"It feels good to have a reputation."

Yes. Yes, it does.

>:-D

(Also, anyone else notice that the billboard at the link with a boy-looking figure is only a shadow with no face, while the one with the girl is an actual picture instead of a silhouette?)

Abstinence may indeed feel good. A soul-shaking orgasm feels even better.

Abstinence gives me the horn.

Sex feels good, too!

Hmmm. I can agree with at least half of those statements. And yet I have lots of good sex. Hmm...

Best of both worlds! Yes!

"My hymen gives me wings!"

That, Jessica m'dear, will keep me laughing on the inside all day today.

Much Thanks,
Smartpatrol ;)

But String_Bean_Jen, does it it give you the Cosmic Horn?

Or maybe that wasn't a reference to the Georgia Nichols books at all. I'm going to pretend it is anyway.

this completely made my day.
really, those poster should link to information on masturbation though...

Ok. Now that I've let those slow-loading slogans from that site load on my computer, I'm ticked off.

"It feels good to be honest with my parents"?
- Because if you're abstinent, you're surely talking with your parents all about your devotion to your chastity?

"It feels good to accomplish my goals"?
- Because you can only get good grades, set and achieve life and career goals, have solid and healthy relationships - romantic, familial, and otherwise - if you're not shagging?

"It feels good to have a healthy marriage"?
- Because nothing says "healthy marriage" like not having sex?

"It feels good to have 100% protection"?
- As long as you don't let your lips go anywhere other than the other person's lips, right? Is that even safe?!

"It feels good to have a clear conscience"?
- Because one is RACKED and CONSUMED with guilt if one experiments with or actively engages in sex and sexual behaviors? But if they keep their hands, lips, and genitals to themselves, they are completely static and happy?

Damn, this is in New Jersey, isn't it?

prairielily: Ha! I just looked up the cosmic horn and, indeed, I am consumed with that more often than not!

As long as you don't let your lips go anywhere other than the other person's lips, right? Is that even safe?!

Not when one considers that about 85% of the population has Herpes I, most cases of which occur on the mouth -- and that most people don't even know they have it :)

Hell, even hand-holding is off-limits. You know warts on the hands are sometimes contagious, right?

And you better not ever share a drink/fork/plate with anyone!

sex feels wayyyyy better.

I just want to point out, and this may be nothing, but the abstinence billboard of the woman shows her fully, we see her face, her skin color, etc. while the abstinence poster for the men is a shadow, we see nothing of the guy. Hmmmm.

And yes, having experienced both, sex feels much better.

This is so bizarre. I love the insinuation that an active sex life is an impediment to achieving one's goals. And that an active sex life and a good relationship w/ parents/friends/SPOUSES are mutually exclusive. Groan.

p.s. Jessica,

Who gives you better wings: your hymen or Red Bull? ;)

When I first saw that billboard in Tampa I instantly yelled out loud "AAAGH! NO IT DOESN'T!!!"

These creeps aren't just out to ruin everybody else's sex life; they're actually trying to destroy reality altogether.

I dont get any of those mystical benefits, and I havent had sex yet. Or is it because Im a reclusive geek, an atheist and that I didnt make the choice not to have sex, I just dont get any in the first place. Yeah, I guess thats what the whole "abstain" part is about.

Id still rather have sex though.

I think they just said all men are assholes.

Because the only times abstinence feels "good" (rather than like nothing really, or worse, deprivation and longing) is when some guy is being such a complete asshole as to make you downright happy that he's not getting any from you.

"Damn, this is in New Jersey, isn't it?"

Nope, in Tampa. I remember sending this to her.

I saw this billboard and had to go to the sites. I'm waiting for the "Blogz" to come up.

Anyone have any suggestions?

I'm going to ask the best way to prevent pregnancy if I'm married.

On I-74, somewhere between Covington, Indiana and the Illinois state line, there's a little sign that says "Abstain from sex to attain your goals."

Naturally, every time I drive by there I think "What if your goal is to have sex?"

Naturally, every time I drive by there I think "What if your goal is to have sex?"

Then you're a dirty, dirty, slut.

Unless you have a penis. They don't care so much about that.

this would be way more accurat if it were a giant picture of a vibrator.

I found this fact on one of the websites...

"If you own a TV or have access to the internet, then your teen is being pressured to engage in sexual activity every single day!"

yikes.

I own a tv, but it hasn't really been pressuring me for sex lately. It pretty much just sits there in the corner of my living room, turned off, most of the time.

I must have the wrong kind of television.

So "everyone else is doing it" is an okay argument for not having sex, but a horrible argument for EVERY OTHER DECISION IN LIFE?

mimo92: Hey, howdy outa Lutz!

Oh by the way! See where it says "HEALTH" at the bottom of that billboard? Well, if you look close enough just above and to the right they actually display a picture of the famous Limp Dick itself.

Hells yeah, feels good!

"It feels good to know my boyfriend loves me for more than just my body"

But it feels even better when your boyfriend does love your body. Or girlfriend. But I guess it's inconceivable that someone could love a person for their mind and their body all at the same time and have a fufilling relationship on both levels.

These billboards are courtesy of "A Woman’s Place," which is a crisis pregnancy center in FL. I don't know what I'm less surprised by: the fact that a crisis pregnancy center is responsible for a public campaign trying to convince people that repressing orgasms feels "good," or the fact that said crisis pregnancy center named itself something so misogynistic, it's almost funny.

Their "Teen Advisors" page has a link to photos from their last Christmas party. The subtitle? "More fun than an elf riding a reindeer!" BWAHAHAHAHAHA.

I am curious as to who these people are who are married (because they have healthy marriages), live with their parents (because they are worried about being honest with them), who fret about engaging in sexual activity solely because of what others might think of them... while simultaneously believing that their spouses (who are of the male gender) only want them for their body.

... and since I think something like over 80% of people have engaged in sexual activity by the time they are 20... they are hardly a majority. hmmmm.....

I am curious as to who these people are who are married (because they have healthy marriages), live with their parents (because they are worried about being honest with them), who fret about engaging in sexual activity solely because of what others might think of them... while simultaneously believing that their spouses (who are of the male gender) only want them for their body.

... and since I think something like over 80% of people have engaged in sexual activity by the time they are 20... they are hardly a majority. hmmmm.....

"Moreover, research proves that condoms provide only minimal to no protection against many dangerous STDs."

What a LIE.

Oh NO! I've had sex! Multiple times! With my boyfriend of 3 years!

I...I can't believe it...he told me he loved ME! My body, my soul my mind my EVERYTHING!

That LIAR!

He's coming over right now. I guess I'll have to dump him and start over as a chaste young lady with her head screwed on correctly. Then I'll learn how to bake and sew and find myself a real man, a man who loves ME and my virgin pussy. And then when he reveals to me that HE'S not a virgin, I will be able to tell him I'M not a virgin either, and then he'll hit me!

LIFE IS GRAND! Thanks abstinence!

Ladies and gentlemen, you are missing the point. These people are scared boneless about a fictional place called 'hell'. It's not about sex; it's about religion (particularly the promise of salvation).

Ironically, if you get one of them to bed, not only is the orgasm extraterrestrial, like French women, they never want to stop. Yet, I prefer liberal, freethinking girls because they usually come with the whole package: conversational depth and versatility, and mind-blowing sex. With fundies, the sex is about power. With a liberal girl, it's about respect. And love.

I think it's pretty funny that they said "It fells good to be part of the majority"...what majority? Us hot-sex loving heathens are the majority, they've already proven that!!! Most americans at least have sex before their married!!!

i think the woman on the billboard just discovered the fifth speed on her vibrator...

on a slightly side note though, there could be something in it though. a study just came out here in Australia that reports single women not having sex are better at self-pleasuring...

"Taking men out of the picture allows women to "better connect with themselves", according to sex therapists behind the Queensland study of 500 older women.

The research found that 56 per cent of sexually-active women with no current partner could reach orgasm every time with masturbation compared with only 24 per cent of women with partners."

not a bad reason to abstain maybe (if only for a week or so?)

for the full article
http://www.smh.com.au/news/relationships/diy-pleasure-for-single-women-study/2007/03/28/1174761535495.html

Ya know, there's nothing wrong with abstinence....

Just don't pretend to accept voluntary abstinence as a valid life choice with this trashing going on.

Nobody's trashing abstinence. We're trashing government-funded abstinence propaganda that promulgates blatant lies about sex.

Josie, that study you cite is exactly what I would need to support this dream I have of creating a comprehensive sex education program that teaches masturbation as a tool for self-empowerment, to delay sexual debut, and to help create a healthy sexual identity among teens as they grow into adulthood.

A totally far-flung idea of ever getting funded and implemented in the States, I know.

"Ironically, if you get one of them to bed, not only is the orgasm extraterrestrial, like French women, they never want to stop."

Ummmmmmm, the entire nation of Frenchwomen? I'm not sure what to make of that comment, but it sounds like something of a stereotype.

Bowleserised,

Thanks for keeping me on my logical feet. I did not mean to indulge in such vulgar generalizations. For 'French women' substitute 'the French women I've been with.'

oenophile, do you choose not to have sex because you think that no man will ever love and respect you if he isn't the only man to have his penis inside of you, or because you just don't want to have sex?

If it's because you don't think anyone will ever love you, well, that's just not true, and it's not fair to scare people out of sex by telling them that it is true. If it's because you, personally, don't want to have sex at this point in your life, what's the problem?

If I may use another example, Tom Head, who I sadly haven't seen posting lately, was also a virgin, and said he ideally only wanted to have one partner. I never saw anyone judging him for his personal decisions.

I would like to call to anyone's attention that wasn't bored enough (or annoyed enough) to click on both links.... that you go different places depending on if you click the "girl" ad or the "boy" ad....

girl ad:
http://www.whatisimpact.com/

boy ad:
http://www.m2l.org/

the "boy" ad has music!!!

oh nevermind, I get it... the counties. I don't live there so I dunno. Sorry for being an idiot... but I guess you can click on them both anyway!

prairie, I think Tom had said he was trying to give up blog commenting for Lent -- of course, Tom, if you're reading this, I think the point of Lent is to deprive yourself and thereby bring you closer to God, rather than to deprive others ;)

Only three more days till Easter!

prairielily, TLF, y'all are wonderful. :o)

I'm still reading and lurking, but not doing as much of the posting! Partly this is because of my schedule, partly because I didn't like what blog commenting (in general, local sites primarily) was doing to my temperament. I felt myself getting mean and I didn't like it!

FWIW, I'm still waiting for Ms. Right, and nobody ever went after me for it here. :o) Nor has anyone in the pro-choice activism circles I've been running in. I keep looking for those alleged Evil Feminists Who Browbeat Everybody Into Having Sex, but so far I haven't found any!

Cheers,

TH

But I like having sex! My boyfriend can't just love me for my body, since we're in a long distance relationship and we don't get to occupy the same meatspace very much, but he still seems to like me a whole lot. I find abstinence generally feels kind of...frustrating, or maybe like I need to masturbate from time to time. (I don't always have an orgasm when I masturbate -- sometimes I fall asleep, which I never do during partnered sex. Now there's a slogan: "I FELL ASLEEP DURING ABSTINENCE." *snerk*)

I wonder if the people who made that ad actually admit that women masturbate, or need to sometimes.

When I first saw that billboard in Tampa I instantly yelled out loud "AAAGH! NO IT DOESN'T!!!"

Sounds like it's time to reclaim some public places with spray paint*.

* I am not actually telling anybody to do it. But it sounds like a good idea to me,

While it is off the topic, I just wanted to shout W0RD to Interrobang. I'm in the same situation and know exactly what you mean. "Meatspace" = LOVE it. :)

On the topic: what scares me about billboards like this is that they're so similar to billboards against drinking or smoking or drugs. It bothers me that no distinction is made between promiscuity/unsafe sex and sex in general.

There's a lot that bothers me about those billboards and the whole "wait til you're married" thing. I'm not saying that abstinence shouldn't be taught, but telling all teens that they should wait until marriage is an unrealistic expectation.

The Impact site makes no mention of LGBT students. Nor does the MORE 2 LIFE site.

Prairie Lily,

Hard to explain. It's not that I think that a man won't love me if I sleep with him; it's that the men who want to sleep with me don't love me (or really care much about me), and I don't want sex without love.

I'm a total romantic in many ways and I know that ALL physical intimacy is emotionally bonding for me. Even the tiniest bit of self-awareness leads me to the conclusion that I'm just not designed to be physically intimate outside of marriage.

There's a fair number of people out there who think like I do; many of them are minimally religious or atheists. I like the idea of promoting abstinence as a viable option for people, mostly because I've been so thoroughly trashed for it. Anyone who believes that abstinence is an acceptable option in today's dating scene is either dating only evangelical Christians or hasn't tried not putting out. I've had my sanity doubted for not sleeping around, which is just sickening.

I just wish that abstinence were seen as a normal, valid, healthy option... there's the ridiculous notion that you cannot present two mutually exclusive options as valid.

FYI: I'm an equal-opportunity offender. In my old age (ha!), I'm having a hard time even going on dates with men who don't think like I do (i.e. who have had multiple partners). Some of it is a "values" issue, some of it is an abortion issue (I wouldn't have one and I don't think that people with differing views should sleep with each other... and pro-lifers are more concerned with pregnancy), and some of it is the fact that I don't want a guy who has been everywhere.

Just out of curiousity, how many partners would a guy have to have had in order to be considered as having "been everywhere"?

Please note, I have nothing against your choices. If you don't feel you are the kind of person who wants sexual intimacy before marriage, more power to you. Everyone should make decisions based on their own emotions and thoughts and stick with what makes them comfortable and happy.

i just have to say that's hysterical, i would love to see how long those adverts lasted here in england; they have the potential for day-making witty graffiti additions.

with regards to the number of partners: we all know its quality over quantity

Kimmy,

Depends on age and a few other things... I would be more forgiving of a man who had 7 partners and is 35 than one who is 25, although I think either one would be tough.

Generally, anything more than a half-dozen or so really turns me off. It's a definite sign that we're different creatures and aren't meant to be together. I mean, if a guy made one or two choices he regrets and has had sex in one or two long-term, loving relationships, I can handle it: general pattern is abstinence or waiting for love.

I didn't read judgment into your first paragraph... I mean, had you ended it with, "prudish bitch," it might have been problematic, but I'm happy to answer thoughtful, reasonable questions. :)

Well, you can't be too careful when asking personal questions, is my view. *heh*

Thanks for the response. I have difficulty understanding that viewpoint, but that's because we're just coming from such totally different places to start with, I think.

However, my brother was one of those people who bonded intensely and permanantly with the woman who gave him his first sexual experience. Although it was premarital, they got married, as I knew they would as soon as I found out they'd fooled around. So I understand a little bit.

Kimmy,

A lot of it is comfort and trust. A lot of it is the desire to have something unique in the most important of all relationships. I've been in abusive relationships, and there's a lot of things that I'll drag into future relationships, because it changed me. The romantic in me wants to ensure that, if hell freezes over and I find someone to wed, there would be parts of our relationship that don't come with baggage.

Okay, if this is too much tell me, but I've always wanted to ask someone this.

What happens if you get married and discover that you're sexually incompatible?

LOL! Um, I really have no idea.

I'm going to use the word "sexually" very broadly for the next few sentences, then answer your question. I've been sexually incompatible with some decent people - manner of kissing, cuddling, etc. Usually, I end up adapting to him, which makes things very boring for me. In my old age (i.e. mid-twenties), I'm getting pickier about finding people who are compatible with me in the non-intercourse sexual ways.

So to answer your question, I think you would know beforehand. I simply can't imagine that I would love to do everything but with the guy, but the sex itself would be horrible. Likewise, if most things are boring for me or stressful or trying, I don't think that the sex would be any good, either.

I would also assume (and I would LOVE for married women to chime in!) that sexual compatibility changes throughout marriage. I'm not trying to trivialise the issue, but I would assume that you would go into the marriage with the assumption that libidos etc fluctuate over time, depending on circumstances, etc... and you would go into the marriage with the intention of having both parties work towards the goal of satisfaction. Just seems like that would work as well as going into the marriage as currently sexually compatible but assuming that it will last forever.

Yeah, I'm a bit of a romantic. That's why I'm so cynical about life - doesn't quite meet my expectations. ;)

mimi, it's in Tampa, eh? Florida is so sexist. Florida also has billboards that say "Gay? Unhappy?" from the Christian free yourself from the homosexuality group

http://www.exodus.to/

Very well thought-out response, oenophile, thank you. You are right about married folks having to put in the time and effort to maintain sexual compatibility over time. Same as any aspect of the marriage, everybody fluctuates.

Which is why I'm not getting married again until I'm sixty and so set in my ways that no one could possibly expect me to change. *grin*

Thanks... it's the response I give morons who make snarky comments about not buying a car that you haven't taken for a test drive. I like to point out that you test-drive a car for a half-hour or so in nice conditions and guess how it handles in the snow... likewise, you extrapolate from what you already know about the person (not just sexually).

Of course, all of my relationships suck, so everything I say on the subject thereof ought to be ignored. :)

Did not know that you had been married. Sometimes it takes a few tries to get it right. ;)

"Taking men out of the picture allows women to "better connect with themselves", according to sex therapists behind the Queensland study of 500 older women.

Doesn't this imply that women who are better connected with themselves would have even better sex with men?

Thanks... it's the response I give morons who make snarky comments about not buying a car that you haven't taken for a test drive.
--Oenophile

Moron? Just because they disagree with you? Or because you find the analogy egregiously imprecise? Moron is a strong word.

Pardon my strong language. Would you like some smelling salts?

As for your question: neither. I use "moron" because some people are so emotionally incapacitated that they think sex is, in every manifestation, equivalent to driving a car and that it's so tough for men to wait. Really, what if a poor guy were stuck with a lifetime of mediocre sex? What then? (Of course, they aren't saying this to me so that I can ensure that I have a loving, caring, satisfied partner: it's all under the cruel assumption that I'm not worth waiting for.)

My deepest apologies for offending your delicate sensibilities with my use of "moron." I'll find a less pejorative word to use in the future. :)

I could be wrong, but I'm guessing that the "moron" part comes in when people think they have the right to judge her choices regarding whether or not to have sex.

And yes, oenophile, I was married. Still getting the divorce, actually (damned paperwork). The sex was fine, but unfortunately he had a slight tendency towards being emotionally and ocassionally physically abusive.

Live and learn, right? Mamas, don't let your babies get married at 21. I was such a dumb kid then.

LOL, oh, Kimmy. Very sorry to hear that. Ya know, a shotgun and a shovel go a long way towards speeding up divorce proceedings. ;)

I think it's a perfectly valid choice for someone to be abstinent, of course. My worry is in pushing it as not just a good choice, but the best choice for everyone, and that somehow you're an awful person if you're not. I can't even tell you how many superreligious people I know who got married at or just before age 21 mainly because they were SO FUCKING HORNY AND COULDN'T STAND IT ANY MORE DEAR GOD... um, sorry. Little flashback there. Anyway, I've seen an awful lot of hasty, bad marriages that might not have happened if the people involved hadn't been so all-consumed by wanting to have sex but feeling they couldn't until they were married.

"I just wish that abstinence were seen as a normal, valid, healthy option... there's the ridiculous notion that you cannot present two mutually exclusive options as valid."

Oenophile, you've worded it so beautifully. I'm having the damnedest time being in a secure relationship these days because I actually am abstinent and waiting for marriage. Is it for religious reasons? No, I'm a pretty hardcore atheist. Do I think everyone should be doing this? HELL no. It's a personal choice and I'd be just as irritated if someone put up a patronizing billboard to illustrate how their way is better than mine. My body, my choice.

Joining the pro-sex but also pro-intimacy and pro-making-your-own-damn-choices crowd.

I waited until I was 20 and in love and couldn't stand to wait anymore. I eventually married the guy, years later, but if we'd broken it off just after? I would have been okay eventually--the intimacy that we had at that time was what made me decide to end my celibate streak, not whether he would be my forever one and only.

Abstinence is an excellent choice for many people for many many reasons. But these billboards present a problematic, other-focused abstinence. I never did any of the abstinence pledges when I was a kid, even though at the time I intended to wait until marriage, because it seemed so silly to jump up and down saying "look at me be virginal and pure!" Thanks to my feminist *and* religious parents I saw it as a personal choice that wouldn't work for everyone and wasn't anyone's business but mine and my romantic partners'.

That "other-focused" bit of it really burns me, too. The whole message is be abstinent...for your future spouse. Not because of any reason having to do with yourself, but because some hypothetical future mate won't want you if you're used. Bad on all counts.

Oenophile,

It's not about my "delicate sensibilities." It's about using such a strong word in reference to another human being. Would you like it if someone called you a 'moron' because of some minor disagreement?

I don't really think of it as a "minor disagreement" when someone compares the rather personal choice about whether to engage or not engage in sex with another human being to "taking a car for a test drive."

If someone thinks that a woman is somehow appropriately compared to a car, I think that, yeah, "moron" is a pretty appropriate word.

Also, "moron" is hardly the strongest word one can use towards another human being. I think that there are far too many morons wandering about out there, making life harder for everyone.

Carlie, I really agree that people get married too young because they just can't wait any longer. This also ties into LegallyBlondeez's point about "other-focused" abstinence (which really pisses me off, FYI): you are supposed to be abstinent until you marry for your husband or your wife or God, but not because it's also a good thing for many marriages, your psyche, or your body.

When you focus the abstinence issue on what is best for young men and women, you start to avoid the problem of marrying too young because you're too horny to take it any longer, because marriage doesn't solve the issue of having sex in a way that is good for your body, your soul, and your psyche. It's just not good for you to marry in order to screw.

I'll be the first to say that the abstinence movement is just presented badly. There's a lot of really valid reasons to not have sex until marriage... but setting up the situation where people marry to have sex really misses the entire point!

Thanks, RoyalMacIII. :)

I have the sudden urge to stitch "My Hymen Gives Me Wings!" into a pillow.

I couldn't help but think, "It feels good to have control of my own sexuality, whether or not I have sex", "It feels good to have what I do in the bedroom be my own business".

i'm not saying anything brand new here, but another problem with the abstinence-only push is that it doesn't just say, wait until marriage to have sex, it does not even kind of say, but when you're ready, here are some tips on how to have mentally and physically safe sex.
i think that sometimes folks who get rotten towards people who are legitimately choosing abstinence are doing so in reaction to the fact that it isn't frequently approached as a choice. because 'abstinence' has become such a loaded term, like for instance i immediately think of forceful A-O lessons, lies about condoms and husbands wanting a pure wife or whatever, and purity balls, that it takes a second for me to be like, oh yeah, it's a totally valid choice.
so as a person who is urgently FOR self-determined-and-well-informed decisions about one's own life and sex life, of course i respect the decision. i just have to check myself for the assumption that it's not a self-determined, well-informed decision.
i hope that makes sense.

Stella, that makes a lot of sense.

Here's the analogy, as I see it: "feminist" has become such a loaded term that, when someone uses it, it may take a second or two to realise that the person might have some really legitimate views.

What about wives wanting pure husbands? I know a lot of women who won't have men that have slept around.

I also dislike the lack of discussion about birth control. Very few women want to spend their lives having babies, so it makes sense for married women to, at some point or another, consider birth control. For many people, there's also the issue of marital infidelity, and I just don't think we are doing anyone any favours by ignoring those issues.

Can I just say wtf? First of all, “abstinence feels good� is a terrible slogan. Most people I know would be like, “if not having sex is feeling good, then what does bad feel like?�
Also I love how one of their little one liners was “Because is feels good to accomplish my goals.� Are they insinuating that we who have sex are unable to accomplish anything because we’re too busy whore-ing around? Or am I the only one that got that impression?