“Have you had sex with this man?” Dannah Gresh, author of Get Lost and What Are You Waiting For,”  asked that question of an audience staring at a big screen photo of NFL football player Tim Tebow during TEDxPSU this spring. The audience of 900, mostly Penn State University students, was challenged to consider if it was possibly intolerance of virginity that led the media to print the question along with the offer of a one million dollar ransom for anyone who could prove they’d taken Tebow’s virginity. She then used social science to debunk the myths that perpetuate the lie that those who embrace their virginity are doomed to have bad sex, proving not only that those who reserve sex for marriage have great sex but when you have sex with just anyone “your body makes a promise whether you do or not.” 

As a resident of Penn State, Gresh coaches college students seeking to define their sexual and relationship theology. She has found that students who feel most discriminated against for their sexual choices are those who choose to reserve sex for one mutually monogamous lifetime partnership. In other words, they’re virgins. Her recent calculations found that there may be as many as 8,360 virgins on campus, but they tend to conceal it. Could it be that the banner of tolerance does not include them?  

To watch, “The Walk of Fame vs The Walk of Shame: Dannah Gresh at TEDxPSU, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C24CmKxRPdQ