"I cling to her innocence"

That's a quote. From a story in today's Boston Globe. A mother is talking about how she'd give her daughter the new h.p.v./cervical cancer vaccine, but not tell her what it's for. This h.p.v vaccine has the potential to prevent thousands of early deaths from a sneaky cancer, that strikes mostly young women.

If there were a breast cancer vaccine, there would be no controversy. Everyone wants to cure breast cancer. Everyone wants to wear a pink ribbon and think about saving people's mommies. And saving people's titties, too. Saving the very essence of femininity. Fertility. Maternity. Mature sexual appeal. That's why breast cancer is so marketable. It's the madonna.

Cervical cancer is the whore. Because cervical cancer, despite striking women at their most marketable age, is a little bit dirty. A little bit bad. Because, unlike breast cancer, mostly, you have to do something to get it. You have to fuck. And not only do you have to fuck, you have to fuck someone who has fucked someone before. Absolute monogamy prevents cervical cancer, but only if the h.p.v naive fuck only the h.p.v naive. Which doesn't happen. Because most people don't lose their virginity to a virgin. That's why no one goes to the hospital seeking treatment for pathologically dilated urethras anymore. So in each pair of fuckers, at least one has been broken in. Or been around the block.

So sex is a risk factor for cancer. But only significantly so for women. It's a perfect threat.

"Darling, your mother and I love you very much, and we want you to listen to us. Sex is a very important part of life, but it's best when saved until marriage. Because if you don't wait, you could DIE OF CANCER. SOON."

"Hey, Tiger. Your mom and I want you to know you probably shouldn't have sex until you get married. Because maybe you'll have sex with some girl, and then another girl, and if the first one had something, the second one might die, while you still know her, and that might be a pain. Maybe. Or you could stop calling her. Whatever. Wrap that shit, I guess."

It reinforces our society's absured purity fetish. Bad things happen to girls who like it, but a man's best protection is still a fake name.

So what happens if condom use and frequent testing remove the threat of aids, hepatitis vaccines prevent that jaundicy drag, anti-outbreak medications attenuate the embarassment of herpes, contraceptives continue to prevent pregnancy, and a h.p.v. vaccine prevents cervical cancer?

The worst thing in the world.

Parents have to stop seeing their daughters as perpetual children, with innocence to be protected, even by threat of death, and begin seeing them as potential adults, who must be communicated honestly with about the role sexuality has in adult life. The woman in the globe article says "I cling to her innocence." I cling. I cling. The parent needs her daughter to remain innocent. As long as possible. For her sake, not her daughter's. Because we've got this fucked up system in this country that makes a daughter's virginity her parent's possession.

From virginity balls, where little girls dance with their fathers who pledge to help them save that blessed cherry for their husbands, to my own graduation dinner on friday, where a freudian slip nearly ruined the evening for everyone. (I'm 24, goddamnit. Mild accidental innuendo should be ignored, not a reason for my father to threaten to snap my boyfriend's neck), the idea that daughters must remain virginal in perpetuity for the sake of the family remains, though it should have gone out with arranged marriages and dowrys.

Do we really want to kill young women because they didn't stay little girls long enough?