Groat in the sack: Drop the v-card

By Jeff Groat [Lifestyle Bureau Chief]

We are bombarded daily with images laced with sexuality, innuendo, and libido.

That sounds a lot like me.

It’s true though, that our modern society is saturated with sex. It’s on cereal boxes, it’s in our fruit bowls, it’s in our brand of coffee beans. So in a society that takes sex so lightly – and so often – what value do we hold for those of us still grasping our “V” cards, whether righteously shown off, or clutched embarrassingly close to our chests?

In the U.S. in 1993, there was the now-famous “True Love Waits” campaign, organized by the political-religious right of the American south, in hopes to make abstinence “cool.” They wanted to make it into something that Jesus would be down with after he did a kick-flip and tagged a bench with a verse.

Like anything driven home with the fear of God, it proved to be successful, but successful for fearful and repressive adults, not for sex education and romance.

In Canada in 2010, things are quite the opposite. We are hard-pressed to be shocked by much anymore (see Two Girls, One Cup) let alone actually taking pride in abstinence.

But shouldn’t this work in reverse? Shouldn’t virginity be something to be treasured in our new world of cheap and easy sex?

Well, not necessarily, because there is something to be said for class.

Just because you are, in fact, having sex, it does not mean you are a dirty, worthless sinner who is in need of some behavioural adjustment or Christian therapy.

It is a reality (sad maybe, but definitely true) that virgins are funny little creatures who belong in some Leave it to Beaver-esque nightmare from the 50s, when things like “family values” and “abstinence” are virtues to be praised, while giving in to your completely natural, healthy rhythms and drives is something that only the devil could be responsible for.