Won’t Tonja McGill’s future husband be pleased?
McGill, 18, is single and doesn’t have a romantic interest, but when she finally does wed, her bridegroom will find that his bride has been saving herself for him.
“I am going to wait,” she says. Premarital sex “can lead to all kinds of stress in a marriage.”
Besides her fear of marital distrust and suspicion, McGill has other reasons for wanting to remain a virgin until her wedding night. AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases are high on the list. So is unwanted pregnancy. Not to mention her socially conservative Baptist faith.
But on the first night of her marriage, McGill’s efforts to preserve her chastity will come down to one thing:
“It’s just decent to be able to say on your wedding night, `You’re the only one.’ “
McGill isn’t alone in her belief that purity is powerful. Religious groups have in recent years reaffirmed their belief that sex should be reserved for marriage. Teenagers have been getting on the bandwagon, reportedly by the millions, in programs like the evangelical True Love Waits, in which young people take a marriagelike vow to remain abstinent until they are wed. The Southern Baptist Convention has even held chastity rallies.
Adults have been taking up the banner too. Members of the Christian Entertainment and Fellowship Network, a local singles club for people of faith, agree to “abstain from fornication.”
Pope John Paul II has repeatedly asserted that the Catholic Church has not budged one bit from its ages-old teaching that physical intimacy is for men and women bound in the sacrament of matrimony. Unmarried Catholics have formed support groups for church members eager to fend off sexual temptation.
Schools have ad-hoc chastity clubs, while conservative activist organizations such as the Urban Family Council promote abstinence through classroom lectures.
No one is sure how many people are choosing chastity, but at least one important indicator suggests a trend: In the last few years, the number of out-of-wedlock pregnancies among teenagers nationwide has declined — more than 15 percent since 1992, according to a study by the National Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
And the centers’ National Survey of Family Growth found that teenagers are just plain having less sex. Between 1991 and 1997, the number of high school students who admitted on a survey to having sex fell 11 percent. The same survey found that the proportion of adolescent males who had ever had sex was down to 49 percent from 57 percent, while the proportion of adolescent females who had ever had sex declined from 51 percent to 48 percent.
As impressive as those numbers are, they dismay some observers because they are higher than before. For example, in 1970, at the height of the sexual revolution, the centers reported that just 29 percent of teenage girls had ever had sex and only a slightly higher percentage of young boys had.
Bill Albert, director of communications for the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, a private, non-profit educational and lobbying group in Washington, said that the falling pregnancy rate can be traced to a number of factors, including the emergence of reliable, easy-to-use contraceptives including the inject-it-and-forget-it drug Depo-Provera.
But, he added, “there is clear evidence now that more teens are becoming sexual abstinent.”
The reasons? Primarily a heightening of traditional religious values and a swing toward more conservative social conduct, Albert said. But fear of disease or pregnancy, and surprisingly, the strength of the economy have also put some people off sex, Albert added.
“They see a good economy and they try to avoid doing anything that might derail their future,” he said.
The biggest declines in out-of-wedlock pregnancy, and probably premarital sex as well, have been among young black women, Albert said. Out-of-wedlock births among black females ages 15 to 19 are down 21 percent to their lowest level in decades. The decline is clearly linked to better birth control, but experts also speculate that it may also be the result of an intersection of unlikely circumstances: anxiety over the highly publicized rise in the number of teenagers infected with HIV and the traditionally strong relationship between black women and the church.
Black teenagers like Tonja McGill and her sister Robin, 17, both of whom profess strong religious beliefs, say they are unwilling to take chances with either their health or their mortal souls.
“Kids don’t care these days, but I do,” Robin said. “They think that condoms work and birth control and all that other stuff, and so they don’t really look at the future consequences of their actions.”
All major religions take a dim view of unmarried sex, and the Judeo-Christian tradition abounds in admonitions against fornication.
The King James version of the Bible makes reference to the dangers of sex outside marriage at least 15 times. The Scriptures especially condemn violators in the Book of Job, which warns that God will visit calamity on anyone who gazes lustfully at a member of the opposite sex. The first book of Corinthians instructs believers to “flee fornication.” These messages may still be off the radar screen for many people, as the United States continues to have the highest rate of out-of-wedlock pregnancy in the industrialized world, but they are apparently having an impact. And not only on teenagers.
Joel Begelman of Philadelphia is in his 30s and says he has never had sex.
Raised Jewish, he converted to Catholicism a few years ago and now prays daily that Jesus Christ will help him stay strong in the face of erotic temptation.
“I believe that forbidden sex won’t look good on your resume on judgment day,” he said.
And so Begelman waits to marry a “nice Catholic girl” and dismisses any worry that his dream of a fulfilling wedding night might be undermined by his lack of experience.
“I believe it all comes naturally and that if a couple loves each other they will be able to satisfy each other,” he said.
Some psychologists say that the fantasy of a wedding night in which two chaste people come together in a blaze of loving fulfillment may be just that: a fantasy.
While nobody is in a hurry to knock abstinence or to minimize its benefits, especially for teenagers, some therapists say that when it comes to sexual passion, good intentions may not be enough.
Abstainers “should be respected for their strong convictions, but it should also be recognized that in some cases abstinence could lead to expectations that may or may not be healthy,” said Marlene F. Watson, director of the master’s and doctoral programs in couples and family therapy at Hahnemann University in Philadelphia.
Watson advises good premarital counseling as a way to help abstainers, or any other couple, identify potential problems in or out of the bedroom.
Kevin Nardi, his brother, Dan, and his sister, Dawn, all plan to take their prospective spouses to see a counselor, one trained in the teachings of the Catholic church.
All three of the Nardi siblings are in their 20s and are devout Catholics. They are proud virgins.
A sheet-metal worker, Kevin Nardi, 26, says his open virginity has brought taunts from co-workers who pepper him with sexual innuendos and hang racy pictures in his locker. He’s undaunted.
“I’m proud of it,” Nardi said. “I intend to save myself for my wife. That’s important because then it will be more sacred.”
Dawn Nardi, 22, agreed.
The co-founder of a chastity support group at her church, St. Barnabas, she doesn’t have a boyfriend. When she is romantically involved, she carefully avoids any conduct that might lead to unwanted passion.
For example, she never attends movies with a date. Darkness, even in a theater, is no friend of the chaste.
Snuggling in a multiplex isn’t the only route to temptation, said Jill Page, director of education for the Urban Family Council.
Page can list at least 10 ways for abstainers to avoid getting needlessly aroused and at least 42 reasons why they should save sex for marriage, including increased patience and willpower, “a thankful spouse,” and time saved for “hobbies, family and friends.”
She advises young people who have succumbed to sexual desire to reclaim their chastity through what she calls “secondary virginity.”
“They should say, `From now on I set a new course and wait until marriage,’ ” Page said.
When others scoff and contend that, sooner or later, passion will make an offer they can’t refuse, Page points to herself as proof that chastity can succeed.
She’s 39, never married and by her own proud admission, a virgin. And any man who can’t accept that isn’t worth her time.
“I don’t look on myself as a used car that needs to be test-driven and the tires kicked,” she said. “I am a woman who needs to be respected and valued.”
But sometimes even the most committed virgins can’t help but take their sexuality out for a little spin.
When Andre T. Terry, 15, lost his virginity after attending a party where some friends had made fun of his chastity, he was, to put it mildly, unimpressed.
“Everybody was hyping it up to be all exciting, but it wasn’t nothing like that,” he said.
Terry said the experience was out of character with his personal values and religious faith. And even though he takes some small pride in his use of a condom, he mostly regards the incident with vague disgust and deep embarrassment.
For many people, handling the responsibility of a child may be less troublesome than handling their runaway hormones.
Psychiatrist Harold I. Lief, professor emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania and an expert on human sexuality, said that the sex drive was crucial in promoting procreation and continuing the species. It is powerful and insistent.
Lief said that people who are most likely to succeed in an abstinent lifestyle are those who have values or beliefs that help them make peace with their physical drives.
“The question is, `Can people get around their sex drive and live happy and fulfilling lives without sex?’ ” Lief said. “The answer for the vast majority of us would be no. But for some of us, it is a workable proposition.”
