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Virginity is cool
30/11/2006 09:53 - (SA)
Eldorado Park - Hip-hop
anthems pound, coloured lights flash and hundreds of teenagers
scream as two young men stride onto the stage.
"We've come all the way to tell you guys how great sex can
be," they yell into the microphone, drawing whoops of delight
from the crowd gathered in this South African township.
But they don't mean any old sex, they mean married sex. And
this isn't a raunchy extravaganza for hormonal teenagers, it's
part of a drive to get millions of youngsters in Aids-hit South
Africa to guard against HIV by vowing chastity.
The Christian-backed Silver Ring Thing abstinence campaign
has already made headlines in the United States and Britain by
using savvy, multimedia shows to urge thousands of teenagers to
shun sex until they wed.
Now South Africans have launched their own version, with a
pragmatic but urgent goal - to help tackle one of the world's
highest rates of HIV/Aids.
"The need in South Africa is absolutely incredible. People
are dying every day," 23-year-old Andrew Serfontein, a leader on
the South African Silver Ring Thing team, told Reuters.
The movement has an unenviable remit: to make virginity
cool, and to turn abstinence into a real choice for teenagers
under pressure from peers and the media to have sex - lots of
it - and to start young.
After bombarding teenagers with slick video clips and skits
about the dangers of sexually transmitted diseases and the
emotional consequences of having sex, the team urges them to buy
silver rings that symbolise a pledge to abstain until marriage.
"The world is saying everyone is doing it," 22-year-old Dee
Mokoka tells the teenagers in Eldorado Park. "But that's a lie
- I'm not doing it and you don't have to."
Dangerous message?
The Silver Ring Thing says promoting contraception sends
mixed messages. Its presentation is virulently anti-condom,
usually the first weapon in Africa's war against Aids.
"I'm sick of the word condom," shouts team member Buck
Matyila, 20, during the show. "Can a condom protect your heart?
Can a condom protect your mind? Can a condom protect your
virginity? So are condoms safe?" "No!" yell the teenagers, as
they snatch free T-shirts being hurled from the stage.
Many in South Africa question the wisdom of an abstinence
only message in a country where one in nine people are infected
with HIV. Some say it is unrealistic and downright dangerous.
"Young people are exposed to media that is very sexual, and
they are going through a developmental phase where they might
want to experiment, and they need to know how to protect
themselves," said Aadielah Makur, senior manager of Soul Buddyz,
a health education programme for children.
"We wouldn't advocate an abstinence only programme."
After the rousing Friday night show, most teenagers at the
Silver Ring Thing event in Eldorado Park were eager to sign up
for a ring. But sceptics wonder how many actually stick to the
vow, despite follow-up text messages and e-mails.
Activists say campaigns that emphasise virginity risk piling
guilt on those forced or coerced into sex, a serious problem in
a country where older men often prey upon young girls.
Get a phone call from God
But even critics of the Silver Ring Thing acknowledge that
despite the ABC (Abstain, Be faithful, Condomise) message touted
throughout Africa to combat Aids, not enough emphasis has been
placed on delaying sex, in South Africa at least.
"There may have been an emphasis on condoms, but people have
just been glib with the abstinence part," said Soul Buddyz'
Makur. "We need to help young people unpack what it means to
abstain and delay their first sexual experience."
Christian minister Elvis Mvulane, who runs the Silver Ring
Thing in South Africa, started preaching abstinence after scores
of young people from his congregation in the country's biggest
black township, Soweto, started dying of Aids.
When a minister friend called Mvulane to talk about starting
an abstinence programme he said it was "like getting a phone
call from God".
Mvulane argues thousands of campaigns telling young people
to wear a condom have failed and that if South Africans want to
halt HIV and save the next generation they must simply have less
sex with fewer people.
While the Silver Ring Thing has come under fire in the
United States for using tax dollars to promote evangelical
Christianity, few in largely Christian South Africa fret about
the religious content, especially if it yields results.
"It is unreal to see parents burying their children,"
Mvulane said. "For us this was an intervention to stop our young
people dying."
Decked out in hipster jeans and funky accessories, Edwina
Van Rooyen, 15, and her friends chatter excitedly after the show
in Eldorado Park as they wait to buy the simple silver ring they
plan to wear until their wedding day.
"It's really difficult to abstain from sex, especially with
all the peer pressure, but I value my life and I wouldn't want
to get HIV," Van Rooyen said.
- Reuters
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