Well, this is just a tad creepy — grown men play-acting the trappings of getting married to their pre-pubescent daughters. A lot of underlying ownership of females mentality (you’re daddy’s property so don’t damage the goods until I hand you off to your approved husband) going on here, too.
No sex please, we’re daddy’s little girls
It has all the ingredients of a wedding. The proud tuxedo-clad father, the frosted white cake, the limousines and an exchange of vows.
But there is no groom and the girl in the long gown is no bride. She’s daddy’s little girl, there to take a vow of chastity.
In what is becoming a trend among conservative Christians in the United States, girls as young as nine are pledging to their fathers to remain virgins until they wed, in elaborate ceremonies dubbed “Purity Balls.”
[…]
Many fathers at the ceremonies also slip “purity rings” around the finger of their misty-eyed daughters or offer them “chastity bracelets” and other jewelry that the girls can entrust to their husbands on their wedding night.
Creepy and, apparently, pointless.
But critics say that while teaching abstinence to children may be laudable, it is just as essential to make them aware of sexually transmitted diseases and condom use.
They also point to studies showing that the majority of adolescents who take purity pledges break them within a few years, often by engaging in risky and unprotected sex.
One study conducted by researchers at the universities of Columbia and Yale found that 88 percent of pledgers wind up having sex before marriage.
This got some press last year like this editorial and another one about these balls. Here’s what Glamour magazine had to say about the pledge to “Keep your flower safe!”
And then there’s this sort of related story about a chastity march in San Fransisco, of all places. Amazingly, some disagreed:
Oh I can’t wait to see what this stirs up.
Oppressive parenting leads only to rebellion. Teaching kids to value themselves and make good decisions is a much more effective tool.
And I won’t even touch the whole “Purity Balls” double-entendre.
I applaud these parents for correct teaching.
@2: Couldn’t agree more.
God forbid we teach kids right from wrong, even worse when we ask them to keep commitments. That picture on the bottom is a whole new low for this place. Oh wait, its all about the drama.
Looks like the fundies are getting ready for another wave of inbreeding.
God forbid we teach kids right from wrong, even worse when we ask them to keep commitments.
Since when do you need to teach a 9 year old about chastity?
The three girls, along with their three brothers, are all home schooled.
’nuff said.
Hey! What about sons? Don’t mothers get to “Purity Ball” their sons? How come only daughters and fathers get to have all the fun?
9,
It’s already Oedipal enough thank you.
I did a lot of ministry work in the past…
Stupid stuff like this is why I threw my hands up and walked away.
All I can say is: Puffy Pants
(Clerks 2 reference)
I wonder how many of the fathers and mothers of these girls saved themselves for marriage. What makes them think the next generation will be willing to wait?
#13
Why do you think they’re subjecting their own daughters to this. A misguided guilt at their own behavior is undoubtedly the driving factor here.
My obsession with losing my virginity disappeared instantly the minute I lost it. Then I was able to get on with a normal, healthy life, and not spend half the day masturbating.
Hopefully that’s all it is. I’m not even going to go to the creepy side of this.
Dvorak, you miss the point yet again. I think you need to spend less time on the net making crap up that you don’t fully understand. But since I’m a raving idiot perhaps that not such a bad thing.
Once she enters college/university, she’s going to get all the sex she can have.
#17…
GOP Talking Point #1457 (from the Liberal Dissenter Suppression Handbook): When the LIberal Left criticizes your covert desire to enjoy sex with your own childslave, tell them: “You’re just making that up! You don’t understand!”
If that fails, contact the Guantanamo New Inmate Collection Hotline immediately.
Am I the only one that thinks this is hot?
#12 – Actually, it was Pillow Pants. Sorry.
#5 – Nothing wrong with teaching them right from wrong, so long as you teach them in ways they can truly understand and grasp. Very few 9 year olds think about sex in a personally meaningful way. They’re still worried about getting their books knocked out of their hands on the playground.
#17 Dvorak, you miss the point yet again. I think you need to spend less time on the net making crap up that you don’t fully understand.
I’m a card carrying evangelical Christian who is very familiar with the whole “love waits” movement and the hard-core patriarchal aspect of it creeps me out, too.
I went to a wedding where the bride was big-time into this and it had this weird incestuous vibe to it. She was wearing a “wedding ring” her father had given her at puberty, which she took off and gave back. Then the dad gave her to the guy and she then put on his ring. There were also “give away” vows that I now forget but I remember there was some sexual references.
Eewww.
I’m the father of a girl and I’m teaching her about sexual ethics — but not as a vow to me her dad. Avoiding early-teen sex is just part of good decision making.
These Purity Balls are just a further liberalization of our declining culture. I miss the good old days when a father could threaten that his little girl could be stoned to death if she lost her virginity before marriage.
At some point, I guess God really got soft on crime.
#17– Dvorak, you miss the point yet again. I think you need to spend less time on the net making crap up that you don’t fully understand.
The post is not John’s. Why is it so often the guys who don’t even know how to read a blog who decide to lecture John?
Here you go, David:
http://www.dvorak.org/blog/primer/blogprimer1.htm
There *are* mother-son balls. They’re called “Integrity Balls” – there’s a write-up of them here and I had a post about them recently.
Purity Balls make good sense.
If you teach teenage girls abstinence then they won’t have premarital sex. There is then no need to teach them about how to prevent STDs. And we know that these pure girls will marry only pure boys, so they will never be at risk of ever getting STDs.
No need to teach them about contraception either as the only purpose for having sex is procreation.
#22, Greg,
Well put. I am trying to let my daughter learn things on her own. Ignorance is the worse gift any parent may give their child. I have pledged to pass on as little of that as possible.
28. Spay or neuter your pets.
Ok that was crass, but seriously I saw this Ultra Conservative guest on Bill Maher (the name slips my mind) last night and when this subject came up, he commented that he had been to one of these “balls” and said pretty much everyone was creeped out by it.
As for chastity lecture, growing up in the Catholic school system, I can ASSURE you this is a waste of time.
I almost forgot,
Do you guys Ted Nugent was an influence in that matter?
It was Bush’s former speech writer.