Feature film — 2004

Texas Teenage Virgins (2004)

The film explores Lubbock, Texas, deep in the heart of the Bible Belt, which boasts more churches per capita than anywhere else in the US. (It also has the most fast food restaurants and the second largest one-storey shopping mall in America.) Here, teenagers are expected to take purity pledges, promising to remain virgins until they get married. But how hard is it for these teenagers to resist temptation, and what are the consequences if they don't? And how does the climate of fear and misinformation impact on their lives, ambitions and aspirations? The programme reveals that, despite the push for abstinence, Lubbock has some of the highest rates of teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases in the whole of America. The abstinence movement studiously ignores the reality of most teenagers' lives. But in Texas, no matter what the consequences, it looks as though virginity pledges are here to stay.