![]() ![]() "Flowery language and valorizing these days doesn’t change what purity balls are about: the ownership and fetishizing of young girls’ sexuality. "Are families who don’t expect their daughters to promise their virginity to their dads promoting sex for 12 year-olds? Can’t dads be engaged in the lives of their daughters without worrying about the state of their hymen? And is telling women that their moral compass lays in between their legs really setting the bar high? Founded by the evangelical Randy Wilson and his wife Lisa in Colorado Springs, the idea has spread across 48 states and 17 countries since its founding in 1998. The goal seems less about making judgments than about making memories."į had this take on the Time story: They are also common fixtures at Purity Balls, a formal gala young women attend with their fathers that is intended to promote purity and sexual abstinence. Whatever guests came looking for, they are likely to come away with something unexpected. ![]() ![]() "Leave aside for a moment the critics who recoil at the symbols, the patriarchy, the very use of the term purity, with its shadow of stains and stigma. "So what, exactly, does all this ceremony achieve?" reads the story. Yet Time’s glowing account of the Colorado Springs ball barely touched on those issues. And some studies show that teens who make abstinence pledges tend to break them and then don’t use condoms during intercourse. Randy Wilson, who founded the Colorado Springs purity ball, has drawn loads of criticism for his event detractors say that it teaches women not to take responsibility for their own sexuality. ![]() The event is laden with symbolism girls dressed as little brides take a white rose in hand and join their fathers in prayer beneath a wooden crucifix flanked by a pair of crossed swords. The ball, which takes place in the Broadmoor hotel each year, is a kind of glorified daddy-daughter dance, where girls make a ceremonial virginity pledge to their fathers. Other studies, however, show that deep father involvement in a girl's life increases her self-esteem and delays sexual experimentation.Īll things considered, purity balls are probably less a threat to women's sexual self-agency than the culture that has spawned them.Colorado Springs’ legendary - and media-friendly - purity ball received a rhapsodic write-up by Time magazine last week. Apparently, members of the virginity crowd sometimes trip on the light fandango and, surprised by passion, are unprepared. What, fathers worry?Ĭritics of abstinence-only attitudes and education inevitably cite a study that found that kids who take virginity oaths are at greater risk for STDs than are those who have been exposed to sex ed. In a culture where 46.7 percent of students will be sexually active before high school ends, there are also 5 million to 6 million new cases each year of human papillomavirus, which is associated with cervical cancer. But they might think it's dangerous, and statistics on STDs and emotional dysfunction among teenage girls support their concerns. Nowhere have I heard or read that these Christian men think sex is dirty. Girls are going into marriage with 12 sexual relationships. (video included), one of many purity balls held around the country at which daughters promise their virginity to their fathers until marriage. Nevertheless, a women's studies professor writing for USA Today expressed her concern that such pampering comes at the price of the daughters' "sexual self-agency." She also asserted that the underlying premise of the balls is "the age-old assumption that sex is dirty: hence the infantilizing conflation of 'purity,' or sexual innocence, and ignorance." The Purity Ballacts as an opportunity to empower young women to pursue sexual integrity and offers parents the resources needed to have genuine conversations with their children about relationships, setting boundaries, technology and more. Pledges and Power: At Purity Balls, Fathers Hold the Key DecemThe Chicago Tribune reports on a purity ball in Peoria, Ill. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |