Schoolgirl fights for right to wear 'chastity ring'

[lyrasdaemon]

A 16 year-old girl is going to the High Court to gain the right to wear her 'chastity ring' at school. Read more here.

IMHO, this girl hasn't got a leg to stand on. The 'chastity ring' is not a Christian symbol, it is a symbol of a pledge made to remain sexually inactive until marriage, a pledge which can be made by those of all faiths and none. As the ring is not a uniquely Christian symbol, the girl's religious beliefs are not being discriminated against by being told she cannot wear it. For this very simple reason, the High Court should chuck out this case worthwith and tell the girl to get stuffed!!!

True madameP. Of course, the only 100% effective "birth control" is not having sex. For something that works so well, it's been surprisingly slow to catch on!!

That and a hysterectomy!

The fad thing is exactly the point, I think, and also why it's likely doomed to failure.

UQD People very, very rarely get pregnant from oral or anal intercourse, or from hand jobs - or from same-sex experimentation. Really good sex education would be able to put this to young people without making it sound too cheesy and obedient (and uncool). But the abstinence nutters are so obsessed with vaginal intercourse and the magic of "marriage" (which will somehow turn teenagers who are both inexperienced and almost exploding with lust, into competent, mutually-pleasuring sexual partners) that they don't address any way of coping with or understanding the wild surges of sexual feelings that hit you in adolescence - other than the power of fucking prayer which is no use at all.

I really hope my children don't stay 'chaste' until they marry. I hope they have lovely, happy, fun, respectful, sexually fulfilling relationships with nice people with whom they can go on holiday have a laugh. And then I hope they will one day find someone they love enough to stay with and have some children with, if that's what they want.

"Chaste" is an odd word. It gives a veneer of old-fashionedness to something which, for a parent, is perfectly normal - the feeling of not wanting our children to become sexual beings too early.

I agree that, sometimes, the argument is put as if there is no centre ground between "chastity" and all-out shagging in the bus-shelter on cider and E's with whichever Kevins or Kayleighs come along. It depresses me hugely to hear the stories DW tells of some of the kids she teaches, who think it is NORMAL to get illegal booze, go "up the field" and "cop off" on a Friday and Saturday night. And they don't mean having a bit of a snog and a feel, trust me. Oh, did I mention these are Year EIGHT?? I'm all for teenagers "finding out what it's all about" and not being ashamed of their own bodies, but that doesn't mean turning into all-out shag-monsters as soon as the hormones scream at them to do so.

It's difficult to teach them that part of being a mature, responsible adult in charge of your own sexuality is knowing when NOT to use it.

I don't know what the answer is - it can't be more sex education, as these kids have had all the PSE/sex education a state curriculum can give, shoved down their throats from the age of 7. (Maybe better sex education - now that could be a different thing. Hmmmm.)

Education full stop, plus a sense that they are loved and accepted and valued, and that they have a future in the world seem to be the main things that delay first sexual experience, encourage healthy relationships and make young people use contraception. If they feel they have nothing to lose and that nobody values them, and they have no future then they have sex young and don't use contraception.

Looks like i'm very much in the minority but i think its a very noble thing to fight for,
Putting aside issues of whether she is pursuing the legal argument due to teenage self importance (she probably is!), i dont see how chosing, and being proud of, chastity at 16 can be a bad thing.
Yes she'll no doubt go back on it before too long, yes 'the silver ring thing' may not stand up to scrutiny but bloody hell, i think theres a great swathe of teenagers who are making pretty dubious choices re their sexuality, how they use it and who they share it with and i know which route i would prefer my dc took, i know which one is more likely to deliver them to adult-hood healthy and happy.

All the evidence from the US though indicates the exact opposite is happening. Teenagers who subscribe to this silver ring thing (boak) are just as sexually active as others, but much less likely to use contraception. That's certainly not a route I want my kids going down.

publicity stunt imo.

Yes, of course the ring is the sort of stupid brain dead tokenism you expect of Christians.
If it worked then it would be a pragmatic approach to teenage pregnancy. But faith is not "pragmatic@ but God speaking to you personally.

Of course it doesn't affect teenage female sexual activity, for fucks sake I'd have been a virgin until 22 if pretty teenage Christians had free will.
But so what ?

This girl genuinely believes that her God wants this shit.
No one here, or anywhere else has produced any evidence otherwise.
Some have a racist argument that since her belief is "foreign" that it is somehow false.

Christianity is very clear that girls should only have sex with those that senior religious men say they should have sex with.

The ring is absolutely consistent with Christianity.
Or not..
I don't bloody know, it's been decades since I've bonked a brain dead Christian bimbo, and I don't expect to do so again.
But my ignorance is at least an hones tone.

I don't know what is in this unfortunate looking girls head. Can't imagine that I would ever have cared, but it is her head, and her heart.
I don't see why I or anyone else have have the authority to tell her what to believe.

I agree with Aloha

I don't see what's so great about wanting to preserve chastity anyway. Chastity is just a state of not having sex, not a positive virtue imo. It's a positive choice if you choose it, but hanging on to virginity like it's some kind of talisman, is just mediaeval mysogynist crap. And I know that boys sign up for this pledge stuff too, but it's more pushed at girls.

It doesn't happen often, but I, too, agree 100% with Aloha's last post.

I honestly find it odd.
A 16yo chooses that she wont be having sex yet.
How on earth can that be viewed nagatively?

The problem is that he school wants to bully her into not wearing a ring that claims she's not having sex.
Apparently her teachers have a direct line to God which gives them an infallible method to work out how He would like to be worshipped.

Choosing not to have sex because you don't want it, is not negative.

Choosing to hang on to your virginity for its own sake, like it's worth something in its own right (which of course in cultures where women are bartered and virginity is part of the bride price) is utterly repugnant imo.

And as far as the statistics from America....so what?

You cant lay those statistics on one girl and therefore conclude that her choice is wrong.

If your issue is with the silver ring thing (and i agree, boak) then thats seperate.

This girl is not responsible for a load of teens in the US.

Clearly there are kids buying into this thing that really have no intention of keeping it in their pants, but you cant then conclude that this particular girl has made a wrong choice.

And to go from 'girl decides not to have sex' to then conclude that shes 'more likely to have unsafe sex' is ludicrous, whatever statistics you use to get there.

VSS, but its her virginity, her body.
What she chooses to do, or not do with it is up to her.

I'm not a religious person but even i understand that remaining a virgin until marriage is a part of chrisitianity, its in the bible. Many christians go down this route, many dont, this particular girl is choosing to remain a virgin as part of her faith.
How anyone could find that "utterly repugnant" is beyond me.

Oh of course what she chooses to do with her body is up to her. (But her behaviour is pharasaical imo. Drawing attention to your "virtue" publicly is explicitly condemned in the New Testament.)

The reason I find this celebration of virginity in its own right repugnant, is because it has nothing to do with virtue or morality, but everything to do with good old fashioned mysogyny and echoes the old idea that a woman who has not clung on to her virginity (or more accurately, had the men who control her ensure that it is preserved until as DC points out, they decide where it is to be bestowed),is worth less morally and socially than one who has been sexually active.

I completely get what you're syaing, and on those points we're agreed.

I just dont think that those things should be projected onto this one girl.

JeremyVile, I agree with you on pretty much all you've said.

I don't like the silver ring thing, because, as others have said, it is all about flashing virtue about, and just trying to make not having sex 'cool', which is so shallow it's beyond belief.

But I completely agree that making a positive choice about your own body is a good thing.

And for the record, although we wouldn't participate in the SRT, we will be encouraging our kidlets to save sexual expression for marriage, and that includes girls and boys.

I agree with everyone... isn't that lovely .

The silver ring thing is an unneccessary ostentation. Keep yourself 'pure' sweetie, if that's what you want, but we don't need to know it. Because it's personal and using it as propaganda is simply vulgar.

However I do have a problem with the other viewpoint that sex is something that everyone should do asap and as often as possible with as many people as possible. And that not choosing to do so is somehow unhealthy. We seem to have gone from one unpleasant mindset that sex was something disgusting that shouldn't ever be discussed and was only ever the missionary position, under the bed clothes with the lights off...and of course no nice girl would ever enjoy it. To the opposite viewpoint that sex is a public commodity that everyone is/must be doing all the time and it has minimal emotional resonance most of the time. And if a young girl isn't doing it or at least talking about doing it, she is a prude or frigid. Of all the sexual choices available, abstinence is the only unnacceptable one.

There may be many reasons for not having sex - I personally think that the silver ring thing is probably one of the worst.

But who believes that everyone should have sex with as many people as possible as often as possible?

Only fantasising teenage boys, surely? And Peter Stringfellow, obviously.

Most of us believe that sex is something that you should be discriminating about. But that if you aren't, it doesn't necessarily make you a bad person.

How can it be Mysogny. Boys are encourgaed to wait as well.

The Silver Ring Thing is, I understand for girls only.