Hat tip to Christa.
So, purity balls! Purity balls are gross. I don’t think I know a single feminist who doesn’t think that purity balls are gross. It takes what is actually a kind of lovely idea (a dad and his daughter spend some time together at a ceremony that honors their relationship) and turns it into WHAT THE FUCK NO AWFUL LAND.
To wit: having a daughter vow to be pure in front of her dad is really, really fucking creepy. Pseudo-incestuous overtones! Treating sex or any sexual activity or lust before marriage as inherently a bad thing! The idea that your best contribution to your future husband is an unspoiled vagina! The idea that what you do with your genitals is the sum total of morality, as opposed to one aspect of it, no more or less important than whether you buy fair-trade tea!
Of course, the purity ball idiocy also has a fairly crappy view of men.
Think about it. Why don’t we have purity balls for boys? Purity balls are rooted in a conservative Christian morality, and it is not like premarital sex is not a sin in conservative Christian moralities if it’s done by a man. Why don’t we see bunches of dudes pledging their purity to their mothers (or, given the patriarchal nature of a lot of conservative Christian groups, still their fathers)?
Well, certain groups do have male-only ceremonies. In the comments of the article linked above someone mentions a “Warrior ceremony” where men get swords. Yes, really. I can only hope that was a local thing, because that combination of violence and militarism and masculinity is kind of depressing. But even Warrior ceremonies don’t have the sexual overtones that purity balls do.
Partially, it’s because the women’s virginities have value. It is a Precious Gift! A Gem! A Treasure You Are Saving For The One You Love! (Of course, it’s a double-edged sword, because as soon as you have sex you’re a lollipop someone else has licked.) Male virginities, on the other hand, are just kind of like… well, you’re supposed to have one, because this is the Christian abstinence movement we’re talking about and they don’t want anyone to have sex before marriage, but it doesn’t make you a Princess Nobly Waiting For Her White Knight. You have to be a white knight and actually do things to get the woman in the first place.
There is a fuckload more cultural support for virginal women than for virginal men, and the purity ball movement plays into that. If we already have the myth of the Virginal Princess Good Girl, it’s a lot easier for the abstinence movement to play into that then to create a whole new myth of the Virginal Prince Good Guy to replace the myth of the Virgin Nerd Who Is Kind Of A Loser.
The purity balls also buy in big to the myth of uncontrollable, predatory male sexuality. Men are only after one thing; even the good ones have to wage a battle with themselves (and yes, they do use the militaristic imagery, down to the Armor of Righteousness) to repress like a motherfucker that drive to fuck everything with a warm hole. So it’s easier for them to talk to women about controlling their sexuality and maintaining purity; the men are ravenous beasts who are already kind of lost to the cause of purity.
You can also see this in the modesty parts of the Christian abstinence movement. Women are, according to some groups, not supposed to wear immodest clothing (depending on how extreme the group is, “immodest” may be anything from a miniskirt to pants). If they wear immodest clothing, then they’re presenting a stumbling-block. Never mind that none of this is in the Bible and is in fact completely antithetical to Christian morality. You cannot, for instance, get out of loving your neighbor because your neighbor is acting really really unlovable and presenting a stumbling-block and fuck if he would just trim his trees you’d be able to love him like a good Christian.
But think about the view it gives of male sexuality. Because men can take their shirts off as much as they like! That does not present a stumbling-block to women apparently. (“Oooh, baby, take it off, be my stumbling-block, you can leave your hat on.”) That’s because men are ravenous beasts, in this particular cultural myth, and women are innocent princess virgins. So you have to get women to be gatekeepers and not to be tricked into sex by peer pressure and promises of love and Teh Teevee, and then the men won’t have sex either and you won’t have to try to control their Ravening Beast Sexualities.
(Don’t think about rape. Rape doesn’t happen. Or it only happens to unchaste and immodest girls who are, as previously discussed, already-licked lollipops.)
Can you say Knight/Beast Dichotomy? I think you can.
D3: Well, see, the whole sex-positivity thing is based on a sort of mutual agreement. The agreement is that I don’t go about saying that polyamory is more evolved and anyone who isn’t poly is insecure and unable to communicate and will never have a real mature relationship, and in exchange you do not go about saying that having many partners will make you less able to love one. This is because sex-positivity is based on the premise that different sexual choices will make different people happy, and no single choice is inherently wrong or right, and therefore it is… Read more »
@Ozy What exactly do you mean by ‘value as a human being’? I suspect we are reading that very differently. I’m reading that as ‘ability to preform the task of being a human being’. To me, that includes being a loyal and dedicated spouse. Now, if I say that making choosing not to do A makes me a better person then it logically follows that choosing to do A would make a worse person. You are asking me to say that all decisions about this are equal. By my reading, this means you are actively shaming me for believing that… Read more »
Virginal Prince Good Guy=Edward from twilight?
D3, those don’t equate at all. The direct equivalent would be “If you want to have lots of unattached casual sex, fine. If you feel that your desire or decision to not have sex diminishes your value as a human being, then something has been done to you that I am NOT ok with. If you want to pass that harmful idea on to your children, then you deserve to be shamed.” Which ought to be an utterly uncontroversial statement. Also, if your personal belief system is that your virginity is something you’re saving as a gift for the person… Read more »
If you don’t want to have sex, fine. If you feel that your desire or decision to have sex diminishes your value as a human being, then something has been done to you that I am NOT ok with. If you want to pass that harmful idea on to your children, then you deserve to be shamed. “If you want to have lots of unattached sex, fine. If you feel that your decision to have lots of casual sex has made your a better person or improved your life, then something has been done to you that I am NOT… Read more »
The L: “My thoughts: As a general rule, two virgins in a bed tends to be one too many.” My thoughts: those without experience in something (sex, romantic love, kissing, anything) seek someone else who also is without experience in said thing, so they can go through all the “firsts” together. Abstinence is great, but, as has been written, it’s ridiculous that girls are made to go through this and not boys. And ridiculous that we police what girls can and can’t wear as if boys are horny animals unable to control themselves, and then turn around and encourage boys… Read more »
“It takes what is actually a kind of lovely idea (a dad and his daughter spend some time together at a ceremony that honors their relationship).” Yeah, I had a great time with my dad at Girl Scout father-daughter dances. Sex was not involved. Purity ball people, no sex involved in father-daughter relationships, please!!!! “’Warrior ceremony’ where men get swords.” Well, this kind of cracked me up. Do they promise to keep the swords clean, and neither sheath them nor over-handle them? “Me, I see feminists and others getting all bent out of shape with notions of ‘slut shaming’ but… Read more »
debaser71, quit being so disingenuous. You can’t simultaneously be “not ok with indoctrinating children” and scold Ozy for “being judgmental.” You aren’t contributing anything of substance; you’re arguing just to argue because you think feminists are Teh Evil. By telling Ozy not to judge, you are defending PURITY BALLS. Jesus, could you be any more skeezy? Also, Y HALO THERE strawfeminist! “Prude shaming” is invented in your head so you can argue with it, and it has nothing with creepy, creepy purity balls where daughters are encouraged to pledge to their fathers that their hymens will remain intact. (If this… Read more »
Ozy said, “As a kinky poly pansexual person who has casual sex, I would be equally not okay with hypothetical balls that informed teenagers that kinky poly pansexuality open to casual sex is the only correct choice” Fair enough but I’ll believe it when I see it. Most times I see people (not just you and not just feminists) freely condemning other people but then get super outraged when someone else condemns them. Me, I see feminists and others getting all bent out of shape with notions of “slut shaming” but them have absolutely zero qualms about actively engaging in… Read more »
Traditional masculine values like loyalty, honor, courage and reverence are not necessarily bad things. I don’t think anyone disagrees with that statement, just that people here attribute those to HUMAN values and not just masculine values. It’s not throwing out the narrow idea of masculinity, but expanding masculinity to include that and more, MUCH more. If traditional masculinity were just one possible way to live as man out of myriad of choices, we wouldn’t be having these discussions. To paraphrase, there are as many ways of “being a man” as there are men, IMHO.
Well, certain groups do have male-only ceremonies. In the comments of the article linked above someone mentions a “Warrior ceremony” where men get swords. Yes, really. I can only hope that was a local thing, because that combination of violence and militarism and masculinity is kind of depressing. Can somebody tell me why anything I read on this blog holds such a dim view of traditional masculinity? Yes, there are flaws to the it, including the Knight/Beast dichotomy and many other damaging myths. But the tone here seems to be to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Traditional masculine… Read more »
@Dvärghundspossen: This is not very common, but there are actually creepier forms of the abstinence movement. Like the subset known as the courtship movement. See, dating the way worldly teenagers do is sinful because it gives the opportunity for teens to be Alone Together, and if a teenage boy and girl are Alone Together, they will automatically be unable to avoid having sex. So instead, Daddy picks out the special young man for his little girl (or else, said young man asks Daddy for permission to court his Precious Little Angel), and they have supervised outings and meet at home… Read more »
At least with the whole brides of Christ thing gave oppressed women an intellectual outlet. Not that it was a good thing.
I read “balls” in the title as being like, actual physical sphereoid shaped objects. And the idea was 10000x creepier.
Anyone else still reminded of the weird (albeit much less icky) conceptualization of nuns “marrying” Jesus/God? Because this strikes me as being in that vein, like a girl pledging herself to her father, and because parent/child relationships are supposed to be nonsexual, therefore the girl remains virginal for the duration of that… relationship.
Ew ew ew I need a shower now.
Superglucose: The Christian abstinence movement certainly does, and the Bible not only erases marital rape and rape of men but encourages a woman to marry her rapist. Debaser: I am totally okay with people doing whatever they like with their own bits, including abstaining until marriage if they so choose. I am not okay with parents telling their kids that there is One Right Choice via pseudo-incestuous balls that encourage regressive gender norms. As a kinky poly pansexual person who has casual sex, I would be equally not okay with hypothetical balls that informed teenagers that kinky poly pansexuality open… Read more »
Don’t say the bible denies rape happens because being completely bass ackwards about something makes the rest of your argument much more suspect.
Regardless of what I personally think about religion and purity balls, it doesn’t deflect from the fact that the OP here is judgmental and using shaming tactics to condemn something the OP doesn’t approve of. It’s par for the course though and totally with someone’s freedom to do so. But it’s still ugly.
I’ll also point out that the way I’ve seen some mothers deal with their son’s sexuality is appalling on a whole other level.
/carry on
I would add: “Abstinence is supposedly an unconditionally good thing that can’t cause any relationship problems later!”
Wish I had heard of that one before my mid twenties. I was “good” right? Lots of angst happened over that.
“The most annoying ones for me were those who had these ideas about virginity and yet were getting frustrated that other Christians they were into had a hard time getting past it.”
Sometimes I accidentally a sentence.
Let’s try that again.
The most annoying posters on this topic were Christians who held these ideas about virginity and yet were getting frustrated that other Christians they were into had a hard time getting past the fact they were no longer virgins.
I’d echo what Danny said earlier, the problems caused by this mentality (aside from the double standards) revolve around the conceptualisation of virginity as something precious that can be lost, or given away. I’ve been lurking on a Christian message board recently, and there’s been a spate of topics on marriage, and while the gender balance of people feeling regret about having “given” away their Preciousssss is about equal, all of them display this conceptualisation. The most annoying ones for me were those who had these ideas about virginity and yet were getting frustrated that other Christians they were into… Read more »
This might sound a little lame, or at best just hopelessly nerdy, but one of the things I liked best about the recent Captain America movie was that it gave us this tough, masculine hero that you were supposed to think was awesome, and pretty clearly presented him as a virgin. They made a big deal of how Steve’s life up until that point saw him being too shy to approach women, and not being terribly appealing to them. And though it referred literally to going dancing, there was the repeated motif of him wanting to “wait for the right… Read more »
I think Vagina Dance and Cock Social would be much better names! These things are just scary scary stuff, I’m so lucky that the extent of my families religion was “Josh don’t steal, it’s not Christian”.
Ack. I pretty much bailed on all of my religious indoctrination as a kid, mostly because it seemed like a lot of logical contradictions and I hated the whole “just do it/believe because we said so!” thing that kids get all the time. But what really nixed it for me was when it became clear that my choices as a female human under this system were Virgin or Mother. No thanks, I don’t want either of those…guess I’m going straight to hell *shrug* >:) The whole obsession with sexuality in religion seems horrid and counterproductive. Telling people that “lustful thoughts”… Read more »
This is just… so fucked-up. I’ve written before that I used to hang out with baptists when I was a young teenager, and many of them believed in abstinence until marriage (for BOTH men and women), but it was supposed to be something you decided for YOURSELF or vowed to GOD, not to your PARENTS. Making a vow to your dad is just… gross. And completely sexist that only girls do it.
I’ve heard about the abstinence movement in the USA but THIS… I had no idea.
This article represents the sort of shit I escaped from. : Fortunately my parents never forced me to wear purity rings or go to purity balls. But the sex-negativity and Saving Yourself For Your Husband (whom you may not ever actually meet, thus depriving yourself of a pleasurable and natural part of life for no reason) was more or less drummed into the girls’ heads.