Purity Balls are making the world better, one father-daughter union at a time. On Monday night I watched a documentary at my mom’s place on purity balls. Although I’ve always had an aversion to the idea of abstinence until marriage, this was all just creepy. Apparently 1 in 6 girls pledges their virginity to their father. A thousand questions started to pop up in my head – what if their dad dies? Are they home free? How good is that first honeymoon sex? How can they know they’ve found a good relationship if they don’t know if the sex is satisfying? …etc.
The things the girls were saying were pretty repulsive like “I’ve chosen a higher standard in my life” and “I wouldn’t want to bring anything unhealthy into my body.” That unhealthy thing, being a relationship that is toxic. They even went as far as to compare a bad relationship, where someone suffers because of a broken heart…to cancer. Yes. Cancer. I guess I’ve had the equivalent of cancer. How can someone learn to deal with pain, develop a mature attitude toward love and compare different men/women in the world without…”shopping around” so to speak. Having a broken heart is a part of life. It happens. And I find it pretty insulting that I am living a lower standard of life because I’ve chosen to have sex before marriage. That’s just rude. -_-
There is a long line of events that has to happen before that cherry can be popped. First the girl has to let the male meet their father. Their father has to approve of the male. They have to group date with other people. Then all those group dating have to group date with their parents. Then the male has to ask the girls father for their hand in marriage. Then finally, on the wedding day… after the “i do”s…they can have their first kiss. These girls don’t even kiss before marriage. Their first kiss is at the alter, before God, their father and their family… pledging themselves to one another. I don’t know about everyone else, but it took me a lot of kissing to perfect it all. I’d hate for my wedding day kiss to be that awkward first kiss.
Besides the fact that this all seems somewhat perverted, incestual and against basic biological urges, I have a few other issues. The first in the notion that if a girl doesn’t have a father in her life, they she is going to be royally messed up as she’s growing up and when she is grown up. And more ridiculously, she won’t be able to form any sort of normal, healthy relationship. Most people know this, but for those who don’t, I was basically raised without a father. He died when I was 8, so my sister and I both didn’t have a father. …But guess what? I am in a normal, healthy, loving, nurturing and beautiful relationship. And my sister is too. I can see why not having a father figure in someones life might have them miss out on a few life experiences and might mess a few things up. However – the lack of a father does not lead to a slutty, mislead, screwed up young woman. And I’m sorry – but if I had to pledge my virginity to my father, that would mess me up in so many different ways than the loss of my father did.
I have some friends that took this purity vow.
Case one: she met a guy, dropped out of university 2 months later and married him within the next 6 months. They’re up for divorce after a year.
Case two: she met a guy and married him after 7 months and had 3 kids within the first 1/2 a year. she had to drop out of university and lives in poverty because niether of them can get a job.
Case three: they actually got pregnant before they were married and were thus ostracized from their church, family and circle of friends. her mother didn’t go to her wedding.
Case four: he met a young lady, and had to go on 5 dates with her father before he was allowed to take her on one date. again, they married within three months and divorced after less than 1.5 years.
My point – they get married too fast, they get confused, they get tangled up in this idea that for some reason because they’re not having sex in those first few months that it means they’ve gotten to know each other better than those who DO have sex…because instead of screwing they spend more time talking and getting to know one another. …But given the divorce rate that I’m seeing, rushing into marriage just to have sex isn’t really worth it. (or is it…? i guess it depends how much the wedding costs…)
These kids are getting married after dating for less than a year. They end up dropping out of university to start a family, but then get divorced after there is a kid involved so its hard to just go back to school and start your life where you left off. It’s scary.
And finally, the most screwed up thing that I heard on this documentary: if they date someone else, have sex with someone else or kiss someone else other than the person that they end up marrying it is cheating. It is breaking a 10 commandment – committing adultery. Because they are GOING to be married to that person in the future, they can’t kiss anyone else before they meet that person, because it would be cheating on the person they’ve never actually met and who may not actually exist – or who may be the person that they didn’t kiss and didn’t feel that incredibly “za za zoo” for. Sometimes an unexpected kiss can be the thing that opens your eyes to the beauty of a person.
But no, if you kiss another person, or love someone else before the one that you are destined to be with then you have given away parts of your heart. Parts of your heart that you can never get back, and thus when you get married and find “the one” you will be unable to give them all of your heart and all of your love because you’ve given some of it away already.
That is so. screwed. up. …And essentially what I would deem as child abuse, again. Fair enough that some of these girls are 18 – 25 years old. ..Fine. If they want to give the rights of their vagina to their father, let them. Its their loss. But there were girls as young as 4 – 12 at these things. Thats a scary age to be telling kids that by experimenting, dating and loving people before they are married is committing adultery and that they thus should pledge their life to their father. And let him be the one that she loves until he decides that shes met the right man. …ew.
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You missed the key thing with your four case studies: they aren’t True Christians ™ obviously. That or God was testing them (perhaps some failed). Really, at the end of the day the world is a better place. It just depends how you define better.
So um, do they do “purity pledges” for boys?
Why is the virginity pledge to the father? Why not the mother? Is it in accordance with the holy bible that males are the owners – of everything – including oxen donkeys wives and slaves? So a successful farmer who’s bred a healthy heifer can bestow it on another male of his choice. Why do women accept this ancient desert lore tripe?
I’m a Christian, albeit a liberal socialist Christian. Not an ancient desert Hebrew. I think this is pretty damn nuts too.
This is an example of going so overboard to avoid one potential pitfall that one commits another one.
Just thought I would say hi and throw in a little different perspective in comments.