Teens: just say no to sex!By our filly with her finger on the belly button of Teen Culture, Keli McTaggart |
| Every year in Britain 100,000 teenagers get pregnant. There are now more unmarried teen mums in the UK than anywhere else in the world. That is all about to change as the US-based teenage chastity organisation SavaCherry hits London, preaching its message of sexual abstinence |
 |
Marylou Bush is a woman on a mission: Reeling off the all too familiar statistics—the UK's dubious distinction of having the highest rates of teenage sexually transmitted disease in Europe, the sharp rise in the number of young girls wearing thongs, riding broom sticks and selling their soiled panties on the Internet—she admits the picture is depressingly similar to the situation back home before President Bush put the 'moral' back into America. Marylou, a fifty-six-year-old spinster from Dry Creek in Ohio, believes she has the answer—encouraging British girls to wear stout, woollen bloomers and pledge good old-fashioned abstinence until marriage. Mission impossible? Marylou doesn't think so. "The reason I'm doing this is because I believe there is a blessing in waiting for your husband before having sex—even if that means having to stuff nettles down your panties for thirty-eight years. I know, given the permissive culture in Europe, that seems like a far-fetched idea, but it's not impossible," she said, grimacing as she adjusted the crotch of her hessian dungarees. So far, more 23 teenagers have signed up for the London event, which the organisers expect will fill St Mary the Virgin's Church, London, to its 36-strong capacity. The eight-hour long SavaCherry roadshow is Limp Bizkit meets the Olsen twins, featuring laser light displays, comedy sketches and teen diary readings. Seven US virgins were to share their experiences of teenage chastity, but four unexpectedly dropped out when ex-President Clinton's memoirs were published, another two are said to be suffering from 'chocolate tummy', and the remaining girl, 27-year-old schoolteacher, Gretchen Boobey, accidentally lost her cherry when she slipped in the bathroom and impaled herself on a Swiss Army Knife—or so the 14-year-old male student she was coaching at the time, claims. If the pledged teenagers really want to wear their purity on their sleeves, there is a range of SavaCherry merchandise including T-shirts emblazoned with, Don't cum here, Wood-free zone and, surprisingly, Don't mess with this Cnut. There is even what Marylou charmingly calls an 'honorary virginity' badge for those who have succumbed to pre-marital sex. "That's where you get an opportunity to come again," she says. Marylou doesn't mince her words when talking about the pressures faced by young people. She calls today's teens 'the Babylon generation'—suffering the catastrophic effects of labial piercings, SMS text messaging and Cheap Vodka. Critics have questioned how well the SavaCherry message will translate in the UK. Already there are signs that the group's brash, in-your-face, openly evangelical style has failed to strike a chord with supercool British teens. Rachel (17¼), is not impressed. "It's a bit gimmicky,"
the London teenager told Utterpants. "Personally, I don't
think you should be having sex with blokes cuz I'm a lezza, but the way they are going about it is so cheesy." Marylou Bush, however, is so confident that the SavaCherry campaign will work in Britain that she has booked the Millennium Dome for next year's roadshow. Comment on this story? Click the button to have your say © 2006 utterpants.co.uk /NN160306 /FP0504 |
|
|
For
the hardened offender, SavaCherry have produced
a fashionable line of 'his' and 'her's chastity products which are guaranteed
to deter even the 
