“Students of Virginity”: Ivy League abstinence clubs
The Ivy League’s abstinence clubs began emerging several years ago about the same time as student sex blogs, sex columns and, at Harvard and Yale, student sex magazines. Those involved, however, say that the most important catalyst was university-sponsored safe-sex education, which they saw as institutional encouragement of promiscuity. The founders of the Princeton club, the first to form in the Ivy League in 2005, wanted to offer an opposing view. Many were Catholic, but seeking credibility within the university at large, they decided not to present themselves as a religious organization and always to “shy away from arguments with religious premises,” says Kevin Joyce, a former president of the club. “Here at a university, we have to provide the intellectual basis” for abstinence, he told me. “Every position we take as a group can be confirmed by rational thought.”(Read more…)
Hmm…unless I missed something, Yale is conspicuously absent…
Interestingly, the young woman they chose to profile as the “face” of college abstinence was a caricature. I’m sure there must be other young women who choose celibacy without viewing sex–and dare I say, sexuality in general, based on her reactions–as icky.


March 31st, 2008 at 8:59 pm
I am not surprised.
Nowadays, there are clubs for any lifestyle choice.