I know I've told this story before, but one of my sisters once asked my parents, why didn't you give us purity rings? (They both go to Christian colleges, and know lots of girls who got them). Parents replied they expected us to be virgins without rings. At least these girls get a night of dressing up and fun out of it! ;-P

something something "purity balls" something something

I read this article when it was printed in Glamour- it kind of got on my nerves, to tell the truth. It had an undertone of LOLXIANS that I didn't care for. It IS possible for a women's magaizne to take a respectful view of religious-related subjects- several years ago, I read an article in a teen magazine (can't remember which) about a young woman who entered the church to become a nun- and it was such a beautiful, respectful decision of the choice this girl made (I recall a quote from the girl about how she felt she didn't need things to be happy, that she had everything she needed, and how happy she was). It really touched me. So it is possible, although rare.

I have seen this before. It is like these people are a different species from me, and how I do parenting. If it works for those parents and kids, fine, though.

Also, in my case, that cow is out of the barn, in a way. And pity on whatever bull that gives it a shot, but that's another topic.

I didn't get the 'LOLXIANS' undertone - it seemed relatively respectful. Questioning, yes, but respectful.

For me, there are two issues here - 1) the decision to save sex until marriage (I don't have a problem with that) and 2) the fact that the girl's sexuality is considered her father's property to dispose of (I have big problems with that).

An important question the author raised is this: are some of these girls in effect signing contracts they don't understand?

I now have the Three Dog Night's 'Celebrate' running through my head, but with 'purity ball' substituted for 'celebrity ball.' Thanks a lot.

(although, in this case, it's apparently Papa telling them not to come)

sorry

*laughing*

Welcome back, jon!

the fact that the girl's sexuality is considered her father's property to dispose of em>

I agree with that point. It seems quite archaically patriarchical.

So I guess there's no equivalent for boys and their moms?

Interestingly enough, I think the nearest equivalent for boys is also male-related- stuff like Promise Keepers, men's accountability groups, etc.

The saddest thing to me is that often times the human spirit seems to crave the yoke, at least until it finds out just how much it chafes.

The longer I read in this article, the more disturbing I find it. The sexual overtones are profoundly icky, from the exchange of rings in a ritual our culture normally observes for a couple in marriage to phraseology like that in the father's pledge: "...choose before God to cover my daughter.." The Biblical connotation of cover is definition 6a. Then there is the convoluted reasoning about the sexual role of women -- the article discusses one woman who says that

"not allowing herself to think sexual thoughts makes her nervous, too, because she wants to experience pleasure with her future husband: “I don’t want to be a burden to him in that I am not enjoying [sex].”

That's an xtraordinarily male-focused mentality.

The other, more concrete danger of abstinence promotion is that when it doesn't work, it doesn't work in staggering numbers, and then the women that have experienced it end up having sex anyway -- and without good sexual-health information. From the article:

"more than half of teens who take virginity pledges—at, say, rallies or events—go on to have sex within three years, according to findings of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, the most comprehensive survey of teens ever taken. And 88 percent of the pledgers surveyed end up having sex before marriage."

I think the article presents a pretty strong critical examination of this phenomenon. If it has a fault, it's that it blends elements of the personal essay and first-person point of view with reportage. I'd have found it stronger if the author had left herself out of it, though I did really like the story she shares about her first boyfriend at age 19 and also the statement she ends with.

Well, there ya go, man. Sometimes I think that one of the central problems of mankind is that, when it comes to worldly pleasures, we seem to be capable only of gluttonous self-indulgence or painfully austere self-denial. More often than not people (myself included) tend to veer wildly back and forth between these two extremes. Finding balance is tough, maybe because it sometimes seems boring, but so does insanity after awhile, I'm told.

Maybe instead of a purity ring, the dad should give a vibrator.

Just a thought.

But, semi-seriously, I can see where this would backfire, like a diet. You are so focused on the forbidden, that you want it more than you would, normally.

Yeah, I'm having mixed feelings. I am deeply deeply discomforted with the concept of purity pledges, for the reasons that Miko has outlined. But I'm a bit sad that the tone of the article (I do think it's a little LOLXIANS) might put people off reading it.

Squickiness about male ownership of their daughters purity aside and all that, the lack of STD knowledge really worries me.


But, semi-seriously, I can see where this would backfire, like a diet. You are so focused on the forbidden, that you want it more than you would, normally.

Yeah.

The whole thing reeks mightily of the sort of excessive - and quite often hypocritical - Puritanism that any sane, moderate, thinking and feeling human being abhors.

The very language that this particular movement is couched in speaks volumes about it: War. Purity. Fight. Battle. Safety. Sex. Sex. Sex.

And why the romanticism? The undertones of repressed sexuality expressed by proxy through a glamorous ball? How is that not blantantly self-referentially hypocritical?

In related religious/Purtanical culture at a different time the merest thought of any unmarried girl getting dressed up in such "revealing" clothing and wearing makeup and then going off to a dance, any dance at all would have shocked everyone involved to their moral cores.

The whole thing is bizarre. The intensity of the involvement of the fathers is weird. The very blatant father-daughter romance/sex by proxy is very, very fucking weird.

I find myself wondering about the actual motives of their fathers, and comparing it to what I've experienced and known about what often actually happens behind the scenes in excessively "puritan" families or communities. There seems to be a pattern of abuse that occurs in stuff like this, either premeditated as the actual unspoken motivations for the original founding of the "cult" or as an end result due to the repression itself seeking inappropriate outlet.

In short, I find that my radar and/or spider sense is pinging totally off the chart, and if I choose to listen to my intuition it isn't a pretty picture at all.

This article is ok, but as when I first learned about this I find myself deeply disturbed by it all. I don't think it's healthy for anyone in the long or short terms.

“I made a promise to myself when I was younger,” she says, “to save my first kiss for my wedding day.”

That is very likely going to be a very short, unfaithful or unhappy marriage. Statistically speaking, considering the very broad range of human sexual compatibility and how these things generally are known to work - however much they work at all. There's a reason why even Mormons date and make out before marriage.

This really skeeves me out, but I dunno why exactly. I mean, I am trying to be respectful, but I can't see how virginity is relevant, beyond a certain age. I also can't see any reason to wait for a marriage.

Perhaps I am not really wired to understand this. I also say this fully aware that I am the father of two beautiful little girls, whose boyfriends I will prolly want to terrify into good behavior in about 10-12 years.

I am hoping to approach their sexuality with the same approach that I take to most things in life...with education and the hope that they act responsibly, and with concern for their and others' well-being in mind.

My goal with them is to raise them so that they are happy, contented people, who play well with others. I can't see how expecting them to stay virgins until marriage has anything to do with that.

I really didn't get the LOLXIANS bit (but then, I'll readily admit that I'm probably less sensitive to that kind of thing than a lot of people). Are there specific things that people could point to?

Like I said, though, I'm probably less sensitive to LOLXIANS than most. I mean, tiara-clad 4-year-olds signing their virginity away to their fathers? That's funny no matter how you tell it (unless it's incredibly sad). I'm kinda reminded of that probably-apocryphal story about Harry Truman, where he says 'I never give 'em hell. I just tell 'em the truth and they think it's hell.'

I mean, the article is written for the Glamour audience, which is (I'm guessing) mostly women, mostly religious but not devout, and mostly pro-sex. They're probably not, for the most part, deeply immersed in today's fundamentalist culture. And it's mainstream magazine journalism, which means it's written at about a junior-high level and aimed right down the middle of the road.

tiara-clad 4-year-olds signing their virginity away to their fathers?

Wow -- when you put it that baldly, it sounds like something out of one of Kurt Vonnegut's futuristic stories -- or the Handmaid's Tale.

(Richat, I like your take on it. I think parents should definitely help their kids create some sort of healthy, realistic approach to sexuality that gives them the skills to handle themselves and the knowledge to do so without getting excessively hurt, taken advantage of, pregnant, or exposed to disease. Totally condemning all forms of sexual behavior, encouraging a father fixation, and fetishizing virginity is not going to help them form good relationships, only dependent ones.

I've never understood the fetishizing of virginity at all, anyway. Revering virginity seems to argue that a woman's inherent value as a person can be reduced to or quanitified in a single sexual event.

There are equivalents for boys now, called "Integrity Balls." While women have to promised to passively wait for their husbands and be protected by their fathers in the meantime, the boys get to promise to act honorably and act with dignity and act act act act act. Because girls are passive, boys are active. (I mean, really, the difference in the language for the pledges is astounding. It's all passive voice and waiting for the girls, active voice and doing for the boys.)

There is also no mention of virginity for the boys, though the articles I've read have included quotes from the leaders of these things urging boys not to have sex because the girl they're doing the sex to will probably marry someone else, so the boys are therefore soiling someone's future wife.

The quote I remember was, "How would you like it if someone else were sleeping with your future wife right now?"

I find the whole thing really sickening. In practical terms, because it doesn't work, and when these people do have sex, they're more likely to get pregnant or contract an STI because they don't have the info they need. In societal terms, because it teaches boys that sex is something girls have to say no to, which in many ways normalizes rape -- girls never want sex, so the only way to get it from them is coercion. And also because it teaches girls that there are no gradients other than virgin or whore, and so doesn't give them (or boys) the tools they need to respectfully, honestly, openly talk about their own boundaries and needs and expectations.

And I'm talking even within marriage. Even if you do wait to have sex until you're married, these are still skills you need.

Honey, you've got a very small window of time in which it's legal to get it on with teenage boys. Don't waste that time at church. Grab some condoms and head for the cute ones.

I'm from a fundamentalist background and I find these things enormously creepy. My main problem with them is the heavy sexual overtones, but I also don't like the reinforcement of traditional gender roles: girls playing dress-up and doing things in an effort to please their "men."

Honey, you've got a very small window of time in which it's legal to get it on with teenage boys. Don't waste that time at church. Grab some condoms and head for the cute ones.

*worships even more at the altar of jrossi*

I heard of purity balls a few years ago and it still strikes me as very creepy.

I don't know which I am more skeeved by. The topic of this article or what jrossi just said.
:P

Virgins are bloody-well over-rated.

Yeah, I think it's very creepy too, which makes me wonder if I'm bringing my creeped-out-ness to my readings of these kinds of articles, rather than the other way around.

Grow some purity balls.

I don't hate women, I just deny them my essence.

Personally I hate hate hate that the balance of burden is placed on females to maintain purity and abstinence. Yes, I know there is some elements that which bleeds over to males but traditionally this is a female orientated issue.
Like it or not a lot of premarital sex is initiated by males, so why are we not seeing more male chastity balls? Because sex is seen as a positive for males and often a negative for females, "stud" vs "slut".

It's like the numerous comments regarding Sheryl Crow's commercial during the Super Bowl, "Sellout whore". Well.. yes perhaps, but few people refer to Dylan as a "sellout whore" for doing commercials. A major way to insult women is to imply they may enjoy sex, or may have more than one partner at a time.

If you are of age and consenting, sex is no big deal, male or female. The fetishism of virginity is inane.

Helen Caldicott once said she'd (jokingly) advocate for putting birth control and aphrodisiacs in the water supply.

If you are of age and consenting, sex is no big deal, male or female.

I dunno about that. Offering yourself to somebody, even casually, is always a big deal, at least to me. I wouldn't make myself that vulnerable for nothing.

The fetishism of virginity is inane.

The stuff these religious freaks do is inane. But as author Tim Sandlin once wrote "There's only three things you can only do once: be born, die, and lose your virginity. and losing your virginity is the only one you have any control over." So despite it all, it still matters on some level.

I dunno, jon. There are a lot of things we do for the first time, but we don't construct them as "things we do once." There was a first time I ate shrimp, and a frist time I travelled away from home alone, a first time I drank an alcoholic beverage, a first time I left the U.S., first time I voted in an election, and so on and so forth. Why do we choose that one thing to stand as a one-time event which somehow changes your status rather than simply a first-time event?

Well, I didn't write it, Miko, and I admit the phrasing is a little clunky, but I see what Sandlin was getting at. I'd be the last person to stop consenting adults from doing what they want to do, but sex is (one way or another) about intimate personal connection, so I don't know if I could ever see sex (even a one-night stand) as 'no big deal.'

I wouldn't call it no big deal either. I just think that our society handles it terribly as a rite of passage, fundie or not. It would be nice to dispense with much of the mystique that makes it both forbidden and fetishized by fundies.

Then we're on the same page more or less. I was more answering edgeways' characterization of sex as 'no big deal,' not going on some kind of crusade.

This just seems creepy as hell.

"There's only three things you can only do once: be born, die, and lose your virginity. and losing your virginity is the only one you have any control over."

Why do we choose that one thing to stand as a one-time event which somehow changes your status rather than simply a first-time event?

I don't see losing your virginity as changing your status. As jonmc quoted from Tim Sandlin, it's the only thing you can do once that you have any control over. And while I'm not saying everyone should wait for marriage, at the very least, losing your virginity should be carefully considered. By that I mean choosing a partner who is worthy of you. Not some one night stand in a bar, or some person who only wants you to be your first, then tosses you aside. I don't know about the rest of you, but I remember my first time (I can tell you the day), and although the guy turned out to be a disappointment in general, we did date for two and a half years.
(of course, there were, ahem, shorter hookups in the years after, but that's another story)

But a couple dozen fathers have also brought girls under 10. “This evening is more about spending time with her than her purity at this point,” says one seven-year-old’s dad, a trifle sheepishly. The event is seemingly innocent—not once do I hear “sex” or “virgin” cross anyone’s lips. Still, every one of the girls here, even the four-year-old, will sign that purity covenant.

Do they even know what sex is at this point?

"Yeah. That's when the guy, he like, crawls on top of you and then he pees on you."

creepy creepy creepy.

The social implications for this can't be discounted - these girls are being trained to uphold the patriarchy. Sick.

This is the kind of thing that makes the differences between the US and Canada seem stark -- I've never *ever* heard of such a thing going on here. Ever.

I think relating these purity balls to sexual assault and rape is very telling. When 67% of all sexual assualts in the US happen to girls under the age of 18, having even more girls afraid to tell their parents about an attack because it will mean that they have broken a promise to their fathers, is very disturbing to me. Which brings me to a quibble with jonmc, not everyone gets to choose the first time they have sex.

I think that teaching boys how to be a respectful partner, and teaching girls how to tell a respectful partner from a disrespectful partner is more important than expecting them to have "integrity" or stay "pure". I firmly believe that girls shouldn't have intercourse until they're with a partner that is willing to make them orgasm first (to be blunt). So many of my friends had a very "is that it?" reaction to sex, because they were with guys who didn't care if they enjoyed it. And since sex was "no big deal" (because they didn't truly experience it) they were more willing to sleep with guys who didn't care how the girls felt.

But regardless, the patriarchal crapola involved makes my skin crawl with ickiness beyond belief.