Purity rings.

Flaunting virginity.

The rings are still not mainstream enough to be considered cool. When Ms. McMunn tells her peers that she is waiting for her husband, "people give me weird looks," she said. "I have gotten made fun of a lot." But the rings are catching on to the point where many wearers feel comfortable talking about them....

"I don't think Christian youth are hiding their beliefs as much as they used to," said Jerry Rady of ScriptureJewelry.com in Escondido, Calif.

"Before, it was in the closet, a lot of that stuff," said Nickolas Pfendner, the owner of ReligiousJewelryStore.com, based in Jamison, Pa. "Peers are starting to really appreciate and respect kids who make that choice."

Ring ceremonies, once modest affairs held in people's homes or in churches, now sometimes involve hundreds of participants and laser light shows interspersed with talk of pregnancy and the dangers of sexually transmitted diseases.

Hmmm... this makes me think about the conversation we were having here yesterday in the comments to this post, about the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. Some people say that gay persons ought to just keep what is their private behavior to themselves. Everyone who makes the argument that gay persons shouldn't see any need to tell should also object to these rings that proclaim private sexual facts, right?