GETTING THROUGH THE WILDERNESS:

Teen rings hot (but cool on sex): Thousands of teenagers are wearing rings and pledging to remain virgins until they marry. (ASHLEY FANTZ, 5/20/05, Miami Herald)

On her left ring finger, Lara Herman wears eight tiny diamonds.

''These stand for my promise to God, myself, and my parents,'' the 16-year-old said, pointing to three emeralds clustered at the center.

A gift from her parents when she turned 13, Lara's ring is a symbol of her vow to remain a virgin until her wedding night.

The Fort Lauderdale teenager is among thousands of young Americans so turned off by a sex-obsessed culture that they're carving out a niche of clean living and abstinence.

''I just don't see what you get from sex other than heartache, a baby, or a disease,'' she says. ``Sex should be two hearts united as one, something special between a husband and his wife.''

Those who pledge virginity -- and other young people called ''straight-edgers'' who abstain not just from sex but from alcohol and drugs -- proclaim their choice in their music and on their clothes and jewelry.

They are fueling a multimillion-dollar industry and bolstering a socially conservative agenda whose proponents are happy to cater to their romantic ideas about love and sex.

Funny how threatened the secular are by this demonstration of self-respect.

Posted by Orrin Judd at May 23, 2005 11:59 PM