Apparently their "teen ambassador" is Bristol Palin. Wait... what? Because apparently abstinence worked there.

I take "Be sexy; it doesn't mean you have to have sex" to mean something like, "Submit to our authority over your body by not expressing your sexual subjectivity but rather by continuing to make yourself into a sexualized object for our consumption." I think chastity is a great thing, but not a chastity that trades self-discipline for self-debasement. This doesn't really empower young women to value themselves and respect their bodies; it perpetuates the patriarchal status quo.

Dmitriy also points out that the campaign promotes abstinence, but not the use of birth control. He adds: “we do not combat auto accidents by not driving. we prevent them through driving and safety ed.”

Well, to be fair, we *do* try to keep people under a certain age from driving, on the assumption that they lack the mature judgment necessary to make safe, intelligent decisions about vehicle use.

What? Society prevents accidents among young people by preventing kids of certain age from driving.

It seems that pro-abstinence groups try to sell it as a way to avoid something you don't want. For ads aimed at girls, avoiding pregnancy is a popular way. For my abstention-based heath education in high school, the primary theme was sex will only end in my penis rotting off.

There are problems with this, but it's miles better than the whole promise ring thing.

I notice that the standard of sexy that they are pushing is pretty normative: mostly girls who are white, young, thin and well endowed, with long lustrous hair. No acne, braces, or glasses to be seen.

sarcasm

What about girls who aren't "sexy," then? I guess they're not sexy enough to wait for. Clearly you should push them for sex or dump them for somebody else. Maybe those girls can be your "piece on the side" who you use while you're waiting to get married to somebody else.

/sarcasm

Whether or not a girl wants to have sex (and whether you should respect her when she says no) is not contingent on how beautiful you think that girl is.

Dmitriy also points out that the campaign promotes abstinence, but not the use of birth control. He adds: “we do not combat auto accidents by not driving. we prevent them through driving and safety ed.”

This is because the abstinence-only movement is ultimately about controlling women's bodies, not preventing teen pregnancy or the spread of STDs.

If the latter were the case, then boys would be the target as much as girls, and it would include instruction in the use of contraception. Unfortunately, the movement is largely driven by a desire to push women back into traditional roles, and it paints pregnancy as a sort of "penalty" for sexual activity outside of marriage. Within marriage, of course, this is the ideal result.

Kudos to Dmitriy for that excellent analogy.

This reminds me of a similar campaign I heard about where they had sweatpants aimed at 12-13 year olds with this message... printed on the butt. Mixed message much? I personally have an issue with people flaunting abstinence, why I'm not quite sure.

Being sexy is most important than having sex. So women shouldn't have pleasure, but have to be up on the standards that make them sexually desirable.

Uhuh.

What about girls who aren’t “sexy,” then? I guess they’re not sexy enough to wait for. Clearly you should push them for sex or dump them for somebody else. Maybe those girls can be your “piece on the side” who you use while you’re waiting to get married to somebody else.

What Sabriel said!

I enjoy your blog, but in this particular case, I want to point out that you have lost the detached, unbiased stance that a sociological researcher needs to maintain in order to view the underlying issues objectively.

Norman, there is more than one tradition of sociology. Many researchers now realize that the "detached objectivism" which was promoted decades ago is indeed impossible.

Yes, sociology is an 'engaged' craft, not a 'detached' one.
Also, I don't see anything that fundamentally differentiates this post from previous ones. Analysing a social movement's message as contributing to the sexual objectification of young women is...unsociological?

I'm familiar with the dominant cultural messages that
a) women should always be sexually available, and
b) women who have sex are sluts,
but this is the first time I've seen them presented in the same ad so forthrightly. DOUBLE STANDARD BREAKS MY BRAAAIN

Abstinence movements, particularly the newer, college-based ones, are crazy things. The ideology they work with is so convoluted and they are trying so hard to hide their roots in Christian morality, but it doesn't always work. The sanctification of marriage is usually a pretty good tip-off as to their real intentions. Usually, they phrase their concerns as something like, "well, if you have sex before you're married, you'll be tired of it once you are!" Throw in some pseudo-science about how sex turns women into utterly trusting love-slaves and you've got a whole "new" pro-abstinence ideology. From my experience, such groups are more interested in promoting Christian ethics in disguise than preventing teen pregnancy (although this is probably touted as a fringe benefit).

Wouldn't abstinence really be the equivalent of not driving? Drivers Ed is meant to teach you how to drive in a safer manner; sex education teaches you how to have sex in a safer manner. So that analogy doesn't actually work.

So what?
If you are not sexy... than what?

Just once I'd like to see one of these stupid a$$ shirts or underwear for boys! The entire abstinence only thing is stupid at best BUT if you must do it, at least target both sexes. Maybe if the little boys had it shoved up their a$$ as much as the girls, there wouldn't be as much sexim in the world.

I refer all of you to Jessica Valenti's excellent book on just this topic, "The Purity Myth." As a liberal feminist, this is the issue that has always resounded most with me--this patriarchal bullshit about making girls "wait" and boys....huh. What should boys do again? Oh, who cares, they have semi-sentient genitalia and you just can't stop them from fucking everything in sight!

Except if all the girls are locked in their rooms being virginal...who are the guys having sex with?

In all seriousness, do read her book. It's great.

Using sex to sell anti-sex. What a world, what a world.

Wow. WTF. I can't believe they were this up-front about their hypocrisy. It's usually just a little more subtle. I'm glad the Candies Foundation felt such a urgent need to straight-up tell girls, not boys, that it's okay to still be objectified, as long as you're not one of those dirty girls. And if you're sexy enough, you're worth waiting for. Don't you just *love* a nice tall glass of misogyny in the afternoon?

Contra Dmitriy, we _do_ combat auto accidents by not driving. No one can drive without a license that demonstrates basic competence. You can have your license revoked for behaving irresponsibly. We also exclude whole classes of people--most persons under 15 years of age, as well as those with certain disabilities--from driving at all.

I'm not sure that's the tack you want to take on reproductive freedom...

Why is fran drescher included in this when her tile says "cancer schmancer" and is wearing a shirt that denotes she is a survivor of cancer? What does that have to with abstinence? Leave Fran out of this!

Those pro abstinence people are stupid. They're p@ssing against the wind. Stop trying to control girl's/women's sexuality. We're not buying into the disgusting double standard anymore. Try to control boy's/men's sexuality for a change.

Just in case anyone is interested, I also wrote about this on my blog in March. I HATE this idea of an abstinence campaign, but to be fair, I hate abstinence campaigns in general.

http://thefatoneinthemiddle.typepad.com/the_fat_one_in_the_middle/2009/03/while-abstinence-pledges-lead-to-anal-sex-anal-sex-ironically-prevents-pregnancy.html

I love the use of imperative voice. Be sexy, kids! Unless you are not thin and conventionally pretty, in the case of which either no one gives a crap either way about your sex life, or you just don't exist.
Apparently, either girls don't actually have sexual urges, and if they do these can easily be channeled into 'being' sexy for the male gaze.

I just went on that website and viewed the "tips for teens section" http://www.candiesfoundation.org/teens.html in which they have a list of facts, one of them being "50: The percentage of Latina teens who get pregnant at least once before turning 20." None of the other facts mention race or identifiers other than male/female. I find this really upsetting and racist.

When I was 14, 8 years ago, my grandma bought me a black low-cut tank top that said "BE SEXY: It doesn't mean you have to have sex" - and although I know her intentions were pure, I find it now very inappropriate. I felt so sexy in that tank top and I got so many stares from older men (I was pretty cute and little back then) so I can see how this can be negative. Also, a little off topic, but from an early age (10+), I would often suck on lollipops seductively because I felt that was how it was supposed to be done because I had seen it on television and the like. I didn't understand until I was older what that implied.

I waited til I was 17 to have sex and I still feel that I was too young. He was 18 and it was his first time too and he dumped me a month later :/ I was so upset when I found out my 14-year-old sister lost her virginity to her boyfriend (who was EIGHTEEN at the time) - but at least she stayed with him for 3 years. I guess that counts for something, although it's still unsettling. (She's 18 now)