(August 19, 2014 at 8:16 pm)Losty Wrote: Is promoting virginity harmful to young girls/women?Promoting it? No, especially if it's part of a discussion of sexuality as a whole, with all options included in the discussion. To promote it would involve explaining why it's the better option and/or why sexual activity would be less desirable prior to a certain age or situation (ie, marriage).
Demanding it, with no other discussion of the issue and under threat of some kind of penalty? I think that is very harmful to both young women and young men, on many levels. Aside from shrouding something natural in a veil of mystery and fear, it takes away the option of making a decision from the person, which implies that they aren't smart or trustworthy. Any system that relies on chipping away at your self-esteem can't be good IMO.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
-Stephen Jay Gould
