Kudos for Jordin Sparks.
LOS ANGELES — Sunday night’s MTV Video Music Award host Russell Brand took several digs at young stars wearing “purity rings” to pledge their virginity until marriage — and “American Idol” winner Jordin Sparks wasn’t having any of it.
Brand’s running theme for the evening centered on the Jonas Brothers and their rings — until Sparks stepped on stage to have her say about his constant remarks.
“Not everyone wants to be a slut,” Sparks spat back, the auditorium filling with applause. Sparks, Miley Cyrus and Selena Gomez are also among the young stars who have vowed to remain chaste.
Sparks told Pop Tarts later at the In Touch magazine after-party that she was more than happy to put Brand — known as Britain’s ultimate playboy — in his place.
“Somebody had to do it,” she said.
Read more here.
*sigh*
I didn’t watch it, but have no doubt that Brand was probably being an ass. Jackass humor seems all the rage these days.
But, I didn’t like Jordan’s retort any better.
1) Having premarital sex doesn’t make someone a slut. Losing count of your sexual partners, maybe, but unmarried sex doesn’t make anyone a slut.
2) Purity rings and purity ceremonies just hold virginity up as a prize to the man that puts a ring on your finger. I fail to see how that empowers females in any positive way.
This ring (purity) means “no” – and THIS ring (wedding) means “yes” is the most bass-ackwards thing I can think of.
I’d much rather have girls taught that they can say YES OR NO whenever they want and not feel like there is any stigma either way. After all… isn’t that where boys are at?
Boys with multiple partners at 17 are studs.
Girls with multiple partners at 17 are sluts.
Purity rings don’t solve that problem.
Sometimes I have to sigh at the stupidity of it all.
*sigh*
Oy linda.
The Jonas Brothers are boys… wearing the rings, and having a (just turned) 18 year old, I can tell you that boys with many partners are looked at the same way as girls with many partners these days.
17 year old boys having sex with a lot of people are called sluts too. I know. #2 went out with one.
There’s nothing wrong with anyone wearing a ring to say they’re waiting until they get married and they shouldn’t be made fun of for it.
If you really see the point in your #2 the way you described it, then I think that’s sad. The whole “waiting till I get married” is something boys are encouraged to do also.
It’s a well-known fact that teens have sex before they’re emotionally ready for it, and that refers to boys as well as girls. Your solution is the “dumbing down” of girls. Just because boys have the stigma of having sex whenever they “want” it regardless of emotional readiness or maturity, the solution isn’t to tell girls to do the same, the solution is to encourage more boys to realize the better choice is to wait for all those things.
Something the Jonas Brothers’ wearing of their rings should be praised for as a good example for boys to see it IS okay to NOT be having sex.
I absolutely and without question, do NOT think that girls OR boys should be taught that they can say yes whenever they want. Because teens have been taught they can and should do whatever they want when they want… the problems that result are growing dramatically, problems that come from teens engaging in all kinds of things before they’re amotionally mature enough. Substance abuse and self harm being on the rise… I’m not just talking about pregnancy.
And please don’t insult me with the whole safe sex replies, ’cause I won’t be nice then. I’ve been on the board for abstinence based education programs and can spit out stats like anyone else. We surveyed the actual kids in an anonymous method so that they would give us their true opinions of the programs. I maintained those for a time. There were some negative comments, but less than 20%. More than 80% of the responses from the kids themselves were positive and some actually thanked us for not treating them like they were too stupid to be able to say no.
Many expressed that saying no was what they wanted to do but didn’t know how to do that and not suffer peer consequences, again thanking the program for helping them with that and giving them the courage to actually say it.
Regardless of birth control information and all that safe sex information… kids will ignore it anyway because they think “It will never happen to THEM.”
Why all of this?
Because even at 18, most are not emotionally ready for sexual relationships. Just because we can f*ck, doesn’t mean we should.
You’ve missed the whole point of it all. It’s like you’ve come upon a car wreck and instead of seeing that the front end of the car is crumpled half its size and there’s fluid leaking all over the place, you can only see that there’s a scratch on the rear passenger door. The room clapped for her comment because they understood what she was saying in that one very dramatic sentence.
Clearly someone like Brand only knows that language. Sparks was astute enough to speak to him in the language he understands.
Amen fracas!