2004-02-27 - 12:17 p.m.

I was looking at all the so-called �Youth Movements� and wondering why I didn�t belong to any. One reason could be that I�m a 31 year old man and it would just be weird, but I think the real reason is that there wasn�t one that really spoke to ME. With this in mind, I decided to form my very own, and I hope it is one that will inspire many people to at least read to the end of the page. I give you:

True Love Fakes

Brothers and sisters, a national movement is catching fire across the country. "True Love Fakes" is a youth movement that's helping teenagers and college students save bad sex for marriage.

True Love is so much more than an emotion. It is an action and a commitment. We say, True Love is a love that loves even when it doesn't feel like loving.

True Love Fakes is an international campaign that challenges teenagers and college students to at least try and pretend to enjoy sexual activity until marriage.

To date, over a million young people have forged their friends� signatures on covenant cards stating: �Believing that true love fakes, I make a commitment to myself, my family, my friends, my future mates, and, God forbid, my future children to be sexually enthusiastic from this day until the day I enter a biblical marriage relationship.�

Signing the card is the easy part. The test comes when you face the decision of sexual activity. You can't rely on your True Love Fakes card to give you strength to make the right choice. You won't find any power in the words you repeated during a ceremony. What a big fat waste of time THAT all was, right? The power to keep the commitment starts with acceptance.

Accept that there�s nothing more rewarding than presenting your partner with the gift of thinking that they�re really, really good in bed. After all, love is not something you catch, like the flu, or that �intimate� rash that didn�t clear up for five weeks. Love is a garden. It grows slowly and takes a lot of care and nurturing. And in the end, who can really be bothered with all that waiting? There�s garden centres with cheap plastic plants reduced to clear!

In this day and age, there�s no excuse for bad sex. It can ruin friendships and romances, not to mention that twenty-five per cent discount you were getting from the pizza delivery guy ever since he suggested alternative methods of payment.

Love is not the same as sex. Sexual arousal is not the same as love. And saying �Look, it really doesn�t matter, I wasn�t in the mood anyway� is not the same as �That was truly amazing, mind if I turn the TV back on now?� Think how spiritually satisfying a relationship you can pretend to have, just by changing your outlook.

With this in mind, I call on you to come and take the True Love Fakes pledge. You could just kind of mime it as everyone else says it. Or move your lips or something. Whatever.

�Recognizing that True Love Fakes, strengthened with courage by the thought of yet another conversation about how �I swear this has never happened to me before�, and supported by our collective decision to pretend that everything�s great in the sack, I promise to love enthusiastically, honouring the gift of my sexuality and avoiding bad sexual intercourse and other badly performed intimate sexual activity outside of marriage.�