Available at Real Clear Politics:

Shocking news: Virginity is on the rise in America.

The source is sober, academic, practically irrefutable: the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. Its latest analysis of the sex lives of Americans age 15 to 44 includes a startling finding: Virginity is increasing among teens and young adults in the U.S.

... If the data are accurate, they suggest there are at least as many adult women under the age of 45 who have never had sex with anyone but their husband as there are gay people in the general population.

But unlike gay folks, these women are invisible, derided, ridiculed or treated as a virtual impossibility.

Why is this good news? When young women refuse to engage in promiscuous sex, they protect themselves, our culture and our next generation of children from a variety of concrete harms -- from sexually transmitted diseases to infant mortality, welfare dependence, school failure and juvenile delinquency associated with increased risk of young, out-of-wedlock births. HIV alone costs $20,000 per year per person who contracts it, according to the Rand Corp. [Continue Reading]