The new trend of virginity

By CATHRIN SCHAER

Virginity has never been so fashionable. For a long time the (usually) maligned condition simply seemed to disappear from popular culture's horizons. But now sexual purity is popping up all over the place, with musicians, movie actors and other celebrities declaring they're saving themselves for true love.

American pop star Britney Spears, we are told, is "waiting." The pneumatic teen dates boys - in fact she lives with one from boy band, N'Sync - but she insists they only kiss. Britney's virginity is such a big deal globally that in December the Church of England hailed her as a "great ambassador for virginity," the Irish Government is using her in a pro-virginity campaign with the slogan "Do A Britney," and some sleazy United States businessman recently offered her more than $250 million to lose her virginity (yes of course, she turned it down).

Britney look-alike Jessica Simpson is also "waiting," despite the fact that she's been with her boyfriend, a member of boy band 98 Degrees, for two years. Apparently when she moved into her new home she and her young man celebrated by sitting up to watch videos and eat popcorn.

If you find it hard to take Jessica and Britney seriously when their music videos depict them sprawled on satin-covered, double beds, dressed revealingly or singing to all the world that they're "not that innocent," then consider Ronan Keating, the more likeable lead singer of British band Boyzone. Behind the syrupy tunes, he's a hard drinkin', laugh-a-minute Irishman but he too saved himself for marriage. He wed his childhood sweetheart, Yvonne, in 1998 when he was 21 years old.

Then there's Emmy Award-winning adult actress Lisa Kudrow (Phoebe in the sitcom Friends).

"I was very uptight and really nervous about my sexuality," she told W magazine. "I decided pretty early on I should stay a virgin until I got married. My virginity was something I had decided was very precious."

Kudrow married a French advertising executive in 1995, at the age of 31.

And of course we mustn't forget our very own "ice queen," Petra Bagust, who stayed stylishly pure until she married her very own cameraman recently.

Grabbing headlines in America is the True Love Waits movement. More than a million students have signed a document stating: "Believing that true love waits, I make a commitment to God, myself, my family, my friends, my future mate and my future children to be sexually abstinent from this day until the day I enter a biblical marriage relationship."

On Valentine's Day (February 14) hundreds of thousands of these enthusiastic American teens will be signing and mailing cards on the Internet supporting their stand.

Late last year an Australian evangelist, Jim Lyons, caused a media furore when he came to New Zealand to sell the kinds of videos that the True Love Waits lot watch and to encourage school pupils to sign a similar pledge.

In Britain, Tony Blair's Government has embarked on an ambitious campaign to convince adolescents that it is cool to be a virgin, in an attempt to curb high teenage-pregnancy rates in that country.

More than £2 million ($6,400,000) is being spent on an advertising campaign that is to include titillating posters asking: "Sex: Are You Thinking About It Enough?"

There'll be no hint of official involvement and the Public Health Minister who is organising the campaign has given the advertising agency instructions to use a hip and groovy tone that will go down well with the kids.

All of which led one respectable British newspaper to write: "Virginity is now as covetable as a Prada bowling bag."

In some international cases such persuasion seems to be working. A 1998 poll by Playboy magazine found that American college students were abstaining from sex in increasing numbers.

And the University of Chicago's recent General Social Survey found that the number of young adults, aged between 18 and 24, who believe that premarital sex is always (or almost always) wrong is rising. Twenty-five per cent of young men and 30 per cent of women agreed with the premise, up from 16 and 20 per cent in the early 70s. The teen birth rate is dropping in the US and a report by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention found teenagers were having less sex, with fewer partners and wearing condoms more often.

But what of New Zealand teenagers? Are they paying Britney and her partners in purity any attention, becoming less promiscuous?

"To be honest, I don't think so," says Les Simmonds, co-author of the book Raising Teenagers, and chief executive of Youth Horizons Trust, a residential education programme for young people experiencing conduct disorder. "A one-off statement from one or two pop stars can't have much of an impact - not when you've got hundreds of others all doing sex, drugs and rock'n'roll. So, no, I don't think it makes much difference here."

That opinion is shared by other experts and supported by the statistics.

There's no doubt that teenagers are losing their virginity at younger and younger ages. The average age of first sexual intercourse in New Zealand is 17.6 according to the Durex 2000 Global Sex Survey (for which they interviewed 10,000 respondents throughout 15 countries). If you split that figure between the sexes, it's generally estimated to be at around 17 for men and 16 for women.

That same survey found that the trend towards having sex at a younger age has been accelerating with each decade. International respondents over 40 reported having their first sexual experience at an average age of 18.6 years, compared to an average age of 18 years for 30-39 year-olds.

While there are no exact comparisons available the same looks about right for New Zealand. A survey of first-year university and teachers' college students, carried out 30 years ago, in 1969-70, found that only around a quarter of the 2175 respondents reported having had sexual intercourse. They would have been around 18 years old.

Today between 60 and 70 per cent of a similar group, questioned by researchers at the Department of Preventive and Social Medicine at the University of Otago Medical School, reported having had sexual intercourse within the last year.

Having sex earlier probably isn't a problem in itself. It's the side effects that alarm the older, general public. New Zealand has the second-highest rate of unplanned teenage pregnancy in the world and in some parts of the country the rates of sexually transmitted diseases, such as chlamydia and gonorrhoea, are also appallingly high among teenagers.

Another more recently discovered side effect is psychological. In January 1998, the British Medical Journal printed the findings of that same research team at Otago Medical School. The paper, titled "First Sexual Intercourse: age, coercion, and later regrets reported by a birth cohort," included interviews with about 477 men and 458 women aged in their 20s.

The Dunedin-based researchers found that curiosity about what sex would be like was the most common reason for losing one's virginity. But they also found some other, perhaps more disturbing, things.

"We found that a substantial proportion of young women who had intercourse before the age of 16 regretted it. They wished they'd waited longer. Around two-thirds of women - not men though - felt it was too early," explains Dr Charlotte Paul, an associate professor of epidemiology and one of the authors of the study. "And if they lost [their virginity] before they were 14 there also seemed to be more coercion involved. We didn't ask people whether they were raped; we asked them if they were forced in some way. And that was true for about 25 per cent of those who had sex before 14.

"We also asked people whether they were mutually willing," Paul continues. "It seems that if it was the first time for both of them, they tended to be more mutually willing and much less likely to regret it."

After considering all of the above, would it be fair to say that 16 is a good age to think about losing your virginity - and best of all, with another virgin?

"Well, it looks as though - at least for women - it's not a great idea to have sex before 16," Paul says, without actually agreeing. "And it is illegal before then too," she notes.

Paul is keen to point out that we put too much emphasis on "losing it."

Research in the US shows that the earlier you start having sex, the more sexual partners in short-term relationships you're likely to have. Local research, to be published later, looks likely to support this finding.

"There's this feeling that once you've had sex for the first time you've made this big decision, this moral choice," Paul notes. "But in fact you will be making a lot more choices - that moral choice doesn't stop just because you've had sex once."

"In their late teens, children are better prepared for a sexual relationship," says Dr Robyn Dixon, a senior lecturer in developmental psychology at the University of Auckland and co-director of the Center for Child and Family Policy Research.

"They are more cognitively, socially and emotionally mature and in a better position to see the consequences of their behaviour."

As a result of her research, during which she interviewed teenaged mothers, Dixon came to the conclusion that often losing one's virginity isn't a conscious decision.

"A lot of the younger mothers said: 'It [getting pregnant] just happened.'

"They didn't use contraception because they didn't think it would happen to them and they didn't have the personal skills to negotiate the relationship. That's why we want to delay first sex until later, as late as possible in fact."

How to encourage that delay is a whole other problem - one that arouses more arguments than an evangelist touting a virginity pledge at the local primary school.

Dixon says international studies have shown that certain factors have a delaying impact. Future orientation is important - that is, when the teenager has a goal. It could be sporting or academic goal, or maybe saving to go overseas. Background is also important, with socially advantaged or religious children tending to delay sexual activity until later.

Dixon also believes the New Zealand culture has something to do with us having above-average amounts of teenage pregnancy. Dixon has worked with an American sex-education group, Advocates For Youth, based in Washington, who are looking at this problem; in particular, they're asking why American rates for teenage pregnancy are so much worse than those in many European countries. "So they send working parties over there to find out why the Europeans are doing so much better with this problem," Dixon explains.

"And the difference appears to be that people in countries like Denmark and Germany view sex on a developmental continuum. They see sex and sexuality as part of who we are as human beings. It is not separate but instead is treated as part of growing up. They also believe young people have rights and deserve information and contraception, if required. The notion of respect - for yourself and for your partner - is also encouraged."

If you're inclined to generalise, you may want to blame it all on the old-fashioned, uptight attitudes of the British Empire. Nearly all the countries for whom teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases are a major problem are ex-colonies of the British: America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and, yes, Britain itself feature at the top of these lists.

European states such as Holland and Germany, where everything's natural and they like to let it all hang out (anyone who's ever been to the beach in Europe can testify to this), sit happily at the bottom.

However, if you prefer to accentuate the positive, things do seem to be changing. Simmonds believes that family values have altered over the 10 years he's been working in the field. There's more openness and information about sex than ever before. The fact that you're reading about Britney's virginity is a prime example.

"There's less hypocrisy in families and adults are tending to be more honest with children," Simmonds says. "The bedroom doors are no longer closed which I think can be very, very useful. Why? Because it's important for children to be able to make informed decisions."

"We have sex education every day, all around us - when we watch TV, when we listen to music, when we read a book or magazine," says Ngaire Rae, who works as an educator for the Family Planning Association in Northland, visiting schools to advise teachers and pupils.

"Young people are continuously learning about sexuality and they know more then they ever did before."

Which means, Rae says, there's no one simple attitude that local teenagers have. "Some kids take a moral, no-sex stance," she says. "Others don't. Therefore it's not about one simple message either."

Rae believes messages about both abstinence and contraception are equally important. And, she adds "sexuality education is about more than sex; it's about learning who you are. It's a comprehensive thing that parents need to talk about with their kids right from early childhood."

So, sorry, if you're thinking it's only about that one "talk" when your kids hit puberty, you're way behind. And if this makes you feel uncomfortable, Rae recommends watching a programme such as Shortland Street together and talking about some of the controversial relationship issues often raised on that show.

Or - dare we suggest it - a Britney Spears video? After all, she brought it up.