A small series on BBC2 at 9pm on Tuesdays about teenagers who are challenged not to have sex for 5 months.
This is a really interesting program actually. A Romance Acadamy run by two trendy hip young Christians manage to convince a group of 12 teenagers in Harrow to take a pledge not to have sex for 5 months. Watching how they go makes fascinating telly and after 4 months they are all convinced it’s a good idea; and after a trip to America, only 4 of them don’t do the “Silver Ring Thing” where they sign to promise they will not have sex until they get married.
The whole experiment literally changes these people’s lives and some really good things obviously comes out of it – they find they feel more mature; they’re able to have a good time without drinking and they feel more confident in themselves. If my daughters were teenagers I’d definitely like them to watch this as I’m sure it would make them think twice about casual sex.
However, although it’s not something they picked up on, I found it also highlighted exactly how impressionable teenagers can be and I found that quite scary. On this trip to America they started out being very scepticle about saving your virginity for marraige and certainly unconvinced about the idea of not even dating to avoid temptation. Then they go to this Christian roadshow and nearly all of them sign up to a really important pledge, when a couple of hours previously only a couple of them said they were going to do it. On returning to England one girl dumped her boyfriend whom she’d been going out with for 9 months and while the Christians were saying well done to her; they had basically destroyed a good and loving relationship.
On the whole though it’s clearly about respecting yourself and having worthwhile values. I’ll be interested to see what happens next week and how their vision of spreading the word goes.
