It needs to be about chastity, not virginity

Yes, if everyone practices chastity, you do end up with a lot more virgins. I'm not arguing with that.

There are still several downsides that come with the focus on virginity, and in that hangup we lose some understanding of the Gospel.

One of the saddest examples I have is from Elizabeth Smart. In her own telling, after being kidnapped and raped, she did not think anyone would want her anymore. One of the things that made her feel that way was an analogy that had been taught, about how nobody wants a chewed up piece of gum.

Women are not pieces of gum. I can't believe that even needs to be said. Remember last week when we were talking about how some things just make you sound stupid? Well, saying that no one wants to have sex with someone who has already had sex could easily fall into that category.

Theoretically the first time a woman has sex results in the hymen being broken (though there are apparently other ways that can happen), but people have enjoyable post-hymen sex all the time. It would be silly to make that much out of it, except that it does happen. There are two ways that can go.

One is that placing a premium on virginity causes men to look for younger and younger girls, before they are "spoiled". This can lead to the rape of very young girls, as has been shown in Sierra Leone. Men want to get to the girl first, because they like to be the ones to take the virginity. That's what can happen when you make virginity a prize, and its acquisition a status symbol.

It dehumanizes women, of course, and part of that is the double standard. Religions that believe in chastity should believe in it equally for men and women, but somehow men and women are never viewed quite the same. That can even poison a marriage:

http://www.xojane.com/sex/true-love-waits-pledge

I am glad for her that her husband was so understanding, but I am sad that it damaged her faith. "I couldn't figure out how to be both religious and sexual at the same time." Surely we can do better than that.

Just like our response on narcotics has to evolve beyond a knee-jerk "Drugs are bad", we have to be able to do better than "Sex is bad!"

We don't believe sex is bad. We believe it's a wonderful things that allows a husband and wife to grow closer together, and to share physical pleasure, and to have children. That's not dirty; it's beautiful.

We also believe that intimacy belongs inside marriage, so we need to be able to articulate why. Yes, we can say it's part of our covenants, but we should be able to have at least some understanding of why it would be a commandment, and why it would matter.

We can easily remember that sometimes, even when you think not all of the factors are in place, that children do get conceived. That is something that is better if it happens in marriage.

We can talk about how marriage finalizes the commitment, while acknowledging that there are people who are committed in many ways without getting officially married. There needs to be some acknowledgement that marriage is not magic, and that the feelings that inspire people to marry may fade, and how to deal with that.

There can be communication about how the intimacy that is developed through sex is best limited to one person, rather than spreading bits of your heart all around. There is certainly room for talking about how there will be people who will tell you that they love you and not mean it, or they will mean that they love you, but without sufficient maturity and selflessness to make it last.

If at this point my arguments sound weaker, okay, having been chaste all my life, and never having been married, I am a virgin, I do not have personal experience of this. People raising children do.

I do know of the heartache many of my friends have experienced who did have sex, and I have learned things from that, but I don't want to focus on the negative. I believe that there are a lot of positives to chastity, for everyone.

And yes, you do have more virgins that way, but if someone comes to the Gospel later, and has had sex, or if someone was trying to live the Gospel but slipped (because those are very powerful urges) and then repented and tried again, that does not make them any less. We believe in forgiveness.

And especially important to say, if someone is raped, that does not make them any less. They will have enough trauma to work through without having to deal with society's stupid lessons that virginity is a prize.