Did You Ever Love Me? by Rithvik Singh is a tender contemporary poetry collection about love, heartbreak, longing, self worth and learning to let go. Its greatest strength is emotional accessibility: Singh writes directly to readers who feel intensely and care deeply. The collection offers comfort without pretending heartbreak is simple, though its simplicity may occasionally feel familiar to seasoned poetry readers. Did you Ever Love Me? Have you ever loved someone so completely that, after they left, you were left wondering whether they had ever understood what they had been given? Not merely whether they loved you, but whether they ever noticed how much you loved them, how much patience you offered, how many small things you remembered, or how often you chose to stay when leaving might have been easier. There is a particular loneliness in that question because it rarely arrives at a dramatic moment. More often, it finds you while you are doing something completely ordinary. Yo...
Virginity Pledges, simply put are promises made by the young people to not indulge in sexual activities till they officially tie the knot. But with statics quoting effectiveness in single digited figures(which btw, are more for the males than females,quite surprisingly), the issue common in so many social movements, raises its head here also, “Do these pledges actually serve any purpose, or are they a mere social movement, hollow in their substance and disciples??”
The general opinion though, supports the latter fact. The concept dates back to 1993, the first one being called “true love awaits”, the name itself explaining its core message. In the past sixteen years, many pledges have been carried out and as many studies about the topic.
Point that comes up is people can’t practically refrain themselves, just because of having made a virginity pledge. Most of them fool themselves, more than the world, by putting up things like denying they had sex, or more funnily, denying they made the pledge in the first place only!!! A major part indulges more in oral and anal sex, having the opinion that they’ll be abiding by the pledge having things this way. But for instance take the statement of the pledge as:
"Believing that true love waits, I make a commitment to God, myself, my family, my friends, my future mate, and my future children to a lifetime of purity including sexual abstinence from this day until the day I enter a biblical marriage relationship."
Now pick for instance the future mate, will s/he consider you any more pure and loyal coz you didn’t indulge in vaginal sex before marriage?
Besides some other not so goody-goody results, one is that people who had pledged, take LESSER birth-control measures that the ones who hadn’t!!!
Plan back-firing… eh?
In fact, those who don’t take any formal pledge to refrain from making out, just promising things to themselves stick more to it, than the ones who take a proper pledge.
Though such pledges are most common in the United States, the scenario can be conveniently compared to that in India, as far as the aspect of psychology of teenagers is concerned about abstaining from sex. Though in India the masses are ignorant enough to not talk about sex or anything related to it in public(explains perhaps why there’s no sex education in schools,worsening everything) but the society in general makes one take a virginity pledge,without once pronouncing it. And the results are pretty obvious. Those who want to do it do it and those who don’t want to, don’t do it, Pledge or no pledge.
Still, to save the cause, these vowing programmes should be vigor-ed up, made more active, spent more brains on, for eg. the members as it is said should be a critical number, so that an individual doesn’t feel too insignificant or too out of the crowd, regular meetings and proper counseling of the members about the whys and whats of their cause can do the trick of increasing their effectiveness. To cut the long story short, proper fuel should be kept on adding to the fire, the fire of not being too “ferocious” before marriage!!! - Tamanna K.
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