Friday, September 11, 2009

Serendipity

So a few days ago i was saying to Jeanne that it semi-bothers me that the church has added “virtue”* to the Young Women’s theme, since study after study has found that girls that are faced with intense pressure to not have sex (most visibly in the form of things like purity pledges, virginity rings, and—creepiest of all—father-daughter chastity balls) actually end up starting sexual activity earlier and engaging in riskier sexual behavior than those who aren’t faced with such pressures.

Then yesterday i got pointed to the Spanish Fork 401st Ward** and saw that a recent post there dealt with this exact same issue.

Also—and this is kind of a different issue, but still—wasn’t the Young Women’s theme long enough to be boring-sounding already?*** Did we really need to add more syllables?

* At least they didn’t decide to call it “purity”, which is just icky, or “moral purity”, which is just a stupid circumlocution. Why they didn’t go with something still-roundabout but more straightforward like “chastity”, though, i’m not sure.

** Subtitled “Just south of liberal-leaning Provo”, which made me, as someone who served time in Provo and Salem (just south of Spanish Fork), laugh out loud for longer than the people around me were comfortable with.

*** And “divine nature” as a value? I mean, what’s up with that? It doesn’t even make sense.

2 comments:

KRad said...

One of my friends here is in YW & recently had to introduce this new value to the girls. She came across this talk, which she told me about. It offers a whole new perspective on "virtue" a perspective that I would like to see taught to my daughters rather than the run of the mill purity talks - which I'm sure they will get plenty of.

http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/lds_servlet/EmailArticleProcess?action=view&cmlId=507827&locale=0&emId=117495499

David B said...

Yes, much better than most. The odds on most of the girls out there getting this sort of approach (as opposed to “you’re going to hell if you wear a bikini”)? Pretty low, i’m guessing.