The American Idol Virgin's Mistake

Two weeks after getting the boot on American Idol, virgin-by-choice Bruce Dickson has become something of a hero among conservative Christians for enduring some mild ribbing about his chastity pledge (watch the video).

Dickson is not the first Idol figure to run on an abstinence platform, as it were. Jordin Sparks wears a purity ring from True Love Waits, one of the most prominent chastity organizations. In the wider pop scene, it's become fairly common to hear starlets announce that they are saving themselves for marriage. Way back when, a young Britney Spears made that claim in what was apparently a cynical ploy to offset (and enhance) her hypersexualized persona.

The difference is that Dickson is a guy, and while it's still acceptably feminine for girls to be demure, boys are "supposed" to be sexually aggressive. There's something weird about one who's not.

For this reason, the abstinence movement has focused most of its attention on girls. In addition to the True Love Waits rings, girls can also wear a gold-plated rose pin. It comes with a card that says, "You are like a beautiful rose. Every time you engage in premarital sex, a precious petal is stripped away. Don't leave your future husband holding a bare stem."

Then there are purity balls, in which fathers and daughters exchange crypto-wedding vows, he pledging to be "her authority and protection in the area of purity." The key-and-heart necklaces that Bruce and his dad wear are typically meant to be worn by fathers and daughters. The father protects the key to the daughter's heart until she is married, at which point he gives it to his daughter's husband. The obvious sexual motif makes the whole thing extremely creepy to most outsiders and the adoption of the practice by a man and his son only exaggerates the inappropriateness.

Dickson walked off Idol with Ryan Seacrest saying "Maybe next year he'll come back less a boy and more a man." Which is a little like Simon Cowell saying you're too nice or Paula Abdul saying you're too crazy. But that attitude is exactly what the chastity movement is up against when it comes to recruiting guys -- a problem made all the worse in that the movement's own just-say-no messages to girls are uniformly based on the stereotype of aggressive boys. Indeed, the movement's leaders believe that in most relationships, the Bible instructs men to assert their will over women.

Dickson's solution -- "feminizing" himself to the point of wearing jewelry -- is not the one most advocated by the chastity movement. Instead, the purity pushers tend to take the more psychologically astute measure of constructing "self-control" as the macho alternative to sexual conquest. "Be a strong man," says one poster. "It takes more strength to keep your passions under control." Perhaps not coincidentally, promiscuity is generally presented as the essential trait of gay men, helping to paint "lack of control" as effeminate.

The pro-pure movement may be rallying around Dickson now, but they may also secretly suspect that if he'd just stayed on message, he could have advanced to the next round.

Comments

[sfsilver]

He set my Gaydar off big time. I'm Gay myself and seen many young men who embrace these kinds of movements and excuses as ways of continuing their own closets. They don't have to express themselves with women because it's sinful, and then they can maintain their place in a heterosexual community without raising any questions about their own sexuality.

I was teenager before an organized abstinence movement existed, but I saw Gay school mates dive into religious life in much the same way. On+e friend who finally came out in his early 30s, would regularly go out with deeply religious girls who expected little physical intimacy and then break up with them telling them they were not "spiritual enough" if they exerted any pressure to go beyond rather chaste kissing.

[OzzieSmerck]

isn't his real mistake that he's f'n nuts to believe all this psychotic anti-sex (and anti human, really) dogma of the christian right?

it's either win the culture war against the right wing religious nutjobs, or lose what it means to be human and american. i say ridicule away!

[eddiestardust]

Purity balls and Purity rings???

Sounds to me more like "New Age Fundamentalism" as opposed to mains stream Christianity.

Look, I'm not against purity at all because, if parents teach their kids that there is a time and place for sex...afte­r marriage and that it's linked with having respect for yourself and for others then you won't have as many problems.

Of course, we are all human and liable to be frail in some areas. That fraility is called temptation.

And that's the reason why family, good upbringing and religion and prayer are important.

With God's help we can really combat these tendencies­...

And of course, many of our parents...­didn't wait forever to get married either...
That's why engagements were short and sweet!:)