And magically post-marital sex does not strip away petals?

And how come I as a man don't get to be like a rose? If I have too much pre-marital sex, will my beloved end up holding a bare stem?

Oh my ... "bare stem" ... long, hard, bare stem ... this could get pretty, um, interesting, pretty quick, eh?

Or is that the implication: that pre-marital sex is the domain of men and hence having pre-marital sex masculinizes women? Is that the implication: if you have sex before marriage, your hubby will start viewing you as a guy and freak out about being teh gay?

Or am I reading too much into this?

Why does the pin have a whole bunch of roses on it? Do they represent the woman and future hubby's harem?

It could have been worse, they could have had a picture of the Chunnel.

Oh, also, does that mean some women can have more premarital sex than others? Because some roses have more petals -- I mean, some roses could lose like 15 petals and still be beautiful. So maybe those girls can sleep around for a few years, and no one could really tell.

These things always make me think of those obsessive collectors of certain types of toys:

"I can't remove the shrinkwrap from that!! It'll lose 85% of its value!!"

"...and this is my daughter. She's the crown jewel of my collection. She's very rare--a virgin! Well worth your purchase price (marriage) because she's still in the original factory packaging!

I prefer the shorter version: Don't get plucked."

Sorry...I couldn't resist!

Vervain--genius.

It's that multiple-petal thing that seems extra creepy. As though virginity wasn't simply a biblically ordained concept that's either there or not, but that every physical act of penetration compounding some 'impurity'.

Here's what I don't get - if you're religious, and your religion says "No sex before marriage," why do you have to justify it in any other way? Jews don't post signs that say "You're a rose, every time you eat bacon, you lose a petal" If it's God's law, it's God's law.

Don't get plucked.

Bwa ha ha.

I have a bouquet of stems. How pretty.

Das - I like your interpretation of it, a lot. haha.

Mikey -

Because your horny teenage boyfriend isn't trying to get you to eat pork every time you are together. Because every tv show, magazine, and song isn't glorifying pork. It's juuust slightly different.

I love it. This is classic. This is exactly why abstinence-only sex ed can't be taken seriously as sex ed -- exactly what part of that is "education?"

Joining the ranks of Ms. Unruh are the new breed of "anti-contraception" activists who made themselves known this past weekend... With arguments like "using contraception 'turns you away' from your partner, where Natural Family Planning towards you toward them." Interesting concept, but how to do you spread that?

My colleague Tyler LePard went to this conference and is blogging about the new anti-contraception all week at RHRealityCheck.org -- check it out.

That is funny but beyond creepy. Apparently women store their sense of worth next to their cervix.

Jews don't post signs that say "You're a rose, every time you eat bacon, you lose a petal" If it's God's law, it's God's law. - Mikey

I think it's high time we Jews start posting such signs, then.

In all fairness, Judaism holds that there are one set of moral laws to which Jews are responsible and another set to which non-Jews are responsible, the latter being a lot looser than the former. Thus, pork is forbidden to Jews, but we don't think non-Jews are violating God's law when they eat pork.

Wow, what a fantastic idea. Not only are men entitled to a woman's body, they are entitled to a woman's body that has that fresh-from-factory seal! And let's watch those calories too, ladies, because no man wants a big fat rose. I mean, what fun is it to give an STI to someone who might have already contracted it from someone else? No, you need to know that your cervical cancer was given to you by your God-ordained mate, who contracted it whilst frolicking with all those heathen *stems*. Of course, your cancer will be quite advanced, because there was no need to worry about it, since you were both pure little flowers when you wed...

Oh I could go on and on. The original reason women's vaginas have been on patriarchal lockdown throughout history was to preserve her marketability, and so that no man would have to support a child that wasn't biologically his. I would ask: "Have we not come farther than that in science?" but since many of these godbags would like to repeal access to birth control too, I won't.

Sorry for the sarcasm. This mindset is so frustrating and devoid of logic that the only thing I can do is be smarmy.

This is nice compared to what I got in high school. We actually had mass assemblies where the school paid for abstinence speakers to come and one year we had this fire and brimstone woman who handed us cards--yes, CARDS, like business cards--which said, and I quote, "My body is a temple not a trash can." and that was what we were supposed to hand potential partners when they asked us for teh sex. Serisously.

The only good thing I can think of was that she gave it to all of us, boys and girls, but damn, if the campus lawn wasn't littered with those cards once the bell rang and we had to catch our busses. I kinda wish I'd kept mine, but alas, I chucked it on the ground like everyone else.

Heh..."My body is a temple, it's body guards are condoms, the HPV vaccine, and sex ed!"

Doesn't anyone believe that teens are not mature enough to correctly assess all the things that come with sex? Certainly some are, but if the stats are true and 30% of 8th graders have had sex, I remember being 13 and I would have had zero idea of everything that truly surronds getting busy. I'm not jumping on the petal bandwagon, but waiting makes tremendous sense for most girls that age.

Sure, lots of people aren't ready for sex. But this isn't about telling teens to wait till they're ready--it's telling them (well really just girls) to wait for marriage cause that's the only way they won't be filthy whores.

Sylke, tee hee;)

Oh yeah, something that I find interesting about this whole thing which is sided against women who have sex with men (men having sex with men is a whole other thing with the Christians, and women on women, well, as long as teh men enjoy it and they go back to men it's fine) is that this whole abstinence thing is basically saying men make women's vaginas dirty.

I thought of this from guys always freaking out when they find out their girlfriends have had more than one partner and believing her "used up" (goddamn I HATE that line of thinking. Detour for conversation: I had to come correct--stop laughing--with one of my guy friends who was worried about this new girl he was about to start dating and he was bitching to me that he'd seen her with a group of her guy friends and wondering if she'd slept with all of them. There was no pretense for any of this, he literally saw her out with a group of friends who just happened to be all male and started freaking out to me that she was banging all of them. I calmly told him that even if *IF* she had he'd never know the f^cking difference unless she TOLD him and that it was none of his business either way. He believed that every time a woman had sex her vagina just got all "loose" and again, I had to tell him the only real thing that does that is a baby and even then the vagaina will mostly revert back. He only went out on one date with the girl, he couldn't get over it. He and I don't hardly speak anymore and I'm happy with that.)

Back on track with what I was saying (sorry for the detour): My mistaken friend got me to thinking about this whole penis in vagina relationship and why men don't seem to realize that if a woman having hetro sex makes her "dirty" then THEY were the cause of her dirtiness.

Think about it. Every time a PENIS is in you you lose a "petal" and every time you have a PENIS it makes you a dirty, dirty whore and your vagina will collapse in on itself like a dark star.

So do marriage vows magically clean the penis? Annnnnnd what does that say about men that their genitalia makes whores of all it touches?

Doesn't anyone believe that teens are not mature enough to correctly assess all the things that come with sex? Certainly some are, but if the stats are true and 30% of 8th graders have had sex, I remember being 13 and I would have had zero idea of everything that truly surronds getting busy. I'm not jumping on the petal bandwagon, but waiting makes tremendous sense for most girls that age.

I think everyone with a little common sense believes that.

Unfortunately that's not what abstinence education programs teach. They teach girls that their worth is based solely on whether or not their hymens are intact, and also disseminate a wealth of misinformation and bogus statistics to scare teens into abstaining.

If they just gave teens the real facts, warned them of the risks of unprotected sex, offered them methods to help withstand peer pressure, and advised them to abstain until they were emotionally mature enough to handle a sexual relationship, that'd be different. It'd also be redundant, because that's the typical approach of standard Sex Ed.

It's the lies, scare tactics and attitude towards women (worthless once removed from their protective shrink-wrap!) that make abstinence education objectionable--not the suggestion that teens really oughtn't be having sex.

The entire thing, image, metaphor, property rights assumptions, is twisted and sick. "Girls you're for sex and making babies -- that's all you're good for, so you better keep the means of production pristine."

This goes beyond the normal level of guilt-induction and extends it to the truly psychotic. Ugh.

Oh, puke.

If your body is a temple, shouldn't you invite the sinners in?

As though it needed to be said - the point of this is not to remain a rose for yourself. It's so that your husband gets a rose. Period.

In high school I got the "torn-up gift" metaphor from the abstinence girl. Well, that and a two-day slideshow of pictures of STDs to scare the hell out of us.

I laughed outloud! Good thing I'm the only one left in the office or I'd have to show it everyone.

The whole tying of self worth to viriginity thing just cracks me up. Newsflash: my vagina is not the best thing I have going for me. I mean, it's pretty awesome... but other stuff is better.

On a more serious note, what always bothere me about this was the lack of emphasis given to love. Yes, I'm being sappy. But if you've professed love to a bunch of people before you married (but never had sex with them), the religious right seems to think that's still ideal because you didn't fuck. But if what matters is the sappy stuff like true love, it should be the declarations of love that matter.

buffy:

I tend to believe that you become mature enough to assess all the things that come with sex by having sex. The issues aren't taught (and aren't allowed to be taught), taboos prevent them from even being discussed (and adults that so much as discuss sex with teens are at risk of being labeled pedophiles), and even those that have friends willing to discuss their experiences and mistakes honestly don't really have the context to understand how it might affect their decision making until they've experienced it.

I wasn't significantly less equipped to deal with sex at 13 than I was at 15, and I was only better equipped at 18 because I had one nasty experience under my belt already, and even at that I wasn't "mature enough to correctly assess all the things that come with sex". I hadn't experienced all the things that come with sex, and it showed -- I was still making ugly mistakes in my 20s, issues that I learned about only by virtue of finally having run into them personally. I still haven't experienced everything (I've never been party to a pregnancy or a venereal disease, for instance), and I've passed my third decade. I'm hoping that the parts I've missed so far get to stay missed for the rest of my life, but I don't kid myself that I no longer have blind spots. Staying a virgin until 30 would have made that problem worse, not better, though.

My mate and I don't intend to ever have children, but I've spent a long time thinking about this as a general philosophical issue and I've come to the conclusion that I would much prefer any kids I had to start experimenting with intimate relationships while they were still teenagers and I was around to keep an eye on unfolding disasters, answer questions and offer advice as the situations arose, and help pick up the pieces if something went badly wrong, rather than have them start making those first mistakes after they'd gone off to college and I was too far out of reach and contact to do much.

The only major advantage that waiting has is that at least the issues won't hit you while you're distracted by all the other things that hit you as a teenager. I suppose that if the teen has an indifferent or unsupportive family there's a chance to set up a better social support structure later, and there's not much advantage to learning under parental cover, as well.

(No disrespect is intended by any of this to the virgins present. There are a lot of good personal reasons for abstinence; I just don't consider extended inexperience to somehow constitute an inherent advantage, or a lack of understanding a good reason on its own to make it mandatory.)

Where do you find this stuff? Classic. I sent a copy to my pastor. She'll love it.

Don't leave your future husband holding a bare stem? HA HA HA HA Sorry honey, I gurantee you he's already doing that...

I don't know, UltraMagnus, I think those cards sound pretty sweet. I imagine a scene in the back of a van, a guy with feathered hair, 80s-style, cooing, "C'mon, baby...everybody's doing it." And then the girl, her face stern and determined, whipping out one of those cards, to the accompaniment of a "thwaaack" sound effect. Feathered-hair boy droops his head, so to speak.

Why a card? Why couldn't you just say that? So the would-be beast-with-two-back-maker has something to remember you by, always? To give him something to think about? Or was the card supposed to have some sort of magical power?

Ha, hymens.

If hymens are 'virginity' then I lost my virginity to a bicycle or sports!

That add is bogus.
(And actually I lost it to a girl!)

Of COURSE, women need to guard their virginity. Men take no responsibility for their penises... us delicate flowers have to be on the lookout for wayward members trying to nudge their way into our 'giners. 'Cuz the guys just shouldn't be expected to exercise an equivalent amount of restraint... that would be asking way too much.

Not that I give any (or much... sex IS an individual choice, after all, one I chose to put off until the age of 22 for non-religious, personal reasons) credence to urgings towards universal premarital abstinence campaigns, but it would be, you know, a nice gesture to expect the same "petal protecting" from the boys. Throw us a bone, fundies.

I don't care about virginal status. Sex with women is good. It beats sex with roses.

A boy doesn't have a rose - he has muscles! So he can exercise self-control!

Most of their Abstinence best sellers are a hoot, though. I'd like to start selling pens and little goofy knick-knacks with pro-education slogans on them. Like, say, an adorable little plush condom-dude or a pencilcase that looks like a pill pack.

So as long as you have petals left, you're safe? And why isn't there something similar for men? Like a quiver full of arrows or something?

Great title to this post!

Hee hee. I'm out too. I've even started hacking away at the stem. Oops.

As it happens, I was, in fact, my wife's First (and as far as I know, remain her Only). She wasn't "saving herself" or anything - we're just college sweethearts who stayed together.

Thing is, after we'd had her First, she was pondering the word "deflowered", and she joked that she was now "just a stem".

And it *was* a joke, because we'd been fooling around pretty extensively before that, and we'd already established that I'd still respect her in the morning, and she was relaxed enough to joke about it.

The fact that there's people who think like that for *real*...I'd call that a joke, too, but it's not very funny.

at 31 and never married, i've apparently denuded an entire rose garden.

it's sad that religious types think women, nature, and "god" have such limited gifts to offer. roses grow back.

i wonder what icon the zealots use to make males feel ugly, dirty, ashamed, and damaged for having sex. oh wait, they don't?

My botany isn't very good; I never knew that long-stemmed roses engaged in premarital sex.

Yessss, and then when your darling rose withers away untouched, don't blame anyone else. See, that's the problem with these crazy nature metaphors.

hey buffy the white, I think a lot of people's horny teenage boyfriends *are* trying to get them to eat hot pork every time they get together...

THis is my personal favourite from this website:

http://us.st11.yimg.com/us.st.yimg.com/I/abstinence-outlet_1910_1413404

real charming, that is...

Screw the roses, send me the thorns.

"Why is it no one ever sent me yet
One perfect limousine, do you suppose?
Ah no, it’s always just my luck to get
One perfect rose."

-- Dorothy Parker

I'm a girl, and I really like this concept only reversed. For my boyfriend, I would like a very innocent, red-cheeked village boy who loves me to death and wants to make a beautiful family with me. Of course, I don't really want to have the kids, so hopefully I can outsource my fertilized egg somewhere, but I would really like my boyfriend to be a blushing, wholesome virginal little thing.

Of course I am a little bit worried that he will be, well, inexperienced in bed. So on the side I would like to keep a harem consisting of many men-whores. Of course I don't think I'd be able to love them quite as much, because let's face it, they're whores... But I will have a rollicking good time with them.

So my boyfriend will stay home, maybe even have a part-time job on the side--living in America is expensive--and I will expect him to keep up the lovey-dovey part of relationships. On the other hand, for good sex, I will go to my boyfriends.

I'm not kidding. This could be a really all-around good deal for me. As for my boyfriend, well... He'll deal.