Cherry Healey: Like a Virgin

Cherry Healey: Like a Virgin is a documentary that left me torn.

One of the girls filmed was 17 year old Beth who was preparing to lose her v plates on a boozey holiday in Lanzarote. She said she dreamt that her first time would be romantic music and petals yet she accepted that it would most likely be a drunken one night stand and so was planning for that. We saw Beth getting her first bikini wax in preparation and discussing the best sexual positions with her parents (yet sadly no mention of protection or the benefits of relationships).

Three things really bothered me about this scene. Firstly, shouldn’t the parents place be to educate on all the options and all the risks? Whilst Beth’s open and honest relationship with her parents was wonderful to watch it felt like the only things her parents had taught her about sex was what different positions felt like. As a parent, shouldn’t you be doing your best to make sure your 17 year old daughter is aware that sex will be different if it’s a one night stand or in a relationship and discuss the real pros and cons of both? Her parents didn’t seem to have an issue with their daughter heading out with the purpose of losing her virginity in a drunken one night stand. It’s worrying to think that this casual attitude to the first time is what our modern society is left with.

Secondly, Beth said that because she had waited for sex she wanted it to be special. So was the documentary really trying to pretend that being a virgin at 17 means you’ve waited? 17 was the oldest that anyone shown had lost their virginity, so is society considering 17 old to be a virgin? Was Healey really suggesting that it’s something that should be shed at a younger age? At one point Healey admitted she was starting to believe that virginity “is just something you have to get done and move on”. This is a view she doesn’t contest in the rest of the documentary. At 17 you are still very young. You don’t really know yourself, or what you want to do or be. You’ve never experienced real independence and you’ve had little responsibility. You’re still a child in the eyes of the law. Whether or not you’re a virgin shouldn’t be a big deal at 17, and being one at 17 certainly doesn’t mean you’re old or have waited a long time. Losing it much earlier might have a serious negative effect on your later emotional health.

Thirdly, why should we settle? Beth dreamt of petals and music yet she was willing to settle for a fumble in an alley. Our modern world is all about getting things fast and we seem to have forgotten the value of patience. This is one of those cases where we need to learn waiting makes things better! It’s like when you bake a cake and you want to decorate it straight away without waiting for it to cool. But if you just rushed in and decorated it before the sponge was ready the icing wouldn’t set right and the decorations just wouldn’t work. Rushing into decorating ruins the whole cake! In the same way, rushing into sex at a young age rather than waiting for it to be as perfect as you want it to be might ruin your whole impression of sex for years to come. 50% of people say they regret their first time. If we just learnt the value of patience that number might decrease a hell of a lot.

Another thing that troubled me about the show was the voyeuristic twist. It was uncomfortable to hear Alex talk about how a guy had taken advantage of her, making her feel they were in a relationship when he was just using her for sex. It was even more uncomfortable to hear 15 year old Darien talking about how he’d lost it at 12 on the kitchen floor with a girl he didn’t fancy and didn’t even kiss. He said he hadn’t know what a condom was, let alone use one, and had given no consideration to the possible consequences. Healey talked about how losing your virginity at a young age meant it had no emotional consequence with no consideration of the girl that also lost it at 12 on a kitchen floor with a guy who’d shown her no tenderness, no consideration and no care. I’m sure that, that experience had an emotional impact on her. Both Alex and Darien laughed off their disastrous virgin tales and neither suggested that it would have been better had they been in a loving, intimate relationship. Moreover, neither considered the negative affect this might have had on their adult life or the significant experience it could have become.

However, the documentary wasn’t all negatives. Healey gives an honest account of how she “might” have lost her virginity to a stranger when she was 15. She reveals how it embarrasses and upsets her that she could have lost it to someone who she didn’t know, who didn’t care about her and she doesn’t even remember. After numerous occasions where she woke up to someone who’s name she didn’t know Healey decided it was time for change. She met a practising Christian and decided that she would go without sex in order to make things work with him. It was refreshing to hear her account of how the experience changed her outlook on life and herself. Healey said that before that relationship she had believed it was impossible to have a true bond without sex yet when this guy broke up with she was the most heart broken she had ever been. After the relationship ended she went without sex for a further 3 years and found that she was more comfortable and happy with herself and around men because she felt in control.

So what did this documentary do well? The admission that it can be good to have a relationship without sex was quite a revelation for modern media. It’s a shame that Healey didn’t take this further. She hinted that her bond with the guy in the celibate relationship was stronger than with guys she’d slept with yet didn’t explore this. She didn’t suggest that the extra time spent getting to know each other and getting emotionally close meant that their intimacy was on a higher level than with guys she’d slept with yet known little about.

What did the documentary do really badly? It completely missed out the importance of love and intimacy when losing your virginity. It’s an emotionally significant moment, especially for a girl, and it’s something that is going to be much better if your partner cares about you, or even knows your name. Every time you have sex you join together with that person and a part of you is always left behind. The suggestion that it’s something you should just lose and move on will leave behind a trail of hurting and damaged teens.

God wants us to have sex in a committed loving relationship, and God doesn’t say things without a good reason. Sex is an act of love from one person to another. It’s meant to be as close to God’s love as you can feel with another person. And it’s so much better if you are in a loving relationship. In a relationship you will be emotionally secure and whole. You will be looked after and treated like the treasure you are. God wants you to feel loved and valued and not to feel the dirt or the sleaze associated with one night stands. Sex isn’t meant to be dirty and sleazy, it’s meant to be an expression of love.

Check out Song of Songs to see how good God wants sex to be for us.

Too Beautiful- He is We

R.I.P Louise

On 03/01/2012 my sister was found dead in her house. She'd taken an overdose of sleeping pills and washed them down with alcohol. Losing someone you love is the worst way to imagine starting a new year, it's the most painful thing i've had to face.

One of the hardest things is thinking about the waste, what a waste of a life. She was 31, the mother of two young children, a talented artist, yet she never made anything of herself. Louise suffered from an eating disorder and constantly felt like people were staring at her, consequently she never held down a job. She had low self esteem as a result of an abusive marriage so she never made anything of her talent with art. She was ill so she pushed away everyone who loved her, there will only be 20 people at the funeral: all family, most only knew her when she was young.

Late last year her two sons were taken off her and on friday the 30th of December she was told she would never get them back. She felt like her life was worthless without them, that she had no hope and no one to depend on. That there was no way out of the pit.

There are many things i wish i could have said to her. I wish i could have told her that there is always hope, there is always a way out, death is not the answer. I should have told her that God was watching over her and holding her in his arms. That he wanted to tell her she was beautiful and precious and perfectly made. That he had always been there through the crap life had thrown her way and that all she had to do was turn to him. That he was reaching down into the pit to pull her out.

She used to talk about working for a women's shelter or some other organisation to help other women who had been through domestic violence. She wanted to help others but she was unable to accept the help for herself. I don't want her life to go unnoticed and unremembered. My sister was a strong beautiful woman who had more pain thrown her way than most people will have over their whole lives. She had courage and empathy and love but she was trapped in her illness and she never received the help she needed.

There may not be many people at her funeral, there may not be many people who will notice that there is one less woman struggling to survive. But my sister has impacted my life in ways she will never know. I wish that her death wasn't one of the ways that she changed me but i will not let her have died for nothing.

No girl should ever feel that death is the only way out. I want you to learn from my sister's life. Tell your friends, sisters, mothers. No matter how much you are hurting there is always hope. It might be hard to find but it is worth searching for, like an uncut diamond inside a rock. I never said what i should have to my sister but i'm saying it to you.

God loves you. He has always loved you and he always will. He died for you and he has never left your side. When you feel alone and lost and buried under painful experiences, he is just waiting for you to ask him. He is holding you in his arms. The God who made the heaven and the earth, who brought the dead back to life, healed the lame, died on a cross for the world is holding you. You are more valuable than anything else. You are precious. Your life was made for a purpose and God wants to use you for great things. If you give God your pain he will give you back a way to use it, a direction. Your life will impact the world in ways you will never know. God wants to use you to change the world. Don't doubt yourself, your own abilities aren't important, it's how God uses you that matters.

You have such potential, such promise and you are so loved. Please do not let it go to waste.

Tell your sisters, tell your mother, tell your daughters: you are God's perfect, precious creation, his cherished daughter, his greatest love. You are worth so much more than you could imagine. You are beyond compare.