The call to sexual purity is examined in, of all places, the culturally and politically leftist Village Voice. Columnist Rachel Kramer Bussel looks at current expressions of sexual chastity, which she warns her readers not to view, necessarilly, as freakish.
The article notes the forthcoming book on the subject by Dawn Eden, along with modesty writings by Wendy Shalit and a Jane magazine blogger who allows reader input (including from her father) about the man for whom she’s looking, to whom she plans to lose her virginity when she finds him.
The Village Voice doesn’t see chastity as freakish, but only because it is one more sexual lifestyle choice. Bussel writes:
Nobody should be made to feel ashamed of bedroom adventures or lack of them. Sexual freedom shouldn’t come with the price tag of promiscuity, but I also think there’s nothing wrong with promiscuity per se. Instead of dictating a single standard, we need to embrace each individual’s right to make sexual decisions based on his or her own values.
Sadly, this kind of “values” talk is precisely the kind of language used often in allegedly Christian emphases on sexual purity. Rather than press the biblical mandate of holiness, we adopt the language of personal autonomy and choice in order to support the “decision” to “save sex for marriage.” We seek to co-opt the sexual revolution in order to plunder its rhetoric to make the world safe for virgins.
