I grew up in southern Alberta, Canada, where wacky religion rules.  I don’t recall any purity balls as a kid, but that was only because the assholes who ran things like the school boards and churches obviously didn’t think of it.  Apart from purity balls they did everything they could to prevent young people reaching sexual enlightenment and maturity.  It took me far too many years to recover from the damage they did me, and if I could put names and faces on those responsible even now, you can bet they would be hearing from me or my lawyers.  This is perhaps the darkest side of the neoconservative, Christian extremist movement and you are to be congratulated and thanked for helping to expose it.  The one thing I must thank the assholes for, however, is the firm streak of defiant rebellion they instilled in me.  Today I am a hedonist and a Marxist and will remain so the rest of my life.  That’s the kind of mindset they create in their young, and for that perhaps all the creepy assholes deserve some kind of recognition.

Retarded! Completely retarded.

Hey thanks for posting this. I picked up a copy of the SF Chronicle today and there was a piece about purity balls so incoherent and unintelligable, I had lost 10 IQ points by the end…

Certainly this whole thing superficially look likes an experiment in Westermark sexual imprinting gone completely astray, but Im wondering if anyone has attended one? I would point out other superficially bizarre customs that are even more crazy sounding: Jewish circumcision rituals come to mind. How does a bunch Jews standing over a naked baby while a rabbi fingers and then cuts off penis parts somehow rest more comfortably in your minds??

Im not saying its right, but it seems no one really wants to try to understand it as much as simply damn it as creepy. There is a thinly veiled political goal here and Im calling shenanigans on you all.

Of course teachers sticking condoms on cucumbers in front of 10 year olds is not equally creepy, or better yet a bunch of gay guys wanting to adopt little boys to “raise.”

hahaha, too rich. You make yourself all look like asses.

I like how the one thumbnail pic is a pic of a girl’s ass.

I’m sure the young sons - you know the equals to the young daughters - are taking and making the same pledge to their mothers.  Of course they are!  This is really sick and oh so controlling, and how many of those fathers were virgins when they married?

I don’t mean to preach, but again, why does it bother you if people are trying to stay pure for their husbands?

There’s certainly nothing wrong with abstinence. But why must it be FOR anyone but the girl’s own self?  What’s creepy is the idea that a woman must always be controlled by a man - first by her father, and then by her husband, and the transfer is from one to the other.  Notice that there aren’t parallel ceremonies for the boys.

I understand that for those engaging in these parties it’s a religious idea, tied up with the strict gender separation and the idea of women as “helpmeets” and all the rest of it, but yes, for someone on the outside of all that, it’s just bizarre.

Lately it’s downright faddish, the purity balls, the promise rings, the virginity pledges, courtship and betrothal, all of that.  Of course, most of these practices are new - the parents having their children do them did not, in fact, come up under similar strictures. They dated!

Saying a half assed pledge like this isn’t going to keep these girls from having sex. I should know. I was raised in a Southern Baptist family, got dragged to church twice a week, my mom was a good little virgin when she got married and I got the whole talk - nice girls don’t act like that, if you have sex before you get married the other kids at school are going to talk about you and think you’re a slut.

I was deeply concerned about what my mother thought of me - word to the fathers - I didn’t give a shit what my daddy thought of me - he was a domineering jerk. And I cared about what the kids at school thought. But that didn’t keep me from having sex. I just went to MUCH greater lengths to hide my activities.

Know what I did - all you christian conservatives who are so damned obsessed with your daugheters purity? When I was 14 I started experimenting sexually with a 28 yr. old man who lived down the street from me. Yep - 14 and screwing a 28 yr old man.

Why? Because it allowed me to preserve my outward appearance of being the good, pure christian girl my parents wanted me to be, nobody would know what a little slut I was - because what man in his right mind would actually admit to bedding a 14 yr old? And I got to satisfy all my NATURAL curiosity about sex and my raging hormones.

I can tell you right now - you’re precious little girls are going to go out and have sex one way or another. If my parents attitude had been more relaxed, if they had let me know that, even if I did have sex before marriage, that they wouldn’t love me any less, be disappointed or ashamed of me, things would have turned out different.

If they hadn’t made me feel so damned guilty about my natural curiosity and my desires - I never would have taken so many potentially dangerous risks, sneaking around behind their backs, having sex at such a young age.

You people thinks that by taking your little girls to these balls, that it will make them feel cherished enough, or guilty enough, that they’ll remain virgins until they marry. Well it won’t. All you are doing is sending them the message that your love is conditional, that they can’t come to you with questions, or acknowledge their own sexuality without getting another chastity lecture.

You are driving them into the arms of some boy or man who could end up abusing them physically, raping them or leaving them pregnant. I was lucky. The man I was with was very good to me. He didn’t belittle me for my ignorance, or make me feel ashamed for my curiosity. He always used condoms when we had sex - but I’m the exception to the rule. There’s a good chance that your daughter won’t be as lucky as me.

In #8732, Polyanski asks: “I don’t mean to preach, but again, why does it bother you if people are trying to stay pure for their husbands?”

The use of “pure” implies, of course, that if a woman has sexual intercourse, EVEN ONCE, she is IMPURE.

Loading the sex act with perjoratives such as this is such a prejudical and ignorant attitude that it’s difficult to even address it. Christians are used to this garbage though… they’re all brainwashed to believe they are BORN sinners and therefore must spend their entire lives begging forgiveness from their imaginary “friend” so they can go to heaven.

It’s hard to believe there are still some Neanderthals padding around the planet with such nonsense filling what they use for brains.

To answer Polyanski’s “why does it bother you” question… IT BOTHERS ME BECAUSE WHAT THESE YOUNG MEN AND WOMEN DO WITH THEIR BODIES AND THEIR LIVES IS SIMPLY NOBODY’S BUSINESS BUT THEIRS! This INCLUDES PARENTS. Do you HEAR ME?

“The fathers place their hands on their daughters”

Euugh, creepy as hell.

Miss America 1958, Marilyn Van Derbur, came out at a similar debutante ball with her proud Christian Daddy by her side, the Daddy who had been incesting her since she was four years old.

And while these young women are being instilled with values and morals and conviction to higher purpose at their prom, your daughters are drinking, drugging, cursing, and fucking their “I have the right to be just like my whorish 3 or 4 times married mother”, brains out. They either set a pattern of behaviour of morality or they don’t.
These are not your children(fortunately) so stop trying to infect everyone else with your filth and perversion as you have your children.

Now you know why we are seen as the Great Satan.

Trash is as trash does.

You got to be kidding me right? What are these people thinking about father’s daughters telling them to keep their virginity until marriage..yeah when pigs fly!

Isn’t it strange that those right wing “Christians” have at least one thing in common with Muslims or Muslims fundamentalists(or even the 9/11 terrorists):
They are both obsessed by virgins.

I saw a TV story on this thing. It is beyond creepy, though it certainly is that. Sort of a very perverted wedding ceremony, with the intimidated girl staring into her father’s eyes and making this stupid vow. Really, really, sick! Totally abusive, and sort of incestuously perverted.  I’m sure you’ll see this in your area. All this crap is a result of the climate of fear which this administration loves to feed. Country has gone nuts! People have to conquer their fears, recognize the insanity, speak out and say this is all nonsense.

Slippin’ away, sittin’ on a pillow
Waitin’ for night to fall
A girl and a dream, sittin’ on a pillow
This is the night to go to the Purity ball

Satin and lace, isn’t it a pity
Didn’t find time to call
Ready or not, gonna make it to the city
This is the night to go to the Purity ball

Dress up tonight, why be lonely?
You’ll stay at home and you’ll be alone
So why be lonely?

Sittin’ alone, sittin’ on a pillow
Waitin’ to climb the walls
Maybe tonight, depending how your dream goes
She’ll open her eyes when she goes to the Purity ball
Celebrate, celebrate, dance to the music
Celebrate, celebrate, dance to the music
Celebrate, celebrate, dance to the music

Many apologies to Three Dog Night, their fans but it was just too easy to pass up.

The daughters should ask Dad if he had sex with Mom before marriage.

I’m guessing that very few of you have daughters. Hey, it’s the thought that counts—there’s nothing wrong with trying to instill the idea of purity and chastity in your daughters. I don’t understand why you all have a problem with this. Does it bother you that some people might want to save themselves for marriage? Okay, this ceremony might have been a little heavy-handed, but again, why is this so bothersome to you all? If I had a daughter, I would be so scared, with today’s society. It’s pretty depraved, and people are encouraged to flaunt their sexuality like it’s a be-all, end-all. I have known some couples who were chaste at marriage and they overwhelmingly seem to have the best marriages and family life. I don’t mean to preach, but again, why does it bother you if people are trying to stay pure for their husbands? What is this to you? How does this affect you?

They’d do a lot better to have an open and sensible talk about sexual responsibility. As a former stupid teenager, I learned about sex the old fashioned way - through the encyclopedia! Remember, knowledge is power! Seriously, ya gotta love that old double standard of the virgin bride with the experienced groom who’s going to teach her how its done. Like liz said, the emphasis is on the daughters, not the sons, and that is totally bogus. I think its just that they believe that sex is fundamentally wrong and dirty, and they are scared to death that their precious little girls might want to get down with the nasty. Of course, if one of their sons were to bang some floozy, well, boys will be boys. I guess since he can’t get pregnant it doesn’t matter.

I once read a study that stated that teens who took virginity pledges were 6 times more likely to have anal sex and 4 times more likely to have oral sex than their peers who did not take such pledges. These are the same people told things such as “condoms don’t work” (so why bother using them?) Given a choice in the matter, I would prefer my children to have safe sex before marriage than to have unsafe anal or oral it’s-doesn’t-count-because-no-broken-hymen-sex. In another decade we’re going to hear a lot about “virgins” who’ve contracted herpes or AIDS, or who have discovered that throat infection they’ve had for so long is chlamydia.

Sex, like evolution, doesn’t “care” what one professes about it, it just works regardless, for the sake of ourselves and our Posterity.

The obvious question for the daughters to ask in return is whether ther fathers were virgins until they got married. MJ

These girls are below the age of consent. They can not voluntarily give their consent to any vow because they are simply not mature, wise or knowlegeable enough to even begin to know what such a vow means at that age. Wait until they are eighteen and then ask them to make the vow. But by then they can think for themselves and would not give their consent.

I have one thing to say: shades of JonBenet Ramsey come to mind here.

And the fathers are showing way to much interest in their daughter’s sexuality, when most fathers don’t want to know when their daughters become sexually active.

What I see is a growing number of pedophiles and they’re going to home grow their victims so there’s less likelihood of them getting caught and sent to jail, unless the mother complains.  In fact, the mothers should be seeing red flags regarding their husband’s concern about the sexuality of their daughters at such an early age.

When are they going to do the same for their sons?

With the perverted underage sexual acts that most of the religious leaders are performing you would think this dance should be aimed at the male children.

I am not a very religious person, but seeing everyday culture of USA, poisoned with sex-frantic MTV’s hysteria, with teenagers pressioning their own friends to be sex-empowered, “are you gonna be virgin forever” asks a 14 year old girl to a 13 one, and etc, does not surprise me that these other kind of weird events take place in such a country.

“because sex has been made such a deep taboo.”

I wonder how can you still say such a nonsense in the world we live in. You are way out of context, teenagers today engage on sex more frequently than in any other era. To prove this we have numbers: despite the fact of investigations of contraceptives have taken a huge step last years and everybody have access to them, (and we all use them) pregnant girls are younger and younger. What “taboo” are you referring? Perhaps Playboy is still a too much taboo mag? Have you seen comercials lately? They are full of sex!

Hey I am not puritanist. But please, OPEN YOUR EYES.

This is a good example of what will happen to America if the crazy Christian evangelicals are not stopped in time.

Who exactly will check hymens at the door?

So maybe you’ll say this is taking a piece of wingnut foolishness too seriously - but to me, the father of three daughters, this is some sick shit. Never have I seen a more thinly-veiled expression of fathers’ desire to either fuck their daughters or make sure the daughters don’t fuck until Daddy says it’s OK. It is WAY too much parental intrusion into the personal lives of children and young adults. And besides, it isn’t going to work (as the survey above says) because, as everyone who has ever raised a teenager of either gender knows, the best way to make SURE a teen does something is to forbid it. And wingnut-raised kids are no different, in fact are probably worse, because sex has been made such a deep taboo. These people are really twisted.

One more thing - doesn’t the name “Purity Ball” sound like a contradiction in terms?

These fathers are way, WAY too worried about their daughters’ “naughty bits” (to quote Monty Python) and what they do with them.

Is anybody checking these guys out?

Wait a minute!  Big-time double standard here.  Is there no Generations of Light Purity Ball for mothers and sons?  Boys in tuxes ringed by mothers in white chiffon - what a picture. Other than that lovely picture might all those abstaining girls drive all those sex-starved boys into the gay life?  Beware of unintended consequences.

I was going to comment but for the life of me, after a half hour of writing and erasing, I can’t think of any PC way to convey the profound contempt I feel toward these ignorant control freaks posing as parents.

Training and certification should be made mandatory for all those intending to raise children. In America, where you can’t even do a manicure without a license, you can produce and screw up as many litters as possible and NOBODY can lift a finger to stop you. Not only that, you can get the public to pay through the nose to provide for them! SWEET!

At least the girls get to werar cute dresses. That’s all a girl that age really cares about. Come to think of it… wearing a pretty dress is all most girls think about.

yes.. i am a girl, And I do care about wearing pretty dresses.

OMG! Way too funny, just another weird shit story about the Religious Right.