Church Times - True love waits and wears a ring

Every five years or so we seem to see just such a story. Thing is I don';t think I've ever seen any effect of it. Maybe I'm in the wrong place or move in the wrong circles to do so but I don't. I'm actually quite favourable to the message. I do think that virginity is a wonderful wedding gift and I do think that scripture encourages us to look on the sexual bond as a deep one which should be cherished as unique to persons committed to one another for life. I have not always thought so; as a teeneager I had a very promiscuous attitude [practice was somewhat different!] which was quite derogatory towards women; it was socially formed and entirely normed within the male groups [and some female] that I hung around with. If you wnat an idea od the kind of attitude then perhaps I could point to the sitcom "Whatever happened to the likely lads?" as illustrative.

On the other hand I don't think that the censorious attitudes towartds people who made mistakes is something I would want to replicate either ... However, the incidence of STD's, the trivialisation of sex and the concommitant trivializing of relationships and tendency to see others as vehicles for satiation of our desires [however mutually those desires are] cannot be good for the health of our society. So two cheers, reserving the third for whether it really can make an impact.