Rightwing Christian "Purity Balls" Mandate Sexual Abstinence For 9 Year Olds

[ruggerson]

You really can't make this shit up. The Talibornagain strikes again.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070322/lf_afp/afplifestyleussexchastity_070322082138

WASHINGTON (AFP) - 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."

The gala affairs are intended to celebrate the father-daughter relationship. The highlight is when the fathers and daughters exchange vows, with dad signing a covenant to protect his daughter's chastity by living an unblemished life and the daughter promising not to have sex until marriage

(more. much more)

[Fresh_Start]

1. Where are the purity balls for their sons?

Because the girls aren't going to stay pure unless the boys are staying pure too.

[Bucky]

37. Maybe the sons have their own purity balls.

Heh heh. "Balls".

[Liberal Veteran]

54. The sons are told not to touch their purity balls until marriage.

:D

[City Lights]

38. My thoughts too.

Maher discussed this with his panel last night, and it was the first question out of John Legend's mouth.

I guess fundie boys can screw and impregnate at will, as long as it isn't with a fellow fundie. Apparently in fundie minds, virginity is only important for girls. Kooks.

[hiaasenrocks]

51. Transcript

Father: With this ring, I thee psychologically abuse you and brainwash you.

Daughter: Dad, stop. There's a cute boy over-

Minister (to the crowd): Take this 9 year-old outside and stone her!

Crowd: Amen!

Then on Saturday night, the dads get drunk at a strip club.

[Fresh_Start]

75. maybe this is good for the girls

if their fathers are promising not to molest them.
In red america, its a significant problem.

But maybe they should make the brothers and uncles and grandfathers promise a virtuous life as well.

[PDJane]

2. does anyone find this

Just a tad incestuous?

and more than a little controlling???

[malaise]

9. Bingo

This is some crazy stuff.

[Warpy]

I find having a little girl dress like a bride and

pledge her hymen to Daddy to be beyond creepy.

Plus, our taxes are paying for this shit.

[orleans]

63. i don't know if our taxes pay for this crap or not (i can't imagine they

do)

however--from the photo caption at the link:
"Mike Parcha with his 10-year-old daughter Lora at the Broadmoor Hotel November 2006 in Colorado... "

i keep thinking little lora is going to grow up feeling rather ICKY about this
("yes, i promised daddy i wouldn't have sex until i was married and it felt like i was getting married to daddy when i promised him and now that i'm all grown up i can't get over the feeling that i engaged in some crazy shit with my father when i was a child. and i never got over the feeling of how betrayed i felt when i saw him kissing my mom")

YUCK!

and by the way

this guy really gets around:
http://pictopia.com/perl/gal?provider_id=352&photo_name=ptl%3Aafp%3Axt-mt-afp-orig_name_SGE.HRF61.220307081712.photo01

[Warpy]

69. Faith based social programs

Abstinence "education."

You bet your bippy they do.

[orleans]

76. yes, i saw that when i read the whole article. what a bunch of crap

how dare they do this?

i think these bullshit repuke "christians" are such assholes

(and so that is just another reason why i come here :D

[BlueJazz]

22. I was thinking the same thing.

[Bjornsdotter]

30. Omg, yes

....it gives me the creeps, the willies, and the heebee geebees all at once.


It's just too sick.

Cheers

[Bucky]

43. I've told my daughter I expect her to maintain her virginity....

...and the same goes for her girlfriend, too!

[Liberal Veteran]

53. I've ALWAYS found these purity balls a little on the creepy side.

Something about the "Daddy owns his little angel's virginity" is just stomach turning.

How about asking her to promise HERSELF she will decide when and who she decides to give up abstinence with?

And virginity is overrated anyway. Quite honestly, I couldn't wait to rid myself of mine and I don't miss it.

Just teach her how to decide for herself and make responsible choices and how to minimize the chances of STD's and unwanted pregnancy.

[mac56]

3. Creepy, creepy, creepy.

The girl vows TO HER FATHER to remain a virgin, and the father vows to protect his daughter's chastity...by living an "unblemished" life?!

With all the trappings of a wedding?!

This is a bad Freudian nightmare.

[ruggerson]

5. I'm still waiting for some enterprising group to bring these people

up on child abuse charges.

[Lautremont]

4. This has made the DU rounds before.

I'm not saying it shouldn't again, but I do recall that the creepiness of these affairs was actually disputed by some, and it became quite a flaming argument.

If you care to check Freepusville, as I recently did, you'll find a thread on this subject, and a rather impressive number of them used the word "creepy" as well. There are also of course the requisite number of ding-dongs who think you can and should mandate chastity to teenagers, and that daddy is the one to do it.

[ruggerson]

8. Surprised they would find it "creepy"

since the vast majority of them probably participate in these rituals.

Btw, story is dated day before yesterday, so it's current.

[journalist3072]

6. I'm not understanding what your issue is here. What's the problem?

I don't think there is any harm at all in this.

[ruggerson]

10. It's psychological child abuse

n/t

[Sparkly]

11. Having a girl pledge her virginity to her father

is twisted, in my view.

[Deja Q]

16. Ditto for NOT having one for the boys to vow chastity as well. After all,

THEY are the ones who typically make the advances.

This whole thing is the usual "blame the female for everything" psycho garbage.

[mac56]

12. And why does the daddy have to specifically protect the daughter's chastity?

Why can't daddy instead vow to protect his daughter's safety and promote her growth and knowledge?

Injecting sex into it is what makes it creepy.

[gollygee]

19. How can a 9-year-old possibly understand what it means to pledge

to remain a virgin until marriage?

[Cabcere]

21. Exactly.

When I was nine years old, I don't think I even really understood what sex meant (or if I did, I probably thought it was yucky). :shrug:

[Bjornsdotter]

31. At nine years old

....IF I thought about it, I would have thought that my parents "did it" one time....and only because they wanted to have me.

At nine, everything revolved around me....lol.

Cheers

[kestrel91316]

33. Beats hell out of me............

:shrug:

[Raine]

46. Yeah really...

when I was 9 years old I wouldn't have even known what they were talking about and when I found out I would've been repulsed by the thought of ever doing that with a boy ... :wow: :puke: :rofl:

[pnwmom]

49. But see, their 9 year olds are different. If they didn't have these balls,

they'd be running wild and having sex all over the place.

[progdonkey]

25. a few things...

First, I'll admit that I'm not sure just how damaging these things actually are psychologically to the girls involved. They're so young that they doubtfully even know what they're actually pledging or what it means. But I think you'll agree that there's a definite creepiness factor in having what amounts to a prom/wedding where the "couples" are a father and his young daughter, who has to pledge that her vagina belongs only to her daddy.

Second, according to an earlier article about these things in Glamour magazine, these girls end up with a much higher incidence of STDs and unwanted pregnancy, because when they do have sex (and likely before marriage, breaking their vow to daddy), they're so ignorant about it that they don't use any sort of contraception or protection, though that's admittedly not the result of the Purity Balls per se, but of the entire sick Christian Fundie mindset.

Check out this post at Feministing, which has a link to the video of a recent Purity Ball, where you can really see just how wrong this all is. http://feministing.com/archives/006742.html The post is from yesterday, but they've been talking about these things for years over there. They put up a link to a YouTube video of an earlier one of these things last May, which was truly disturbing, but it's unfortunately no longer at YouTube.

[immoderate]

71. Freud lives!

--IMM

[cali]

28. Yikes. There's everything wrong with this

First of all, it puts pressure on children as young as 9 who are in no way capable of entering into such a 'contract'. The guilt girls feel when they almost invariably break these vows is completely unhealthy both psychologically and physically, and as others pointed out, the incestuous overtones, the patriarchal bullshit, the pseudo marriage, are all tres creepy.

[tridim]

7. Denying human nature is a cruel punishment

and can lead to emotional problems. I saw it first hand. The more religious my childhood friends were, the more likely they were to do hard drugs and have unsafe sex in their early teens.

[Deja Q]

17. Bollocks. Humans deny human nature to each other all the time. Or worse.

Don't pin it entirely to religion either; it's the person's inability to restrain one's self, not one's religion or even lack of, that makes one problematic.

Indeed, there's a lot I could say about "human nature" but I'm striving to restrain myself.

[tridim]

23. So that makes it ok?

I'm not saying that you shouldn't talk to your kids about sex, just that you shouldn't make your daughter promise to stay a virgin at risk of eternal damnation. Or do these fundys just stone their sinful daughters to death as the bible dictates?

[catnhatnh]

13. Purity Balls...

are what I have in my pants and NOT by choice...

[napi21]

14. Bill Mahar talked about them on his show Real Time on Fri night.

Too funny! I think it's really stupid! I was raised Catholic, and attended 12 years of catholic School education. We were all taught thatsex before marriage was a sin, and most, but not all of our class believed that and practiced it as well. That's fine. But to promote some dramatic formal ball into a way to keep your daughters chaste is just stupid!

I have no problem with teaching your children to believe in what you believe in, and sometimes it will work and sometimes it won't. This foolishness sounds like...what do the uppercrust call them...Coming out parties? You know. The pictures of the debutaunts you see on the society pages of your paper. Both are equally foolish..

[Deja Q]

15. A ceremony to vow having no balls... okey dokey... that's PSYCHOTIC.

How many 9 year olds know this sort of stuff anyway? Do they think being pure is about bathing every morning?!

When's the last time you heard a 9 year old girl went out to get some balls and subsequently got pregnant? (Last I recall, it's around age 15...)

[deadmessengers]

27. Sadly enough...

About 15 years ago, I worked in an elementary school in the Bronx. One of the a 4th grade students (about 10 or so) got pregnant. As I recall, it turned out to be her mentally retarded older brother that molested her.

[Cabcere]

34. Oh wow...that is really sad.

:( I'm sorry to hear about that. I can't even imagine being pregnant at such a young age (although technically, at age 10 I couldn't have been) - hell, I can't even imagine being pregnant at my current age (21)! :scared:

[demigoddess]

18. I find it creepy also, but more to the tune of 'daddy owns his daughter's

virginity and can 'sell' it to the highest bidder as they did in the old days with arranged marriages and when even a grown woman could not marry without her father's permission. This is just a modern extention of that. Essentially they are reinforcing the idea that men own their womenfolk.
Lord, help us!!
Another over reaction to women's lib

[gollygee]

20. Yeah that's my reaction too

that daddy owns his daughter. Or at least her hymen. Lovely.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

24. Is there a purity honeymoon, too?

I mean, they not only go through a ceremony resembling a wedding, but there's even something like a wedding reception, with cake, a dance, and probably wedding reception-like entertainment. This is too creepy. It's okay for parents to have a sex talk with their kids, and even repeatedly warn them about the danger of pregancy, because young kids are always thinking about sex (at least I did when I was a kid, all day long). But adults should not get wrapped up to this intimate a degree with their kids, with fathers overseeing and supervising their daughter's genitalia on an ongoing basis. This gives me the creeps.

[KiraBS]

26. At nine I barely knew what sex was...

I certainly didn't know about whether it should be for marriage, how can a little girl even be able to understand what Chasity is and what they are promising. To them it is a nice evening with their Dad, with a pretty dress and special treats.
It is a terrible thing to do to these little girls and do the little boys have special events too, with their mother's?

[MethuenProgressive]

29. Adult males throwing a gala party over the future sex lives of 9 year old girls?

that's a ten on the scale of really weird...

[frazzledmom]

55. Yeah, high up on the wierd shit-o-meter

downright creepy...

[kestrel91316]

32. Um, why are they making sex into such a big hoohaw for 9-yr-olds??

They are just gonna make them MORE curious and inclined to rebel, IMHO.

[DawgHouse]

35. why don't they just lock on a chastity belt and be done with it?

[Hekate]

64. Right, and daddy could hold the key until she marries. Uck.nt

[BlackVelvet04]

70. Somewhat off topic.....

I saw a chastity belt on Ebay the other day. I was looking for a wide leather belt and tossed in with the results of that search was a chastity belt.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

36. "..sex is the most awful, filthy thing on earth and you should save it for someone you love."

Full quote:

"Life in Lubbock, Texas, taught me two things: One is that God loves you and you're going to burn in hell. The other is that sex is the most awful, filthy thing on earth and you should save it for someone you love." - Butch Hancock

[WindRavenX]

48. weird. When I make love with my SO, I think it's the furthest thing from "awful" and "dirty"

But maybe that's because I'm an evil heathen.

[NJCher]

39. what a stupid, self-defeating idea

They had a story on Purity Balls a couple weeks ago--CBS Sunday Morning or Today Show or some program like that. It bothered me so much I came screaming to DU. I did a search to see if it had been discussed. I found a couple references to it but no major threads.

This just creeps me out like nobody's business. Why is this "daddy's" business? Why is this parents' business at all? Why isn't the mother involved--it seems a little more her business than the father's. Why make a big deal out of something that isn't really all that much of an issue in the first place?

Why make a "public pledge?" There's something very personal about a decision like this so I don't get what taking it public accomplishes.

The father being involved smacks of control over women.

In the television segment I referred to earlier, they said the effect of the "Purity Balls" is disastrous. It has exactly the opposite effect of what they want. Girls who pledge "purity" have sex at a higher rate than those who don't.

Fundies: they created a whole new breed of rebellious nymphos. Way to go.



Cher

[Hekate]

67. The reason it backfires is because girls are told that "bad" girls use contraceptives...

...that is, they are "bad" because they are planning ahead to have sex, which is two bad things at once.

So "good girls" don't "plan" to have sex, they just get carried away in the heat of the moment.... Perfect recipe for unplanned pregnancy and even more-unplanned STDs.

That's pretty much how it used to work in the 1950s and prior eras. It led to lots of adoptable babies produced by "good girls."

Hekate

[gilpo]

40. I thought they were like benwa balls.....

:evilgrin:

[Neurotica]

41. And what about the chastity jewelry that goes along with this?

My favorite is the "lockbox" -- a charm on a necklace that a father gives to his daughter.

The father keeps the key and gives it to his daughter's husband on their wedding day.

There's so much that's wrong with this, starting with regarding women as property...

(By the way, Shelby Knox was the one on the Today Show speaking about purity balls)

[varkam]

42. Well not much surprises me from the realm of Judaeocrislam these days

I mean, why not? Don't just half-ass your crazy, really milk it!

[classof56]

44. Are these people DANCING?

When I was growing up as a hardline fundie Baptist who spent endless hours each week in church and was a whiz at "Bible drills", dancing was one of the NO-NO biggies--along with movies, "bad bookd" and of course impure thoughts. I can't begin to tell you how repressed and constantly guilt-ridden I was. Today, approaching my 7th decade of life, I'm finally coming to terms with it. Nice as it would have been to have my Deacon Daddy pay enough attention to me to attend a "purity ball" it would have been inconceivable back in those days that such a thing would happen inside the structure of the fundie church we belonged to. Not to mention, he'd be in hell by now and me close behind...

Tired Old Cynic

[Kurovski]

45. Here's a proposal for these obsessed folks, just REMOVE the balls of your offspring.

--Hear me out, now.

When the children reach maturity, send eggs and DNA samples off to a lab to be frozen.

Remove the genitalia of the children. When it's time to wed, merely have a lab produce offspring without the involvement of all that heinous sinning.

With that, peace is finally delivered to even the most feverishly fearful mind.

So easy to make the world taint-free!

(Brought to you by Holy Ovum Family Labs, makers of Gay-Away hormone patches.)

[Golden Raisin]

47. I thought the old Mary Martin song was

'My heart belongs to Daddy', not my pussy.

[Kurovski]

58. !

:rofl: :rofl:

But actually, the song is euphemistic. A prostitute's tribute to her favorite john.

Still, :rofl:

[Zywiec]

50. "Purity Balls" Mandate Sexual Abstinence For 9 Year Olds

Yeah this is crazy. I think 9 year olds should be thinking for themselves!

:sarcasm:

[kiahzero]

56. It's more of "It's a psychological guilt trip."

It's not so much a problem when the girl's 9, but what about when she turns 19? She's always going to have the psychological notion that she's dirty / bad for being human.

[Forkboy]

52. Future Girls Gone Wild

[slj0101]

57. How many 9-year-old girls are even THINKING about sex yet?

:eyes:

Like I stated in another thread on the subject, this has Electra Complex written all over it.

[kevinbgoode]

59. Given the sexual dysfunctional history of many of these loons. . .

I'd wager that idea is more about daddy than anything else.

[bluedawg12]

60. Followed by shame killings

Paternalism gone amuck.

The little girl is not her own self she belongs to daddy as property. Of course incest is NOTHING to worry about!!!!!????? YUK.

Pariarichical turning into the Taliban.

They exchange a ring too, verrry creeepy. And share wedding cake?

http://generationsoflight.myicontrol.com/generationsoflight/index.cfm?ID=C7D9C98F-F39B-4721-82312665A131C364
What is a Purity Ball?
The Father Daughter Purity Ball is a memorable ceremony for fathers to sign commitments to be responsible men of integrity in all areas of purity. The commitment also includes their vow to protect their daughters in their choices for purity. The daughters silently commit to live pure lives before God through the symbol of laying down a white rose at the cross. Because we cherish our daughters as regal princesses—for 1 Peter 3:4 says they are “precious in the sight of God”—we want to treat them as royalty.

"As all the dads stood to read the covenent over their daughters, I felt the power of those words sink right into my heart. My father pledged to protect me and promised to lead a life of integrity and purity for me. He signed his name and I signed as a witness to his words. And as he escorted me to the dance floor I felt empowered by his promise to spend the rest of his life warring for my heart through his life of purity. And I knew my life would never be the same..."









7th Annual Purity Ball

They are sexualizing their daighters sorry, but mommy should be there otherwise she's just dating daddy!

[NJCher]

65. take a stroll around that site

There's a link to further comments under their "What People are Saying" link:

http://www.glamour.com/talk/blogs/comments/2007/02/would_you_pledg.html

Some of the comments are pretty interesting. I liked the one by the guy from Las Vegas.

I'm sure if the fundie purity ball people saw what people think of their nutzo pledge, they'd remove that link.

Also, look at the picture of the father in BlueDawg's post. The guy is in dreamland! I agree with the poster upthread who said this is all about daddy.

The last time I got this squeamish over something was when they had some Dateline-type shows on about Mormons and polygamy.

Yech. Time to change topics. I'd rather read about Gonzo being gonzo.



Cher

[LibDemAlways]

61. What kind of a sick-o is obsessed with

the thought of his little girl's future sex life in the first place? And where are the moms? If my husband suggested something so off-the-wall, I'd make sure he got help. He'd need it.

[KingFlorez]

62. It's ridiculous and bizarre

It's obsessive and sick for a father to want his daughter to pledge this. It makes no sense at all.

[Hekate]

66. Whatever happened to mommy talking to her daughter about where babies come from?

Whatever happened to mommy talking to her daughter about where babies come from on an ongoing basis? There IS such a thing as age-appropriate sex education, after all.

You just start young (baby grows in a special place in mommy's tummy, and when you grow up to be a woman, etc); and later on become a bit more informative (when the mommy and daddy decide they want a baby, the daddy plants a seed -- no need yet to say how he does that).

It's completely appropriate for parents to place baby-making in the context of marriage -- it certainly lets kids know they're parents expect them have long-term goals like going to college.

But it's stupid not to tell them how babies are made by the time they're 9 or 10, and how to prevent getting pregnant or getting STDs by the time they're 12 or 13.

Kids need this information before their hormones kick in, so they can make decisions about their behavior that will keep them safe -- that's the kind of thing that will empower girls from within themselves.

The Purity Ball notion may be well-intended, but it removes both personal responsibility and personal empowerment from girls and places it on a male authority figure, Daddy, who seems to want his little girl to stay a little girl and not grow up.

This is where it goes wrong, imo. That's where that creepy incestuous sensation is coming from.

Hekate

[Swamp Rat]

68. Oh... when you said "Rightwing Christian Purity Balls" I thought you meant:

[JitterbugPerfume]

72. this is sick ,on so many levels

considering the amount of incest there is among those uptight people

The rate of pregnancy among Fundy girls is WAY high. The best way to encourage a behavior among young kids is to forbid it

[BlackVelvet04]

73. I agree that these purity balls are creepy

for many reasons.....I think many of the girls are too young to be thinking about sex, I don't think children should take oaths about something they don't understand, fathers don't own their daughters, etc. etc. Having said all of that I think that it is over the top to demonize these fathers. I'm sure many of them were talked into this with the idea being to be involved in the upbringing of their daughters. I don't agree with it but I think it's very "republican" to demonize those you disagree with.

There are actually Biblical reasons that this is wrong....the Bible (New Testament) admonishes believers to not take an oath. Why are these children being admonished to do something the New Testament expressly condemns?

[gravity]

74. "Purity balls" sound like a gag gift that you buy at Spencer's.

I can never take the concept seriously, it sounds like a big joke. I bet none of the girls take the concept seriously once they turn 16 either.