By now, most of us are familiar with the general concept of a Purity Ball: It’s usually a formal event where a father pledges to protest his (usually pre-teen) daughter’s purity - be that in the form of her innocent mind or her pristine hymen. You want it so clean you could, like. Eat off it. You know? It’s a trend that’s proven quite popular among young girls in the U.S. To wit:

In fact, one in six girls aged between 12 and 18 is estimated to have taken a “purity” pledge. Some wear a silver ring to signal their intention to remain chaste, but others take the concept much further, vowing to be pure in all aspects of their behaviour.

Khrystian, a 21-year-old musician with long blonde hair, explained: “Purity for me is purity of the mind, purity of speech. It’s what I spend my time doing: emotional purity in the heart. It’s a complete wholeness. I have chosen a higher standard for my life.”

Which is kind of a presumptuous thing, really, for Khrryxsstianne to declare. Who says that, at 21, choosing not to have sex is subscribing to a higher standard than a 21-year-old who chooses to partake in things like, oh… giving someone a rusty trombone while he recites the Pledge of Allegiance? Or choosing not to pose in seriously disturbing staged prom photos with her father? And, hey! What do fathers have to say about wanting to secretly have sex with their daughters anyway? Oh, we’re joshing. Let’s clear this up with Khrstiayelleanne’s dad, Randy Wilson:

“There is a core question that women have in their being, and that is: ‘Am I beauti-ful? Am I worthy of being pursued?’ ” he explained. “It must be enforced by the father, the man in their life. If they do not get that reinforced by the father, they will go outside the home to get the answer to that question.”

We’re trying really hard to maintain some semblance of relativism here, but. Damn, no. “Am I beautiful?” is not the core question women have “in their being.” It might be a question many of us find ourselves asking because, say, our fathers emphasized beauty and purity over intellect and knowledge. But its not inherent to our ladyperson-ness to ask such questions.

Also upsetting is the notion that Purity Balls are somehow an equivalent to Quinces parties. If anything, a Quinces is most like a Debutante Ball. You’re being presented, at least in the historical understanding of the event, to society as a young lady. A marriageable young lady, perhaps, but more so one that is self-possessed, who is ready to present herself as her own person and not as her parents’ child. The focus is not on her purity, but with her ability to define for herself what that word means anyway. It’s telling that this happens at 15 and not, say, when a girl is 9 or 10.

Writes one mom who has her own qualms about Purity Balls:

Although I fully expect a certain amount of friction between us regarding her choices of boyfriend somewhere along the line, Honestly I think I’ll have failed as a parent if my daughter were to remain a virgin when she got married: Men shouldn’t be something for teenage girls to fear. Yes, unwise choices of sexual partners can be harmful, even dangerous for an unlucky few. Equally, for a vast majority of sane, stable, sensibly brought-up girls they can be educational, and quite a bit of fun. A lot more fun, I would suggest, than a sinister novitiate virgin ritual.

What we take away from all this is that this rigorous focus on purity and virginity and abstinence actually works to emphasize sex in a young person’s life and shroud it in — an often alluring — aura of mystery. Eleven-year-old girls who elect, or are expected to, lay down a white rose on a cross and pledge to refrain from sex until marriage have already thought a lot more about themselves as sexual beings than we did at age eleven. We were concerned with the breakouts on our nose, getting out of having to do PE and worrying whether we had so much homework because our teacher secretly hated us. We weren’t too concerned with making pledges or important decisions about our sexual life.

And, you know. Maybe our timeline doesn’t work for everyone. But at least our parents didn’t force it upon us. We chose to be Satan-sexing heathen whores on our very own.

A virgin army proclaiming the thrill of the chaste [Times Online]
I hope my daughter isn’t a virgin when she marries [Alpha Mummy]