Best-selling author Dannah Gresh wants to get the word out that those who choose sexual virginity should be respected.

Gresh—a sexuality educator whose books have sold nearly a million and a half copies and whose latest title, Get Lost: A Girl’s Guide To Finding True Love (WaterBrook Press), released last month—spoke March 16 before an audience of 900 at Penn State University on the topic of "tolerance for virginity."

Aiming to win a broader hearing for her message through TED, a globally recognized, by-invitation-only think tank of speeches billed as “ideas worth spreading,” Gresh proposed that tolerance for virginity was such an idea, and she was invited to present. If her Penn State speech gets enough online traffic, it will be moved to the main TED website, www.ted.com, and the idea of tolerance for virginity will be promoted across the globe.

Gresh is enlisting support from the Christian community, including Christian retailers.

“I do so need my friends in Christian retail to stand with me on this wonderful opportunity,” Gresh told Christian Retailing.

A month after her Penn State talk, she also held an on-campus event for men and women to join her in a faith-based movement, specifically inviting the women to “get lost” in God so that a guy has to seek Him to find you. The women engaged in the 10-day “Love Feast Challenge” to help them see for themselves how getting lost in God opens the door to lifelong fulfillment. WaterBrook provided free books to the more than 450 who attended the event.

“Together, my publisher and I did something positive to speak into the sexual brokenness and devastation at Penn State,” she said.

Along with pop culture references in her Penn State talk, including the mention of the $1 million prize for anyone who could prove they’d taken Tim Tebow’s virginity, Gresh used social science to debunk myths that perpetuate the lie that those who embrace their virginity are doomed to have bad sex.

View the nine-minute speech entitled “The Walk of Shame or the Walk of Fame” at the following link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C24CmKxRPdQ

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