Nov 16th 2006 | VAN WERT, OHIO
From The Economist print edition
Staving off the evils of sex before marriage
“YOU'RE here to celebrate the idea of purity,” intones the pastor solemnly. “You find people in the sack all the time in the movies...But God has a better plan.”
Some 40 couples showed up at a country club in the tiny Ohio town of Van Wert on November 11th—not boyfriend and girlfriend but fathers and their school-age daughters, several as young as 10, dressed up in glittery gowns and heels.
After the pastor finishes, fathers and daughters sign pledges to help keep the girl chaste before marriage. Daughters agree to “remain sexually pure until the day I give myself as a wedding gift to my husband.” Then the father gives the daughter a ring, to be worn on her fourth finger until it is replaced by a wedding band. Hugs ensue, then a prayer, and then fathers and daughters take to the floor to the strains of “Have I Told You Lately That I Love You?”
Purity balls are one of the newest ways that Christians are trying to keep their children chaste and free of sexually-transmitted diseases. The first started seven years ago in Colorado Springs, a city that is home to the lately disgraced Reverend Ted Haggard. That event is now held at a five-star hotel. This month over 200 people attended.
The concept is spreading around the country. Van Wert got its ball after the pastor and his wife moved from Albuquerque, where they had run another such event. The Van Wert ball is now in its second year, and has inspired two other nearby towns to begin their own. In Colorado Springs, Lisa Wilson, the ball organiser, says she has sent information packs to groups in 21 states and four countries—New Zealand, Sweden, France and Canada. Sponsors, including Wal-Mart and McDonald's in Van Wert, sometimes help pick up the tab for the events.
But what about the boys? Surely they bear at least half of the blame for the scourge of pre-marital sex? In Colorado Springs, Ms Wilson and her husband have created a private “manhood celebration” for their 12-year-old son. He is handed an engraved sword and urged to “grow into the weight of manhood”, which includes purity. In Van Wert, ball-goers agree that there should be an event for the boys. Which, if indoctrination of the girls works, seems a reasonable idea. Otherwise the chaste will constantly be chased.
Ok, this was probably just me, but I was thinking of those chinese worry balls, those silver orbs you roll around and round in your hands when you're stressed and putting them up into the vagina to prevent penetration until the wedding day when they'd take them out.
The whole thing reeks to me of misogyny. Like "dance with your dad now because he owns you, till the day a husband comes along and he owns you." All very creepy indeed.
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Rye wrote:The whole thing reeks to me of misogyny. Like "dance with your dad now because he owns you, till the day a husband comes along and he owns you." All very creepy indeed.
That's because it is. It's simply the sexual equivalent of a Levitican horse and cart with a couple blue LEDs tacked on.
[quote=]
But what about the boys? Surely they bear at least half of the blame for the scourge of pre-marital sex? In Colorado Springs, Ms Wilson and her husband have created a private “manhood celebration” for their 12-year-old son. He is handed an engraved sword and urged to “grow into the weight of manhood”, which includes purity. In Van Wert, ball-goers agree that there should be an event for the boys. Which, if indoctrination of the girls works, seems a reasonable idea. Otherwise the chaste will constantly be chased. [/quote]
Good FSM, the misandroginy, it burns...
"The surest sign that the world was not created by an omnipotent Being who loves us is that the Earth is not an infinite plane and it does not rain meat."
"Lo, how free the madman is! He can observe beyond mere reality, and cogitates untroubled by the bounds of relevance."
To be fair, they're probably right about that part. Everyone knows how horny sexually repressed teenaged boys are. For crying out loud, they feel guilty every time they masturbate. And most of the time, the boys are the ones pressuring for sex. And naturally, they lack the self-restraint of adults, not being adults. Yes, the boys need indoctrination, lest they continually pursue the pussy. If only there were some tool they could be educated about that would prevent 99% STDs and pregnancies. Oh well, a man can dream...
"If one needed proof that a guitar was more than wood and string, that a song was more than notes and words, and that a man could be more than a name and a few faded pictures, then Robert Johnson’s recordings were all one could ask for."
wolveraptor wrote:To be fair, they're probably right about that part. Everyone knows how horny sexually repressed teenaged boys are. For crying out loud, they feel guilty every time they masturbate. And most of the time, the boys are the ones pressuring for sex. And naturally, they lack the self-restraint of adults, not being adults. Yes, the boys need indoctrination, lest they continually pursue the pussy. If only there were some tool they could be educated about that would prevent 99% STDs and pregnancies. Oh well, a man can dream...
Which should be achieved through proper sex-education, not this kind of misogynist bullshit where the untainted female vagina is the prize for true many men.
"I do not understand why everything in this script must inevitably explode."~Teal'c
Shit, the only sex education I ever got in public school was in 5th grade when they showed us a film about puberty. The only other time it ever came up was in high school health class where they basically said, "just say no to everything".
There's something horribly wrong with the education system if a kid gets most of their sex education from the internet.
Why does he keep looking at you in the same way a starving man looks at a packet of peanuts?
It's because he can't wait to get the wrapper off and taste the salty goodness! --Kryten, Red Dwarf
I actually had a fairly comprehensive, unbiased sexual education in my High-school Health Ed class. pity it was an 'experimental' curriculum and I have no hard time believing that those responsible are no longer welcome to school board meetings.
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What they need to do is a follow-up on these boys at the "manhood" celebrations, and girls at the "chastity" balls, and see if their rates of non-intercourse sex (like oral or anal) goes up. I've at least heard that the problem with these kinds of things is that the kids simply go on to do other varieties of sex rather than intercourse, and then when they finally DO have intercourse (usually before marriage), they don't use protection.
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"Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them." -Margaret Atwood
Isn't it funny how so many cultures around the world treat rites of passage into adulthood as a triumphal event, while Judeo-Christian society treats passage into adulthood as a tragedy, to be postponed as long as possible and undertaken only with the most solemn purpose and tone, much like a funeral.
"It's not evil for God to do it. Or for someone to do it at God's command."- Jonathan Boyd on baby-killing
"you guys are fascinated with the use of those "rules of logic" to the extent that you don't really want to discussus anything."- GC
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"Viagra commercials appear to save lives" - tharkûn on US health care.
So they are creating sexually frustrated teenagers, and they ARM them, too?
As much as I like swords, but that....
A minute's thought suggests that the very idea of this is stupid. A more detailed examination raises the possibility that it might be an answer to the question "how could the Germans win the war after the US gets involved?" - Captain Seafort, in a thread proposing a 1942 'D-Day' in Quiberon Bay
Daughters agree to “remain sexually pure until the day I give myself as a wedding gift to my husband.” Then the father gives the daughter a ring, to be worn on her fourth finger until it is replaced by a wedding band.
Somehow this sort of compliant self-loathing sexism from girls is almost more depressing than misogyny from men.
There seems to be a sort of replacement of boyfriends/sex partners with the girl's father. Not only is that pretty fucking creepy, it probably sets the tone for future relationships these girls are going to have. In other words, a fundie marriage will probably be a little father-daughterish as well, with the wife being treated like a child and the husband setting the rules. And that just makes me sad.
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Chastity is a great concept but take those same girls when they are sixteen, see how many have actually had sex and even how many of them have been knocked up.
It never worked. It did not stop teenagers in the middle ages, the 1700 or 1800s, or early Twentieth century. Why do people think it will now?
"He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself."
Thomas Paine
"For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten."
Ecclesiastes 9:5 (KJV)
Kitsune wrote:Chastity is a great concept but take those same girls when they are sixteen, see how many have actually had sex and even how many of them have been knocked up.
It never worked. It did not stop teenagers in the middle ages, the 1700 or 1800s, or early Twentieth century. Why do people think it will now?
I've BEEN chaste for the past 22 years. I have yet to see ANY positive effects to the practice.
Purity balls are one of the newest ways that Christians are trying to keep their children chaste and free of sexually-transmitted diseases.
If I were organizing a Purity Ball, everyone should show up dressed in blue, if you take my meaning.
It's probably a very nice way for fathers who don't want their little angels to grow up to suffer a little more peace of mind before they have to face the fact that their kids are going to grow up and do whatever the hell they want.
Note: I'm semi-retired from the board, so if you need something, please be patient.
Nothing wrong with sex but ther chances of the woman either getting pregnant or either partner getting an STD are either zero or much lower without sex involved. That is all i am saying. The trouble is who actually practices it.
"He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself."
Thomas Paine
"For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten."
Ecclesiastes 9:5 (KJV)
Molyneux wrote:I've BEEN chaste for the past 22 years. I have yet to see ANY positive effects to the practice.
Well, there is always Rosy Palms
"He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself."
Thomas Paine
"For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten."
Ecclesiastes 9:5 (KJV)
Kitsune wrote:Nothing wrong with sex but ther chances of the woman either getting pregnant or either partner getting an STD are either zero or much lower without sex involved. That is all i am saying. The trouble is who actually practices it.
I think you have chastity confused with voluntary abstinence. Chastity implies a moral or cultural reason for giving up sex. Voluntary abstinence refers to not having sex for any number of personal or medical reasons.
Note: I'm semi-retired from the board, so if you need something, please be patient.
I think it is up to the teenagers involved, personally. All we can do as a society is educate them to the point where they have the tools to decide whether to have sex, with whom and how to do so safely.
Lagmonster wrote:I think you have chastity confused with voluntary abstinence. Chastity implies a moral or cultural reason for giving up sex. Voluntary abstinence refers to not having sex for any number of personal or medical reasons.
Well...Granted this is true, but does one not choose what influence culture has? Christians who abstain because they are Christian are not having cultural effects foisted unfairly upon them - they choose to abstain because they hold a personal value with the traditional teachings and viewpoints of Christianity. That's a personal reason if ever there was one.
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