Last night on instant messenger, a female friend of mine sent me a link to a new book that Jessica Valenti over at Feministing is coming out with. Yes, believe it or not, this apparently isn't some sort of off-the-wall parody -- it's a real book,

After sending me the link, my friend's comment was, "What is it with feminists and wanting to turn America's teenagers into raging whores?"

Good question.

The best thing I can come up with is that when people do stupid or embarrassing things, it makes them feel better to think that other people are doing it with them. Some of us can get past our flaws by simply shrugging our shoulders, saying "the flesh is weak," and admitting that we're not living up to our ideals.

But, these hardcore liberal feminists? For them, it's not enough to say that, "I'm not a virgin" or "I like to sleep with a lot of guys," they have to come up with some kind of justification for why it's the best way to live.

That's not a prelude to a long preachy rant, it's just basic common sense when we're talking about whether we should be encouraging virginity.

And does America really have "An obsession with virginity" anyway? Since when? I interviewed Dawn Eden about her book, "The Thrill Of The Chaste" and it was fascinating to me that she had been doing interviews all over the place, for months and months off that book. That's not even virginity, it's chastity, and it's apparently so rare that it kept her in bookings for more than a year.

Even setting that aside, is virginity some sort of huge problem -- especially with young women?

Take a look at these stats from an article that was at MSNBC back in March,

In the first study of its kind, researchers at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found at least one in 4 teenage American girls has a sexually transmitted disease.

The most common one is a virus that can cause cervical cancer, and the second most common can cause infertility. Nearly half the black teens in the study had at least one sexually transmitted infection, versus 20 percent among both whites and Mexican-American teens.

A quarter of teenage American girls have STDs, but wow, watch out for that virginity -- and we didn't even get to out-of-wedlock pregnancy yet!

If you want to know why liberals and conservatives don't get along, books like this tell you all you need to know. Point out just about anything good, decent, or helpful for the country and there will be liberals coming out of the woodwork to corrupt it, pervert it, or tear it down -- and all the while, they'll have a smug, sanctimonious attitude about the almost unbelievable, life-wrecking stupidity that they're advocating.