July 16, 2003

Conservative Group to Certify Virginity of Teen Stars

Britney's Confession about Justin Prompts Program

Certificates of Virginity for Teen Pop Stars?

Jesus for Teens, a conservative Christian advocacy group, announced today a program in which it will certify which teen pop stars are virgins. The group expects its virginity rating service will help parents guide their children's decisions about which teen pop idols to emulate.

"For parents worried about their children's media consumption, it's not enough to monitor song lyrics, video games or violence and sex in movies and television," said Patrick Bonney, president of the group. "Parents want to know about the core morality of a teen star and that goes straight to their virginity."

Bonney said the group, based in Provincetown, Massachusetts, hoped its Certificates of Virginity would become a "gold standard of proper behavior" for teens.

Responding to questions at a news conference, Bonney said that the inspiration for the virginity certification program came from singer Britney Spears' confession earlier this week that she no longer is a virgin.
For years, the popular singer, who got her show business start as one of the wholesome Mouseketeers on Disney's Mickey Mouse Club television program, had said that she would remain a virgin until she married. But in an interview in the August issue of W magazine, Spears, 21, confessed that she lost her virginity to long-time boyfriend Justin Timberlake, a singer with the group 'N Sync.

The couple split up last year, but while together were a romantic sensation among teens. Britney's virginity became an obsession with some pop culture media while she and Timerlake were together.

"I'm sure there are parents who pointed to Britney as an inspiration for their children's celibacy and are now feeling betrayed," Bonney said. "If they subscribe to our service, they will be spared such betrayal in the future."
The group will use two approaches to virginity rating. In one, a teen star would apply for virginity certification and then spend a day with the group's psychological and medical staff undergoing examinations.

"We would also invite the young person to pray with us," Bonney said.
After analyzing test results and "other factors," Bonney said, a certificate would be issued certifying virginity.

"We think that certificate will be something that the teen star will proudly display and that the media will hold up as a wholesome example," he said.
The other approach involves teen stars who do not apply to Jesus for Teens for certification. Bonney said the group will compile a database on the stars by monitoring news media coverage,a star's behavior in public and "other criteria", which he declined to reveal.

"Based on our findings, we will issue a virginity rating on each teen star," Bonney said. A teen would be assigned a rating color using a scale similar to the terrorist warnings used by the Office of Homeland Security. Green would be "highly likely" to be a virgin. Red would be "extremely unlikely." Various gradations of probable or improbable virginity would lie in between the two extremes.

Reporters asked Bonney if it was possible the colors planned for the system were reversed, since green, like a traffic light, might mean "go" or not a virgin, while red, also like a traffic light, would mean "stop" or denote a virgin.
"We chose to be consistent with the Homeland Security system," he said. "With their colors, red means "danger" and green means "safety. In our scale, green means virginity and safety."

Separately, CNN announced that Attorney General John Ashcroft had agreed to appear on Larry King Live to "discuss maintaining celibacy through religious singing."

Copyright William Stockton & Smithtown Creek Productions
All Rights Reserved