Mohler on Sharlett

Al Mohler has a nice analysis of Sharlett's piece in Rolling Stone about virgins.

The most interesting part of the Rolling Stone article is the reporter's fundamental assumption that the real agenda behind the campaign for sexual abstinence must be political. Early in the article, Sharlet makes this claim: "Chastity is a new organizing principle of the Christian right, built on the notion that virgins are among God's last loyal defenders, knights and ladies of a forgotten kingdom." When Dunbar describes sexual abstinence as a form of rebellion, Sharlet jumps to the political sphere. As he sees it, conservative Christians are now pushing the issue of sexual abstinence in order to make "every young man and woman part of an elite virgin corps."

...The Rolling Stone article on "the young and the sexless" comes packaged in a magazine that features a sexually-explicit photograph of actress Jessica Alba on its cover. Within the article, Alba explains that she uses her physical attractiveness as a way of sending unambiguous sexual signals. "Men are about the physical," she explains, and a smart girl is one who knows how to use the physical to get ahead.

That is the kind of sexual morality that represents what Rolling Stone magazine is all about. The magazine's article about young Christians committed to sexual abstinence appears as something of an eccentricity--like the report of an expedition into alien territory. Nevertheless, by the time the article draws to a close, it is clear that from the vantage point of the dominant sexual culture, the movement for sexual abstinence appears as something a bit more than odd. In fact, this movement represents nothing less than a threat to a society infatuated with sexual permissiveness. That's what makes this article not only interesting, but important.