It was like a pedophile’s wet dream — Jon-Benet Ramsey on steroids! Especially with the eerie paralleling of American marriage customs until the vows go down. True or not, intentional or not, the appearance of covert incest and pedophilia is NOT the impression you want to make with something like this.

If a father has to say a vow to become concerned or more concerned about his daughter’s purity, and parade his daughter’s purity before the rest of the world, he’s only making her a target. Way to go, dad.

Also, a study was recently published on the BS “abstinence only” education. It gives a sample of the program and shows that it is ineffective. I wrote about it: http://reedingandwriting.blogspot.com/2007/04/another-failed-experiment_16.html.
It sucks.

I think the admiration comes from the point that it takes a lot of willpower for any human being to be able to stick to the choice to not have sex until marriage, regardless of sexual orientation or gender.

Okay, fair enough that you aren’t favoring one gender over another, but I have to ask again what exactly your reasoning is behind this admiration. I honestly don’t understand why it’s in any way better for a person to restrict themselves to only having sex after marriage. With one person. And, given the nature of marriage laws in this country, of the opposite gender. A little limiting, don’t you think?

I’m not saying it’s just for women or religious people. I admire people that do it period. I know non-religious people that take vows of chastity, I know men that do it. It’s not solely relegated to females because they’re “evil” or “seductive”.

This post was only directed at females because the topic of purity balls…is for females. I think some of that kind of got lost in all the typing.

Why on earth? What about the wild sexism of this sort of patriarchal ritual being expected only of unmarried girls and not boys? Is there any rational (i.e. non religion-based) reason for valuing chastity before marriage in females as some sort of ideal worth applauding? Women should be given the tools and education to make sound decisions about their sexual lives, wherever their predilections and experiences take them, and understand how to protect themselves. Abstinence isn’t a method for protecting against STDs or unwanted pregnancies, it’s a method of controlling females sexual choices and thereby repressing them in favor of male sexual promiscuity. Even if this “purity” ideal were equally applied to men, it would be ridiculous. Why should we live in a world where sex is demonised unless it is sanctioned by some blessing from a sky-god (and even then not to be discussed)? Surely, a rational society would place primary importance on empowering women by making sure they understand the modern science of STDs, the proper uses of the many different kinds of prophylactics and birth controls, and methods of refusing the advances of any man who doesn’t want to use them? Sex is fun, it’s healthy and I can’t see any reason besides the limiting strictures of bronze-age religion to restrict women from (carefully) enjoying themselves.

Of course, some young women genuinely feel that they’re not ready for sex, or that for whatever reason they would prefer not to have it, and all such personal abstinence decisions should be respcted. But no more and no less than the decision of another college student to *have* safe, informed sex. Why on earth are we priviledging the morals of those who deny themselves sex for irrational reasons over those who have it because they’re curious? Shame on us for not actively promoting enough awareness in the latter group so that they know how *not* to engage in risky behavior.