In what may be the last Bachelor/Bachelorette series, two of Jen's suitors went to town on the fact that they were “saving themselves” for marriage, on of them arguing that his body wasn't an amusement park ride. In the “tell-all” episode, they complained that their choice wasn't respected by the others. Which got me to thinking.
Modern societal mores around sex boil down to - if I could borrow the term - informed consent. We do not insist that a person have a good reason, or any reason at all, for not having sex with anyone. If the two dudes woeing Jen had a conviction that they'd only have sex with someone they're married to, that's their right.
On the other hand, it would be Jen's right to reject them for that reason. If we can not dispute the guys' right to hold out, we should have no right to hold it against the gals' preference for premarital sex, maybe even lots of it.
What I find offensive, though, is the notion that virginity is a virtue in itself, or worse a gift to someone else. Abstinence is abstinence, whether it's a life-long or temporary condition. “But you've done it before” is not a valid argument to get someone into bed. I don't know how conservative viewers felt about the two virginal Jen suitors, but if the main concern is convincing teenagers to have less sex, there should be some concern about the premise that virginity is something so precious that once you've lost it, you're lost.
It would have been better if the producers had positioned these two guys as individuals who decided to not have sex before they were married, whether or not they'd ever had it before.
Sent wirelessly from my Blackberry.
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