Losing my virginity

My first blog post ever. Decided this was a better title than 'Test'.

So, three relatively random thoughts on virginity:

In popular culture, 'virgin' seems synonymous with 'young beautiful girl'. Major mistake. Look where biblical scholars mistranslating 'young woman' as 'virgin' got us: Catholicism.

Islam anecdotally promises 72 virgins to martyrs in heaven. Why virgins? Wouldn't they have more fun with 72 hookers? Or, even better, 50 hookers and two soccer teams so they have sport to watch while they recover from sexual exhaustion.
And please, spare a thought for the virgins. Where do they come from? I don't think sharing some psycho suicide bomber with 71 other virgins is their idea of heaven, so maybe is this their hell. What kind of virgins end up in hell? Presumably murderers, thieves and blasphemers, which doesn't bode well for the original martyr...
I'm just saying, these are the questions I'd be asking before putting on the semtex vest and strolling to the nearest cafe.

Here in the US teen abstinence campaigns are apparently huge (don't ask me, I've never seen the appeal) along with pledges, rings, pins, and anti-masturbation support groups (that last one seems kind of self-defeating, but hey...). Instead, according to this article, they all go out and have loads of oral sex (it seems Jesus doesn't mind that) and they unsurprisingly still have a high rate of STDs and teen pregnancy. To my mind, the religious campaigns against sex education in school make about as much sense as arguing that if you don't explain to kids that firing a gun at someone will kill them then gun crime will decrease...

The excellently and ironically straight-talking Dan Savage often has a lot to say about this. (His podcasts are awesome, especially when he's hung over).