It's interesting that they put a financial value on the female anatomy, by implication.

Interesting that they liken virginity to a rock that has its worth hyped up by a select few.

Best. Ever.

I love the obvious allusion to chastity belts. How medieval!!!

I'm such a dork. I'm can't stop thinking "But, the chain isn't actually attached to anything. You could slip it right off, even without the key!"

Also, I love that they included the key in the picture. Hooray for hymen keys?

Does this mean that women are going to start giving hymen rings to their fiances? Considering all the rhetoric surrounding marriage it doesn't seem that far off.

Hmmm...just one question...does my diamond turn into a ruby during "that time of the month"?

ElleMariachi, wouldn't that just make it a blood diamond? But seriously, this logo makes me ill- the idea that a big diamond should be the motivation to do anything. Men don't get a diamond, so why should they wait to have sex until married?

Muahahahaha--blood diamond! Nice, triggerhappy :)

So, looks like when we "give up" our "diamond", we should only do so if we get one in return. So, y'know, don't settle for anything less than 4 carats!!!

Is that graphic a diamond guarding the opening of an orifice of some kind? Am I supposed to be looking at a vagina here?

And is the girl's father supposed to hold onto the hymen key until the future husband needs it?

I don't... wow. I can't even...Oh my god.

I'm not sure what the implication is here. Is it protect your "diamond," diamond being virginity. Or, is it something a little more sinister. "If you have sex, you will lose all of your value, and a man will never give you a diamond, aka, no on e will want to marry you if you are impure."

Hahahaha...

This is so ironic, I just started reading a novel about Biblical Women, and they're told to "Guard their vineyards" so no one comes and "plucks their grapes".

This modern day interpretation is pretty sick though.

(At the very least, couldn't they have come up with a better metaphor for it? I think "vineyard" makes more sense than "Diamond" >.>)

Awesome book, though-"Song of Hannah". Many feminist themes.

Hell, if my hymen was a diamond, I'd pawn it. I need rent money.

I guess that's what they're getting at. Save it for the highest bidder.

Gross.

Save it For the Highest Bidder....

You hit the nail on the head.

This shit blows my mind...I'm also kinda feeling the desire to put this on a t-shirt with a statement on the back calling out it's ridicuslousness. any suggestions???

its all the same. Keep yourself covered, keep yourself under lock and key..men while put their penis in anything if you let them...and then you'll be a slut but they won't cause you should have stopped it...I hate the diamond allegory to because it just reminds me of the stupid "princess fad" that's going on around right now. Diamons and gowns and being an object...every girls dream...

http://www.briomag.com/briomagazine/relationships/a0004406.html

this is more: girls need to keep it under wraps shit

Ha ha ha.....I just read that Brio article where the guy writes:

"Sounds impossible, huh? I’m telling you — guys are wired like sexual time bombs. That’s simply how God created men. And, yes, it’s our responsibility to be wise and to stay out of stupid situations where we’re alone and will battle temptation, but we guys need your help!"

All I can say is that his wife Jen better keep a short leash on this guy
because he doesn't sound all that capable of controlling himself on his own.

The whole abstinence only/purity ball movement always amazes me. Just when I think I've heard it all, they come up something more squamish and offensive. Abstinence: Because it's never too late to put a price on your pussy.

I have to say that the Brio article is so creepy and so offensive on so many levels. It makes me sad to think that there are some girls out there who buy into this notion and measure their worth as a human by how much a boy does or does not "want" them. This particular line caught me, "But if he’s pressuring you for sex, pleeeeeze don’t think that will make your relationship stronger. Because deep in the bottom of his soul . . . he wants to marry a virgin!". Ugggh. The lion analogy was bothersome as well. Cuz, that's right! Women are just pieces of meat and men are the king of the jungle. Silly me.

I'm always surprised that these Christian groups won't admit that teenaged girls have hormones too!

This reminds me of a billboard I saw a few months ago in rural Illinois.

On the left side: a picture of a man and woman's hands. The woman had a big, ole, shiny diamond on her left ring finger.

On the right side: a picture of a ring-less female right hand resting on her very pregnant belly.

Caption: "Wait for the BLING!"

My first thought: maybe that pregnant woman is married but to swollen to wear her "bling". Seriously, though, what's the message there? A diamond is better than a baby? I just don't get it.

From the Brio article:

"Give me an inch, and I’d see it as an invitation to go a mile."

WHAT THE FUCK

Translation:

"If you kiss me, I'll take that as consent to sex and rape you."

I think the worst part of the Brio article is how he puts all the responsibility on the girl's shoulders:

"OK, I’ll wrap this up now. But I wanna tell you one more story. I played football in high school, and one year several of us took home economics for an easy A. The teacher was a Christian. One day after a very candid discussion with the class about sex, she asked how many guys in the class had already had sex. Many of the football players boldly raised their hands, bragging, despite the fact that many of their girlfriends were in the class with them. Then she asked how many in the class planned to marry a virgin. Every single one of those guys raised his hand.

So, what’s that mean? It means, Brio Sisses, that the guy you’re with may say he’s a Christian. He may tell you he loves you, and you’re the most important person in the world to him. But if he’s pressuring you for sex, pleeeeeze don’t think that will make your relationship stronger. Because deep in the bottom of his soul . . . he wants to marry a virgin!"

No comment on the double standard set by the example, just that the girl should keep herself pure for her football guy, because that's what he wants. And wtf is up with him having being a virgin a qualifiaction for the woman he marries? This makes me sick to be a Christian. These people are just really fucked up in their obsession with me keeping my hymen intact.

Besides the whole thing was just so condescending, sort of like "let me use small simple terms so that you can understand me"

And I agree with the graphics hilariousness. I wonder where the diamond he's going to give me is??

man, i thought the abstinence movement was bad when i was a teenager! this is way more hilarious/awful.

i seriously had friends in high school who had "chastity rings" that i guess were some type of ring that faces one way as long as she's virginal (unmarried) and then when she gets married the guy turns the ring around to face the other way or something.

i don't know why i find all this purity ball stuff so morbidly fascinating, but i do.

man, i thought the abstinence movement was bad when i was a teenager! this is way more hilarious/awful.

i seriously had friends in high school who had "chastity rings" that i guess were some type of ring that faces one way as long as she's virginal (unmarried) and then when she gets married the guy turns the ring around to face the other way or something.

i don't know why i find all this purity ball stuff so morbidly fascinating, but i do.

Hey one of the properties of a diamond is that nothing can impact it. Chemical alteration not very possible, hardest substance in the world etc etc... so the message that I get is, GO ahead do what you will nothing aint gonna happen to it :D

Yes, sgzax, a girl's father does in fact hold the hymen key... she presents it to him at a Purity Ball!

Am I the only one who had this vivid image of a guy coming into the emergency room in agony and followed by his new wife who's crying, "We were just having sex but my rock-hard diamond hymen got in the way!"

It's like a vagina dentata!

"But if he’s pressuring you for sex, pleeeeeze don’t think that will make your relationship stronger. Because deep in the bottom of his soul . . . he wants to marry a virgin!"

well, how about "But if he’s pressuring you for sex go tell him to FUCK OFF because its MY BODY WHICH BELONGS TO ME, YOU DONT AUTOMATICALLY HAVE ACCESS TO IT BECAUSE I'M DATING YOU!"

The guy who wrote that article needs to be locked up-he sounds like a future rapist!

Allytude, I thought the same thing-- 'wait, diamonds are pretty much indestructible!'

But maybe that's just a myth, like evolution or female sexual desire.

"But maybe that's just a myth, like evolution or female sexual desire."

hahahahaha

Given that I grew up in the bible belt, it's sad how much of this hits close to home for me. Like when I was 13 and 14, I thought about sex pretty much constantly. But my mom was always reading these articles and lecturing me about how "teenage girls who are having sex, it's actually just because they want affection. It means they're not close enough to their fathes." And then she and my dad would get him to hug me more often and stuff like that. Which is sort of f-ed up, looking back on it, b/c I spent my whole teenage years both constantly thinking of sex and doubting/being afraid of it and boys.

And then my dad has some lovely speals: "I was better than just about all of the guys I knew when I was a teenager, and I would still pressure girls" "Men have certain needs" etc.

Basically, one reason I LOVE feministing, is that it gives validation to so many of the issues I struggled with as a teenager and am still struggling with as a young adult.

Good gods, that article...

"Don’t assume just because your guy friend is a Christian that he’s beyond yielding to temptation."

Why sugarcoat it? He should have said "Just because your guy friend is a Christian, don't assume he's not a rapist."

See? Much better.

And they accuse us of male-bashing! I would never suggest that men have no self-control, or that the little head does in fact do all the thinking for them, but that's essentially the message of that entire article. These people clearly don't like women, but they don't seem to think much of men, either...

Well, not when it absolves them of anything resembling responsibility for their own behavior, anyway.

I was exploring this website and I saw that they write:

"0% of youth who are abstaining from sex will get pregnant, contract HIV, or have any other negative consequences."

I wrote them a angry email informing them that HIV can be contracted in other ways besides sex. And how much more vague can "any other negative consequences" get? AAH this is frustrating.

--"0% of youth who are abstaining from sex will get pregnant, contract HIV, or have any other negative consequences."--

They conveniently forget that all those things can happen to an abstinent person...if they're raped. But I guess they figure good, chaste women aren't going to "provoke" a man into raping them.

*eyeroll*

Well, also--no negative consequences? At all? For anybody? So repression, anxiety, guilt, being turned into gatekeepers of male sexuality, lack of acknowledgment of female sexuality, none of that is negative?

That tells me a lot more about their value system than I think they realize.

They conveniently forget that all those things can happen to an abstinent person...if they're raped.

Well, if you use the Sponge and a condom with your boyfriend, that doesn't help you if you get raped by some guy you don't know, either.

If you're kidnapped, the Pill won't help you, because you can't take it.

Judge like with like, for heaven's sake. If we don't attribute a pregnancy resulting from rape to "condom failure" (as such would be absurd), we shouldn't attribute it to abstinence failure, should we?

Oh, wait - that gets in the way of the "feminist" raison d'etre of chastity shaming.

But oenophile, nobody claims that "0% of youth who use birth control and condoms correctly will suffer pregnancy, disease, or any negative consequences at all."

We're responding to this particular bit of nonsense, the claim that abstinence is absolute, universal protection. There is no "like" to compare it to, because on the whole, we don't make silly statements like that.

Oenophile, I never implied any such thing.

I'm pointing out that it's misleading to say "0% of youth who abstain will get pregnant or contract an STD". An abstinent youth can still be raped, just like anyone else. Abstinence is not a shield against sexual assault.

My head hurts. What is your problem?

My question: does the efficacy of condoms take into account that a sexually active young woman who uses a condom each and every time with her boyfriend could get raped by a man who is not wearing a condom?

If so, fine, criticise the abstinence stat. Otherwise, shove it, because you're being hypocritical.

By the way, ladies... by definition, someone who is raped is not abstaining from sexual intercourse. I'm sorry to be the one to spell that out for you, but I thought it was pretty basic. Did not realise that it was beyond your intellectual capacity. Here's an analogy: a woman who uses a condom with her boyfriend is not using a condom when raped by a condomless rapist. She is not utilising that particular method of birth/STD control at the time.

THAT is why your nonsense is disingenuous. But chastity-shame away.

Our problem is that the website does not say "0% of youth who practice abstinence will get pregnant, contract diseases, or experience any kind of negative consequences from sex." It says that none of those things will happen, period. Which is arrant nonsense.

And a woman who is raped is certainly practicing abstinence. Because volition matters. She is abstinent. The rapist is active, not she.

I hardly see how what I said was "chastity-shaming". You seem to be reading what you want to read.

EG hit the nail on the head, and said exactly what I wanted to.

Diamond hardly rhymes with hymen. Good thing, because I'm a sucker for rhymes. You can sell me on just about anything if your rhyme is clever enough.

Now if they came out with the Rhymin' Hymen, the official rapping spokesperson for abstinence-only education, they'd win me over in a heartbeat. She can be from the 'hood . . . the maiden hood.

Heh. So not the hood that sprang into my mind...

EG - My brain went to the exact same place.

This reminds me of a girl friend of mine in high school... at her evangenical church, they told the teenage girls to guard their "treasure chest," because every time they did something with a guy they would lose another piece of their "treasure," and eventually no man would want them. I was also so surprised that anyone would be so blatant about commodifying women's sexuality, but clearly they had no problem with it, and neither do these "guard your diamond" people.

That brio article made me so angry i'm fuming. Because it's ALL up to us women, who apparently have no capability of thinking for ourselves (ex. reproduction rights) to make sure the men stay squeaky clean. hmm.. how about this. they take responsiblity for their own actions.

and yeah. the lion and meat thing is ridiculous. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH im fuming...