Thanks Jess for passing this along!
A group of four women from Abbotsford run a blog called Confessions of a 29 Year Old Virgin (link here). From the blog:
We are 4 girls, living the life! A Life full of Passion, Love, Joy, Goodness and Purity! We haven't gotten to this point in our lives without our share of tears and laughter, so we want to tell you about it! Our lives are stories of Redemption and Goodness, Enjoy being brought into our lives by reading our hearts!
The blog caught the attention of TLC, and the four women are now featured in the show The Virgin Diaries. The show follows the stories of several virgins (some of who have supposedly reclaimed their virginity, despite having already had sex), waiting for marriage.
Here's a clip about the show from Ellen DeGeneres:
Miranda Nelson, of the Georgia Straight, had this to say about the posse of Abbotsford virgins:
Abbotsford virginity bloggers neglect to realize selling chastity is selling sex
Danielle Michaud, Amy Schmidt, Lisa Marziali, and Tamara Larson are virgins—and proud of it.
In fact, this quartet of Abbotsford women, who maintain the blog Confessions of a 29 Year Old Virgin, are so proud of being virgins that they've leveraged their chaste confessional into an appearance on a TLC reality show called The Virgin Diaries, in which they will date some dudes, men who are also virgins.
These women, all 29 or 30, have never had sex. Well, not exactly; one's a "born-again virgin", who says she's reclaimed her virginity. (Not sure where she reclaimed it from; is there some virginity coat check I don't know about?)
"We're in a culture filled with sex, where sex sells. And it's sold every day," Lisa Marziali told the National Post. "And we believe it shouldn't be sold."
Guess what, ladies? By selling virginity, you are selling sex. You are selling the idea that a woman's value is completely tied to what she's allowing—or not allowing—between her legs.
"Whether it's delivered through a virginity pledge or by a barely dressed tween pop singer writhing across the television screen, the message is the same: A woman's worth lies in her ability — or her refusal — to be sexual," Jessica Valenti writes in her 2009 book, The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession With Virginity Is Hurting Young Women.
"We're just looking for a guy who has a heart after God, and who is man enough to pursue us," said Marziali, who confessed that she's already nicknamed her future saviour, I mean husband: "The Rock Star".
Read the rest of the not-particularly-supportive article here.