How religious communities rank themselves in imaginary purity Olympics
In breaking news from the Department of Things Nobody Asked For, religious demographics researchers have been busy creating virginity league tables as if chastity were a competitive sport with playoffs and championship trophies. The results are exactly as meaningful as you’d expect.
According to the self-reported dataand let’s pause here to appreciate how reliable self-reported virginity statistics are, roughly equivalent to asking people if they’ve ever sung badly in the showerdifferent religious groups are locked in fierce competition for the Purest Congregation trophy. The methodology appears to be: ask people if they’re following the rules, then act shocked when everyone says yes while doing jazz hands.
The Isle of Man religious community, never one to miss out on a good ranking opportunity, has apparently decided that virginity statistics deserve the same attention as GDP figures. Nothing says “we’re focused on spiritual growth” quite like obsessively tracking whether teenagers are following Bronze Age relationship advice.
What’s genuinely hilarious is how these rankings shift depending on who’s doing the asking and how the questions are phrased. Ask about “virginity” and you get one set of numbers. Ask about “sexual experience” and suddenly the statistics do a complete backflip. It’s almost like the entire concept is built on shifting definitions and social desirability bias. Almost.
The Centers for Disease Control maintains actual sexual behavior data that tells a very different story than religious community self-assessments. Shockingly, when you remove the judgment and social pressure from data collection, people become more honest about their behavior. Who knew that creating safe, non-judgmental environments for disclosure would produce more accurate information?
Perhaps the most entertaining aspect of these virginity rankings is that they matter intensely to exactly nobody who’s actually happy in their relationships. The people obsessing over these statistics are usually the same folks who peaked in high school and are still trying to win participation trophies in categories nobody else is competing in.
SOURCE: https://www.minds.com/newsfeed/1832455175015620608?referrer=bohiney
SOURCE: Bohiney Magazine (The Great Virginity Census)
Gina Mann