TARA SAYS 'NO'
Rock music critic's shock confession
SEX AND THE SINGLE GIRL
'The Society for the Recapture of Virginity' is a humour website. It says that if you've been feeling a bit down and things aren't quite right, it's probably because you're not a virgin.
they claim.
A surprising sexual admission is published in a new book. New York rock music critic and writer Tara McCarthy has written her shocking secret - "I am a virgin". It seems a new era is coming, when young women realise it is okay NOT to have sex with any man that asks!
Since Tara started talking in public about her life, she has received many messages of support from women. "There is a silent society of virgins out there," she says. "I've met loads of 'em."
Maybe you say, "She must be ugly, old, mad, or a religious nut." Well no, actually. She is 26, and high up the list for trendy attractiveness. And not very religious!
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And now, she has written a book, expected to be a best-seller: Been There, Haven't Done That - A Virgin's Memoir, published by Warner.
Some men, when she said she was a virgin, went quickly. Others felt sure that she could not resist them.
"If I'd had sex with every man who was willing to do it with me in the last five years, I'd be afraid I'd catch something from myself," she writes in the book. "Any guy who's ready to jump into the sack with me has more than likely made the same jump with any number of women before me."
One boy, on the first night she met him, asked if she was on the Pill. No, replied Tara. "What are we going to do?" he cried. "We're not going to have sex," she replied. There have been times when she has got near (it's all in the book in detail!), but she always said "no" at the important moment, and is glad that she has.
In the world of the 90's, she is standing up for her right to choose. "There is no sane voice talking about this to 16-year old girls at the moment," says Tara. "It's often coming from a religious person or someone political, but never anyone normal."
Here is a girl saying that you don't have to be pressured into having sex at 14, 16, or even 26. That it can be cool to wait. And that, actually, it isn't really true that everyone but you is doing it like rabbits. A 1997 UK survey showed that four out of ten single women between 16 and 49 were NOT having regular sex, and the 16-19 age group were least likely to.
Its not just Tara! Kate Saunders, well-known columnist on the British Daily Express paper, says, "as a single woman, I've been celibate for absolutely ages." Its a relief to be out of it, she feels, and sex when not part of a loving relationship is "over-rated".
And Ronan Keating, of Britpop group Boyzone, (recently voted "Most Fanciable Male" by readers of UK teen magazine Smash Hits) says he is a virgin by choice.
Is Tara's approach the new sexuality? Does it offer a new peace of mind on sex and relationships? Freedom from worry about AIDS, Hepatitis, and other sexually-transmitted illness? The chance to start a relationship without the pressure to express a commitment that is not there? It's worth thinking about!