'Grown up,' hot virgins celebrate celibacy at gala

As she walks into the ballroom of a New Carrollton hotel, the chic jazz melody playing from a distant corner drifts in to serenade her. The dim light casts a pearl reflection through the soft white balloons dotting each table, revealing a pink 'Worth the Wait' logo. Thirty-three-year-old anesthesiologist, Lindsay Marsh, a virgin and founder of a national sex- abstinence-till-marriage organization, makes her rounds, greeting each devotee to her cause. Then she proceeds to the podium and all hush.

"Are we feeling pure tonight, with contemporary style and urban class?" she asks the crowd, citing the motto of her organization, I Am Worth the Wait. Applause rings out from the 100 or so guests at the second annual purity gala last weekend.

Twenty-seven-year-old Melissa Johnson sat to the left of center stage, at a table near the front. She had traveled from Philadelphia to hear her idol, Marsh speak. Johnson was engaged twice, and each time she was dumped before saying "I do" in each situation. She suspects, it was because she would not yield to her suitors' expectations of sex before marriage. Three years ago, Johnson joined the celibate till marriage movement.

Marsh's followers respond to her call for purity for varying reasons. Some are from the religious community, while others are concerned with the risk of STDs and unwanted pregnancies.

Carrine Toddman of Upper Marlboro, Md., attended the gala as her first Worth the Wait outing after receiving a personal invitation from Marsh. She, too, is familiar with the dangers of irresponsible sex. Toddman's god sister unknowingly contracted HIV from her husband, and passed it on to her two-year-old daughter. Both mother and child died.

That's when Toddman chose a sex-abstinence lifestyle. "I know firsthand the psychological, physical, and emotional impacts of premature sexual involvement," she said, reflecting on that hallowing experience.

Aside from their dedication to purity, Johnson and Toddman had something else in common - their satin blue dresses and soft loose curls that screamed out contemporary style and urban class. Their outfits were out of the Worth The Wait's stylish clothing line that features models who are equally as striking as the outfits they flaunt, bent of destroying the myth that grown-up virgins are unattractive and undesirable.

On her part, Marsh, who has a Ph.D., declared on BET's gospel show, "Lift Every Voice," recently, "I'm happy to be an 'unugly' virgin, I like to say that I'm hot."

Marsh has published a book, "The Best Sex of My Life: A Guide to Purity," available on various Web sites, including www.iamworththewait.com.

Amanda Porter is a mass communications media graduate student at Howard University who became a model for Worth The Wait in spring 2008.

"I realized that the goals of this organization lined up with my personal beliefs, and the direction I want to go in life," Porter explained.

What Porter found in Worth the Wait is an outlet that allows her to be herself, without condemnation. She appreciates the openness that the organization offers.

"People with different viewpoints don't usually express them because they think they're a minority," she said, "It is taboo to be opposed to the status quo."

The Gala's youngest attendees were a group of seven high school-aged girls who sat around their table, giggling and chatting lunch-room style. Their mentor Beverly Lambert decided to bring them to the gala because she said they are especially prone to media pressures that promote promiscuous behavior.

Lambert founded the non-profit organization Perfecting Diamonds in The Rough (PDR) to influence positive change in the lives of young girls. This year's theme is abstinence and building self esteem. Confidence and inner beauty are two virtues that Lambert highlights as she helps the girls say, "Hey, I'm gonna' wait," as she put it.

Until the next annual gala, worldwide believers in abstinence and celibacy can find comfort in Dr. Marsh's Worth The Wait Facebook group which is over 1,000 members strong.