Crusade of the virgin soldiers

They hug and pout for the camera like prom queens but sisters Amanda and Tiffany are non-plussed by the attention they attract. "Let them look all they like, they'll see the T-shirt," someone says as a group of men ogle the beautiful teenagers.

Then London's hopeful males get to hear the bad news. Tiffany, who definitely does not look like a kid, declares: "I know I'm just a kid, I'm not ready for sex." She has a rare self-confidence, as if she has found the centre of her existence and is sticking to it.

What she and other young Americans have discovered is the "Silver Ring Thing" - sexual abstinence, to you and me - and it is a phenomenon sweeping the heartlands of America.

They are all virgins, or - for those who slipped before they found the way - born-again virgins. Now they are even brave enough to bring their no-sex crusade here but what hope do they have on the louche shores of the Old World?

Waiting in Waterloo Station for these young apostles to descend on London was, it has to be said, a peculiar experience. Would they try to convert me? Would they think of me as a lost soul?

I had suggested to their PR manager that we went to a bar, but had been swiftly rebuked with the words: "Keep the sex, the drugs and the alcohol out of the equation."

In my imagination all 30 of them would be carrying Bibles and wielding megaphones, standing on soap boxes and preaching about the sins of the flesh.

So imagine my disappointment when a bunch of normal looking American teenagers eventually turned up, giggling about the English weather and chatting ecstatically about Cadbury's chocolate.

It is only on second glance there are certain oddities about them. The whole group wears the same silver ring, which they often touch. In case you wonder, this $20 ring is the symbol of chastity and is presented when they publicly pledge to stay pure. One boy has a large blue cross tattooed on the back of his calf and they all exude a kind of cleanliving charm that jars with the slovenly London crowds.

Their T-shirts are emblazoned with a neon green 'SILVER RING THING' logo and the rings themselves are indented with a biblical reminder of their chastity, 1st Thessalonnians 4: 3-4, which talks about physical purity.

Although slightly on the trying side of wholesome, these kids are by no means boring to be around. A girl called Julie says of herself that she is a "a good Christian girl", and looks like one, but her boyfriend defies all stereotypes.

If I saw him in the street I would instantly pin him down as the hardliving, smooth-talking type. He wears baggy jeans, a backwards cap with "Mexico" written on it and large thin-rimmed sunglasses, which he occasionally lowers in a brooding fashion.

The couple have concrete rules about "how much is too much", meaning that they do not stay out together late at night and "do not sleep in big, dark empty houses together, because that is where you find temptation".

Kissing is fine, "making out" is bad and they wouldn't even contemplate going further than that because they want to keep as much of themselves as possible for their marriage bed.

Their system of beliefs goes against the teenage grain because the point of the Silver Ring Thing is not to push as close as possible to the acceptable barrier, but to see how far you can keep away from it. There's no rebellion here, no exploration.

As perhaps only Americans can do, they tell me to think of sex in terms of driving. If the car is "turned on" then there is more potential for reckless driving. It is, after all, a lot harder to stop a moving car than a stationary car.

Condoms and seatbelts also have an awful lot in common, apparently, because if teenagers are told that when they wear a seatbelt they can drive, then the kids will drive too fast and into dangerous territory.

Other ways of knowing if you've gone too far - or are planning to - range from "whether you'd be comfortable doing it in front of your grandmother" (I take their point) and to "whether you'd be okay with your spouse doing it with a member of the opposite sex", which seems to pretty much rule out everything fun.

Virginity is not a strict requirement for SRT since they have invented something called a "second virginity". America has, after all, always been the home of reinvention.

Debs, a bubbly "group leader", used to date lots of people until a long-term boyfriend broke her heart and she was left feeling betrayed, as if she'd given away a chunk of herself to someone who simply disregarded the gift. Realising that sex was not a separate pleasure but part of her soul, she decided to wait until she was married.

Another young couple went through a similar struggle and eventually decided to stop having sex. "We did it backwards," they laughed, oblivious of the double entendre, "but abstaining from sex has created a firm foundation for marriage."

Temptation is a serious point for discussion among this new breed of teenagers, a focus of obsession that is altogether too amusing.

Most of the rules to this difficult game are decided in "meetings" between girlfriend and boyfriend, between support groups and between friends.

Before they started their tour of England, the group decided on a dress code, which is "don't advertise what you're not selling".

The key to staying "pure" is weighted with "accountability groups", with whom you discuss temptation and how to keep it at bay. Questions to ask your "accountability partners" range all the way from "What did you do this week?" to "How are you doing with temptation?" and "Shall I pray for you?"

"Pass the sick bag" is not, apparently, part of the catechism.

One boy mournfully tells me that a year ago he encountered temptation at a Christian Summer Camp. "I thought she was a Christian," he says earnestly, "but she turned out to be part of the catering staff. She invited me back to her room. I thought of how disappointed my accountability group would be - but for a tiny second I wanted to go with her."

Boys in the group? Surely the classical image of beautiful virgins in heaven never includes portraits of tattooed, sunglass-wearing young men, though one did actually look a bit like a dark-haired cupid, only with braces. He talked about respect and purity like the average British teenager chats about oral sex - and I think I may have fallen in love with him.

According to Denny Pattyn, the director of the Silver Ring Thing, teenagers attract sexual diseases "like magnets" and they are not responding to the double message of "safe sex".

"There is no such thing as "safe sex,", he says, and the only answer is to motivate kids towards abstinence.

But the health message is not at the core of the Silver Ring Thing; the real inspiration for the girls and boys I met was their Bible Belt faith. And that is very likely to put up British backs.

Judging from their first hours in London, they are bound to find England quite a challenge, even confrontational, as they try to spread their gospel and sell silver rings at £10 a time.

Take the loudmouth flower seller who, for the Silver Ring Thing's benefit, launched into a poetic monologue about the innate sexuality of a rose and how this flower would get you laid anytime, anywhere.

"You know we're an abstinence group, don't you?" a boy said dryly, only to be chided by the floral comedian for being impotent, or gay, or both.

Not content with this, the flower-seller shot more provocation their way, claiming his roses were sprayed with Viagra which would sort out their "chastity problem" in no time. They were all "crack-pots" and "brain washed", he insisted.

Up against this kind of English hostility, the kids didn't even flinch, but they did go quiet. "I wonder how easy it's going to be to get through to the British?" one of the younger girls said, sadly. "I hope they're not all like that."