The new dating site for virgins

In a world in which no holds are barred and no stone is only warmed by the sun on one side, one can only lift up one's heart at the merest sign of an antidote.

How beautiful, then, that one faithful husband and wife, Lety and Jose Colin, decided to create YouAndMeArePure.com.

Perhaps it is not the most catchy URL you have ever come across. However, it is a site with the purest of intentions. It exists to bring virgins into contact with virgins. No, not like that. At least, not until they are married (a feat the Colins have allegedly managed).

Indeed, the Colins express their life progression in very lyrical terms on the site: "We are still happily married despite that we entered marriage intimately inexperienced. But like everything in life it takes learning and we have been having each other to accomplish that."

I know that some people choose to have each other to accomplish many things. But these things are often temporary and tinged with regret. YouAndMeArePure.com looks at the concepts of sex and virginity in totally different terms.

"Some people may overlook the bonding power of virginity," the site explains. It continues with some very deep thinking: "Virginity as an important common aspect between people can lead to close friendships, or can even serve as a mutual precious gift of marriage."

It certainly beats electric kettles and Crate and Barrel cutlery. However, though I can see the essential bonding hope in a site where every profile is written with purity in mind, I confess to having a crisis of confidence in the purity of everyone who might sign up.

Long and labored is the list of those who have been duped by profiles on online dating sites. He says he is "slim." He omits that he is just slightly slimmer than Luciano Pavarotti. She says she is 34. Yet, on meeting her, you realize she was more likely born in 1934.

So what guarantee can YouAndMeArePure.com offer that you and me (especially you) are, indeed, pure? I cannot find any. Indeed, what is especially troubling is that the images the site uses--images that seem, at first sight, to be those of happy virginal couples--are, in fact, models "being used for illustrative purposes only."

Why couldn't the site have found pictures of happy cuddling virgins? Are their fees too high? Or do they not want their families to know what they don't get up to? In any case, though the intentions of the founders may be pure, this site might be populated by as many scoundrels as any other dating site.

Yet the founders are resolute in their mission. On the member login page the Colins offer a stiff stricture: "DO NOT provide incomplete or false information about yourself when you complete this page to avoid termination of your free Standard Membership."

Now that's a line that will frighten the unscrupulous.

But, wait, these people are serious. "Any visitor to our website who is not a virgin but is intimately abstaining, consider joining www.youandiabstain.com. All other non-virgin visitors are welcome to invite their close virgin friends and/or relatives to join our site."

Naturally, I hotfingered it to YouAndIAbstain.com, which, extraordinarily, uses models for illustrative purposes only. Yes, this site is also the child of Lety and Jose Colin's brains.

Both this site and YouAndMeArePure.com have a fine store, too. There, you can buy gift certificates and V-Cards that ID your V-ness.

According to the Colin's PR release, 30 percent of Americans say "they have had one or no sex partners since they turned 18." Which may mean that it is hard to find someone to have sex with in America, or that enterprising young Americans get the sex thing out of the way really quickly so that they can get back to playing video games.

It might also mean that at least 30 percent of Americans don't like to admit that virginity, or even abstinence, is a mightily hard thing to hang on to. I mean, there are all those dating sites encouraging you to go for it, aren't there?