Virgins Unite At College Abstinence Club

Sounds to me more like a club where guys can get together for a circle jerk.
G.G.

COLORADO - Not if a girl begged him. Not if she was super hot. Not even on a desert island.
Jonathan Butler's friends have challenged his resolve with endless what-ifs. But the 19-year-old says there's no fathomable reason he'd have sex before marriage. He's proud to be a virgin.
So proud, in fact, that last week he started an abstinence club on the University of Colorado campus.
Alongside that, he started a relationship-education program, the Colorado Coalition for Relationship Education. He hopes the name will lend his efforts acceptance in a liberal community known for its "condom zaps;" groups burst into bars, scatter condoms and spread the gospel of safe sex.
Instead, Butler wants to spread the belief that it's not only OK to be a virgin, but it's also cool. He wants to bring in big-name guest speakers to teach students about healthy relationships and self-esteem.
Butler expects to attract several hundred members, and not just virgins, CU students or Christians. He welcomes anyone.
"We'll talk about relationships, not about how to be abstinent," he said. "It's not virgin versus non-virgin."
Butler's club joins a national surge in abstinence-friendly organizations for youth.
Most efforts, such as Longmont-based Friends First, aim at middle- and high-schoolers. Butler was a member of Friends First when he attended Silver Creek High School in Longmont.
Then he started college. There, he said, it was even harder to be an open virgin. Students teased him that he just couldn't "get any" or asked him if he was gay.
"No, the risks are just too high," he said. "And personally, I don't want the No. 1 thing I'm worrying about right now (to be) who I am going to have sex with this weekend."
He said he watched many of his abstinent friends change their minds at CU.
A study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found about a third of teens ages 15 to 17 said they'd had sex. That number more than doubled - 71 percent of women and 65 percent of men - for 18- and 19 year-olds.
Butler said he thinks many college students get swept into the "sex sells" culture, especially at a school like CU, a campus plagued by allegations that sex was used to recruit football players.
Butler said he felt it was crucial to start a club on campus to further the support he had in high school - to show other virgins they're not alone..
Butler wants a supportive circle of friends and access to experts to strengthen his relationship skills and reinforce his own definition of abstinence.
He said he's OK with hand-holding and kissing, but that's where he draws the line. Desert island or not.
from Boulder Dirt News