Is virginity the new rock ‘n’ roll? You'd think so, listening to pop stars and politicians preaching the gospel of celibacy. The British government recently spent £60m on a school poster campaign to convince teenagers that chastity is cool, while Britney Spears tirelessly publicises her abstinence. Odd then that there is no mention of it on her “official” website (www.britneyspears.com), though the unofficial sites offer the exciting news that a genetically modified, and presumably chaste, chicken has just been named after her. An excruciating fictional encounter between the pop star and Harry Potter is at www.gtexts.com/rantzone/7_9_00_2.html.
Trevor Stammers argues in this week's BMJ that doctors should advise adolescents to avoid sexual intercourse (p 1520). He will, of course, find many allies on the web. The National Abstinence Clearinghouse, at www.abstinence.net, promotes “the appreciation for and practice of sexual abstinence (purity) until marriage.” There are no prizes for guessing the message of www.abstinencebetterchoice.com. Perhaps the most famous US abstinence campaign is “True Love Waits,” whose website (www.truelovewaits.com) tries far too hard to look hip (“We're cool! We're connected! We're seizing the Net!”).
Amid the poems by teenagers extolling the virtues of “sexual purity,” many of these sites show photographs of unborn children, and there's even a video of a termination of pregnancy. Here then is the more sinister side of these abstinence campaigns—less to do with sexual health promotion and more to do with religious or moral agendas.
When it comes to effective models of sex education, we can look to the Nordic countries, which even have a resolution on adolescent sexual health and rights (www.citizen2000.net/annex6.html). The resolution is refreshingly pragmatic, accepting “the fact that young people are sexually active” and making “a serious commitment to address their needs, placing great emphasis on preventive work.”