Purity Balls, Plan B and Bad Sex Policy: Inside America's Virginity Obsession

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/purity-balls-plan-b-and-bad-sex-policy-inside-americas-virginity-obsession

The men and girls in the photos hold hands and embrace – the young women are in long white dresses, the men in suits or military regalia. If some of the girls in the pictures weren't so young - Laila and Maya Sa up there are seven and five years old, respectively - the portraits could be mistaken for wedding or prom pictures. What they actually capture, though, are images of those who participate in purity balls – father-daughter dances featuring girls who pledge to remain virgins until marriage and fathers who promise to protect their daughters' chastity.

The images from Swedish photographer David Magnusson's new book, Purity, are beautiful, disturbing and tell a distinctly American story – a story wherein a girl's virginity is held up as a moral ideal above all else, a story in which the most important characteristic of a young woman is whether or not she is sexually active. This narrative of good girls and bad girls, pure girls and dirty girls, is one that follows young women throughout their lives. Purity balls simply lay that dichotomy bare. In a clip from a Nightline Prime episode on these disconcerting events , a father tells his braces-clad daughter, "You are married to the Lord, and your father is your boyfriend." (Update: As part of a purity event over the weekend sponsored by the Las Vegas police department, one of its officers told girls that if they had pre-marital sex they would end up rape victims, gang members, drug addicts or prostitutes.)

While it would be easy to dismiss purity balls as fringe – most American fathers don't require their daughters to pledge their virginity in an elaborate ceremony – the paternalism and fear of female sexuality underlying the events are present throughout American culture. (I wrote about this phenomenon in my 2009 book, The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women.)

The idea of girls' chastity as a mobilizing force in culture and politics may feel like a throwback, but it's something that still tangibly impacts thousands upon thousands of modern women – even through policy.

[Iris]

1. holding up a girls virginity as an ideal is distinctly American?

Um. No.

[Recursion]

2. Yeah, living in India, I was amused by that. But India doesn't have purity balls.

Only the US takes it in that direction...

[Shandris]

3. Please do correct me if I'm wrong here, as my knowledge of India is as bad as most Americans, but...

...India doesn't have a 'need' (and please do recognize the quotes around that word, marking it as a perspective/relative thing; I hardly think it constitutes a need myself obviously) for them, do they? As in, it's still common enough for girls to be expected to be virgins that a special announcement that you intend to remain one wouldn't be considered anything other than the norm?

[Recursion]

6. Right... because cultural expectations actually stop teenagers from having sex...

Seriously?

[Shandris]

7. I'm sorry, I forgot that your name is one of those that...

...never answers a question with a serious reply, just snark. Please do carry on and forget I asked.

[Recursion]

8. Sorry, then let me be serious: no. Pre-marital sex is roughly as common in India as in the USA.

Sorry if that seemed dismissive. You raise a very important point, and the only purpose of my response was to attack its factual basis, not your logic. Sorry!!!!

[Shandris]

9. Okay, see I didn't know it was as common -- I thought it was much...

...less common, but I knew I could well be wrong, which is why I wanted to be corrected if I was -- so I know. And I apologize for coming across harshly also.

I don't know why these kinds of silly things (Purity balls) have taken root here; they have, and while they're not -overly- big in my immediate area, they are just a state or two away from me. I think they're pretty creepy myself. If India and the US have roughly the same view on sex (generically speaking), then I wonder what cultural 'artifact' makes those things acceptable here; maybe its related to the whole Puritan-foundation strain that still seems to lie at the heart of America sometimes.

[Dorian Gray]

10. I'm thankful I live in NYC

where, if anybody had a purity ball, it would be thrown by hipsters, purely ironic, and have tons of good artisanal beers.

[get the red out]

12. True

There are places in this world where a girl is killed by her family if she loses her virginity, even through rape.

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. Has anyone ever tried a 'purity ball' for mothers and sons?

I'd be fascinated by the reaction of both those expected to take part in it, and the people pushing the father-daughter weirdness.

[newfie11]

5. Why aren't male required to be virgins?

WTH everything is down on women. It takes two to get pregnant.
Why aren't male held responsible for premarital sex as well!

[Recursion]

11. From a public health standpoint that's the bigger question

I encourage anyone who can help there...

[2pooped2pop]

13. they need virgins to sacrifice

been a lot of earthquakes n such. Need virgins. Call them fracking virgins.