "The Day I Turned in my V-Card"

I recently read an article from the online Prodigal Magazine about a young woman who been brought up in a very conservative American Christian culture in which virginity was given the upmost importance. The article centers around her conclusion that she doesn't want to defined by her virginity-- it ends with the line "I'm not just a virgin or a non-virgin. And neither are you."

I found the article interesting because it gives an insider's jaded look at a culure that, living in America, you certainly hear about, but which I haven't experienced first-hand. When I hear her account of couples "winning the race to the altar" and her conclusions that virginity is just another way of getting God "to like us more than other people," I am rather turned off by the whole thing. The comments below the piece were interesting and diverse-- some people agree with her wholeheartedly, while others offer up more cynical opinions: "Is premarital sex a sin? Probably."

Having not grown up surrounded by this sort of thinking, I probably don't have the perspective to fully understand what sort of life, faith, and community-altering impact this conclusion might have for this young woman. I've had friends who had purity rings, neighbors proud of their virginal wedding night, but I've never really considered just how fundamental this focus could be. It's hard enough to be a girl in our culture, what with slut shame, rape culture, and endless back-and-forths between misogyny, feminism, and post-feminism, without adding this as well.

I was interested by this issue, which is by no means modern, but seems to be getting a lot of attention recently, and I found a documentary called "Virgin Tales," which was done by a Dutch film company. It chonicles a family in Colorado Springs that has begun holding "Purity Balls" for their daughters and other young girls in their church. I haven't watched it yet, but the preview and website were certainly intriguing.

It'll be interesting to see how this sub-culture's views on purity, sexuality, and marriage affects the rest of American culture in the near future.