Chastity rings

The High Court has ruled that a girl who was forbidden from wearing her "Chastity Ring" at school was not discriminated against (see BBC report for more info).

Lydia Playfoot rather melodramatically said the decision will "mean that slowly, over time, people such as school governors, employers, political organisations and others will be allowed to stop Christians from publicly expressing and practising their faith". The school argued that she was not obliged by her religion to wear the ring and thus it contravened school uniform. Her lawyers argued that "Secular authorities cannot rule on religious truth" despite the fact that they brought the case to court themselves (presumably for a ruling).

Apparently Lydia is one of eleven girls at her school to join up to the "Silver Ring Thing" (SRT) and her parents help run the UK branch from their church. If you've not heard of this before it's where young people pretend they are not going to have sex before marriage and wear a ring inscribed with Bible verses to symbolise the current teenage phase they are going through.

I'm torn about the judgement to be honest. I think she should be allowed to wear any religious item, no matter how stupid. It's counter productive to tell people what they can and cannot believe spiritually and I think it's healthy for people to shape their own religious views as far as possible, rather than have them mediated through, for example, the Catholic Church. From Spinoza onwards the idea that someone can have a personal relationship with God has been a progressive one at odds with the entrenched elites of society.

But that doesn't mean she isn't full of shit mind you. It's hardly progressive to make out that people should be ashamed of themselves, live their lives in a nuclear family governed by an iron law of sin for all those who deviate from their prescribed "norm" that is far from typical. This article from the Washington Post takes an interesting look at the sexual behaviour of those who take the pledge, and it suggests that although the SRT may delay the onset of premarital sexual encounters they don't actually prevent them.

Many of SRT adherents try to cope with their feelings by engaging in sexual practices that they believe allow them to "technically" retain their virginity whilst also relieving the pressure. Which means they are more likely than their class mates to engage in oral and/or anal sex. These symbols are beginning to look more like attempts to pretend that they're immune from their own human desires, and almost inevitably this is going to lead into dismal failure or hypocrisy.

Some studies suggest that those who wear the ring are more at risk from STDs than their sin seeking contemporaries. Of course they are. SRT avoids all discussion of sex, opposes sexual education and simply does not prepare teenagers for the torrent of hormones they'll be experiencing for the next hundred years or so.

Johann Hari quotes one SRT video saying "Will this condom protect your reputation? Go ahead and use a condom. You'll still be known as a slut." Charming. Better to just get infected or pregnant instead. Monbiot is cutting in his assertion that, ironically, "abstinence training increases the rate of teenage pregnancy". Pretending something doesn't exist rarely makes it go away - and that goes for desires twice.

Similarly, studies suggest that SRT wearers may also be more likely to have an abortion - which is kind of counter intuitive until you realise that these kids have studiously avoided all understanding of contraception, so when they do have sex (as they surely will) they are more likely to get pregnant - and more likely to be ashamed of it. That baby would be the proof of their sin. Not only would the teen be subject to social stigma in their peer group it would also symbolise the failure of their pledge to God, and we know that God is an angry God.

Perhaps at this point I should point out something obvious. Sex is not a *bad* *thing*, although teenage pregnancies, whilst not being the end of the world, are probably best avoided where possible.

The upside is if you join the "movement" after you've become a sinner you can acquire a second virginity, which is handy.

Shame is at the heart of the Silver Ring Thing, shame about your body, your feelings, your loves, and your fallibilities. Needless to say they are not big fans of homosexuality either, although I'm not sure what they think of masturbation as they are explicitly opposed to discussing sex in any detail - ignorance is their weapon, their cause and their master.

If this young woman wants to wait until she's married to have sex then fine, good luck, but that ring she's so desperate to wear can only do her harm. It will make it all the more difficult to tell her parents that she made a mistake and got an STD or an unwanted pregnancy. It'll make it all the more difficult for her to deal with any feelings not prescribed by the church (like finding any of her female friends attractive, or wanting to take a thick church candle to bed with her). It will also make it so much harder for her to get educated about the facts of life, or learn how to fuck properly, because she's publicly declared that she just doesn't want to know.