Demetrius Terry, a 16-year-old Jersey City resident and student at Marist High School in Bayonne, stood proudly in front of a small audience and read an essay about abstaining before marriage.
“I am proud of being a 100 percent virgin, and going down the path of abstinence,” Terry read at an event for local teens on June 20.
Terry is a member of a group called FreeTeens with branches in Jersey City and Westwood. The group offers youth development programs in Jersey City and Paterson, saying birth rates among unmarried 10-19 year-olds in Jersey City dropped 37 percent and Paterson by 29 percent from 1998 to 2005.
“I am proud of being a 100 percent virgin, and going down the path of abstinence.” – Demetrius Terry
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Explaining about abstaining
Julie Edwards-Pinnock, Director of Free Teens of Jersey City Area, said people who join Jersey City’s Free Teens have to sign a pledge saying they have to be abstinent as long as they are a member.
“Whatever happens in the dark will come to light,” Pinnock said. “If someone is having sex, someone ends up telling somebody.”
Pinnock also spoke of the value of abstinence education amongst the youths she deals with.
“Every day, the youth is bombarded with sexual messages on the TV, on the internet, and just in everyday conversation,” Edwards said. “The young people I meet, they don’t know that you can get a disease from having sex, and they need to be informed.”
Pinnock said 53 percent of American teens never have sex before the age of 18.
Pinnock said her involvement in Free Teens is informed by her experience. She remembered not losing her virginity until the age of 24, and remembering how she was treated.
“I remembered when I was going to college in the 1980s and guys would knock on our dorm door to meet women who were still virgins because that was unheard of,” Pinnock said.
She also recalled a memorable conversation in which her mother encouraged Pinnock’s brothers to have sex but not the daughters, which made her “livid.”
Now Edwards mentors young people like Nate Person, an 18-year-old junior at Lincoln High School in Jersey City, a member for five years.
“Saving yourself before marriage is such a powerful message to follow,” Person said.
Person also said that message can sometimes be a hard one for his peers to understand.
“I wore an ‘Abstinence Works’ t-shirt in school and this girl comes up to me and asks if I am gay,” Person said. “But for me personally, I just do what I do and not worry what other people say.”
Ricardo Kaulessar can be reached at rkaulessar@hudsonrreporter.com.