With the swine flu on its way off our radar and Sarah Palin’s book deal traipsing across the headlines, I happened to catch what her daughter was doing last week.  Bristol Palin and Hayden Panettiere were another cause celeb hitting the news waves.   What was their issue?  Abstinence.  The best way to prevent what happened to Bristol and a decision Hayden is telling people to be responsible about.

Here’s my question: What is abstinence?  This word is thrown around so much, but the sad reality is teens and twentysomethings are not paying much attention, much less anyone else.  It’s preached so much “don’t, don’t, don’t” that if anything is “done” it’s demonized.  And mostly it is the women who are carrying around this weight.  I’ve heard mainstream, celebrity, young women who have said they are virgins or “will wait,” but rarely (if ever) a guy.  The promise ring has become an early status symbol of this pledge, and then what happens?  As health surveys at Christian Colleges have revealed, more college students are having oral and anal sex because of these commitments and rings – they want to live up to the expectations…

A lot of the Christian women I talk to in their later twenties and early thirties fall into 2 camps: They are riddled with shame and guilt because of their escapades or they are sexually suppressed and confused because they never let themselves explore any form of their sexual identity.  I sit with these women because there aren’t a whole lot of safe places to do so in Christian circles.  We need a new conversation.

I admire Bristol and Hayden for doing what they are doing, but as quickly as they flashed across cnn.com, they are in and out of people’s minds and sadly the odds are stacked against them.  I dream and wish for a place where women can talk about their bodies and learn to love and respect themselves.  Only then can a woman say “no” with dignity and pride.  Women have historically been told their bodies are vessels of temptation and should be covered up, so then they do, or they rebel and have skin spilling everywhere to get noticed, to gain attention, or to feel loved.

We try to pretend we can so easily get a piece of jewelry and deny part of who God made us to be, but people are confused, hurt, broken and feel unloved.  I know because I was one who carried that shame and guilt for years.  I knew in my head I was forgiven, but I couldn’t forgive myself.  As I began my journey of healing and told my story, women opened up.  They needed recovery, they needed safe places, they needed love.

They didn’t need another abstinence revolution, they needed a non-condemning pair of arms to hold them.  The torture they had in their own souls was “don’t” enough.  They didn’t need another face of “here’s what a mistake looks like.”  They needed, as did I, to see faces of women who were strong, who knew themselves, and knew they were loved.