GPW, no offense, but you’ve written one of your hard-to-follow-as-you-argue-with-yourself pieces.  Let’s break it down piece by piece.

First, let’s take Fredell.  Notice how the argument – of our sex-obsessed culture; of Amy Alkon’s – is structured against her.  Her desire for virginity-until-marriage is framed as an obsession with "not having sex" – an obsession with a negative.  And obsession-with-a-negative, I agree, is always itself negative and laugh-worthy.

But that’s not what Fredell’s desire is.  "Not having sex" is, as you point out, *celibacy*.  And celibacy is not virginity.  They’re two different things.

Virginity, especially in females, is the simple and positive desire to wait until conditions are appropriate and right for sex.  Waiting for the best person and conditions is doing something, and is an act of self-assertion.  Fredell says as much.  It’s her detractors who mis-frame her desire as an obsession with *not* doing something.

So, from the beginning, Fredell has been framed.  Fredell has been stuffed and tagged with a position that actually isn’t hers.  That mistake, or act of unfairness, corrupts all the discussion (including Alkon’s) which follows.

You suffer from the same cheap tactic from GP lefties so much, GPW, that I should think you would have recognized it being done to Fredell.

For whatever reasons, Alkon is clearly threatened by Fredell and desperate to put her down.  Again, Alkon mis-frames Fredell as "denying herself" or obsessed with something negative.  As Alkon would say, "Oh, hurl."

Alkon asks, "Is it really wise to pledge to spend the rest of your life with somebody without finding out first whether you’re sexually compatible?"  Well… not if it’s going to be with Amy Alkon, obviously.  But there are other people and other human value systems.

Next, let’s take your view.  You fluctuate between heartily approving of Alkon, and trying to leaven so it people won’t think you’re just heartily approving of Alkon.  So, your real view is difficult to discern.  But you end up saying, "The idea is to find the proper balance, that ancient Greek concept of moderation and harmony."

No, it isn’t.  The idea is to decide what is important to YOU (i.e., to oneself) in life, and then live that out, whether it fits someone else’s idea of "moderate" or not.

If something is wrong or unhealthy, in your judgment – i.e., poisonous – then no, you don’t find "moderation and harmony" with it.  You cut it out of your life.  Alternatively, you may decide or realize that it isn’t really poison.  But only you can, or should, make that decision for yourself.  Or Fredell, for herself.

Long story short – Alkon displays a shocking degree of sanctimony and a pathetic desperation to take down another human being.  Alkon’s post is worth pondering, from the standpoint of what it teaches about how *not* to be in life.  It is an example of a sex-obsessed person needing to lash out – mostly in unfair, cheap and ugly ways – at another person who happens not to share her obsession.

Ah, but your opinion of a celibate’s lifestyle is no more important than any heterosexual’s opinion of yours, is it?

Some of the comments to the article are priceless.

Cheers, darling…