How my nephew’s remained abstinent with his girlfriend of 4+ years I’ll never know. I commend him for it but I just don’t get it. I don’t know if he ever went to an integrity ball but I somehow doubt it. Now that he’s recently graduated from high school, I should start asking his sister if she’s ever gone to a purity ball. They’re not the ultra-fundie crowd and don’t keep their heads buried in the sand — the church they started is the only one I could really ever attend, non-theist or not — but I could definitely see my niece ending up at one of these things.

-signing a pledge at the age of nine that I would not date, only court (talk about narrowing the playing field)
-minimizing my exposure to sexual temptation by my strong conviction that waiting for marriage was best and refusing to be involved with anyone who felt otherwise
-awkward, minimum interaction with guys (so much easier to not have sex when there’s no convenient partner)
-massive guilt about pleasuring myself (youth groups, in my experience, talk about this like it’s only related to guys, making girls wonder what’s wrong with them–I know of at least one girl who didn’t consider herself a virgin because she masturbated)
-disgust with believers who put more emphasis on virginity for women than they did for men
-at times, plenty of loneliness
-never being dependent on the approval of a boyfriend and having plenty of time to develop my own interests and to consider what I wanted in a relationship
-eventually falling madly in love with a wonderful man (who was also a virgin), and so much frustration in trying to keep our hands off each other, resulting in the preservation of a mere technical virginity till I married him
-physically painful intercourse once I officially lost it–things have improved steadily and we are happily married but it doesn’t work itself out naturally as easily as I expected

Can I give up golf, instead?

So, I waited until marriage to enjoy sex, because I learned from my parents how great marriage can be. When they were mad at each other, they were funny. Mom was Dad’s great love of his life. He met her after she had a secret baby alone in a big city, far from her hometown in the country that would have been scandalized by her affair with a married man. She was having a hard time, since her baby was adopted and she was trying to move forward in her life. When she told him about the baby, he reacted with compassion and love, first of all offering to be the baby’s father if it wasn’t too late to change her mind about the adoption. He was a college student and they both were dirt poor, living at a YMCA. But getting married and being a parent didn’t cause him to balk.

Mom decided that the child was better where she was. Dad felt otherwise. They got married and later had me and three other siblings. When I was in college, I found out I had an older sister who was adopted and searched for her birth parents. It was a joyful reunion.

But it highlighted even more to me what real love is like–my dad really adored my mom from the heart. I knew that they had a special relationship before the truth about Mom being a birth mom, and I was even more convinced after they told me.

When we were alone, Dad confided to me that they should have gotten the baby back, and he greived the loss of her as much as Mom did. He also told me that if wasn’t for Mom having to leave her hometown to have a baby secretly in a big city, he would have never met her and if that hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t be here. Dad is from Hawaiian culture where children are considered blessings, not inconveniences or bastards if they are born out of wedlock. Dad is also spiritual, who believes that everyone has a destiny. He also is a very moral person without being hung up on religiousity or piousness.

Mom told me that it was best to wait until marriage, but if I chose not to I should get ready. I wanted the best. I believed I was worth the best. I could not imagine giving myself to someone who would love me less than my father loved my mother. He took care of her when she was sick and was there when she died in their bed at home. They were both 64 at the time. He is now 72 and married to one of Mom’s friends.

And I married an honorable man who loves and respects me, he is worth the wait. Before he became a Christian in the Navy, he spent many ports of call drunk at bars and visiting prostitutes and even caught a veneral disease which was treated promptly. After he became a Christian, he chose to spend his time off the ships touring points of interest in the countries they docked at as well as doing work helping orphanages and visiting the local churches and making friends with local people. He stayed abstinent since he was 21 until we married when he was 33 (I was 27). I knew him to be a man of incredible integrity and honor, many of the qualities that I thought my dad possessed.

Really, if these fathers really cared about their children–sons and daughters–they would do best to show their mothers respect and sacrificial love. Modeling self restraint and self respect in this day and age would go a long way.

I’ve also read a book “Unhooked” a long while ago, forgot the name of the woman who wrote it who alluded that parents would probably save a lot of time and money instilling moral values in their children if they would just take them to church once a week. She didn’t believe that it made daughters virginal until their wedding night, but it showed a difference in how much longer those young women waited (first time in college) than their secular or non church peers (first time in high school) and how much more deeper their relationships with men were than their peers who couldn’t make the transition from a hook up lifestyle to a real relationship.

And yeah, I’m a Christian. The evangelical type. And my parents are a big part of who I am today, even though they don’t share all of my beliefs. I’m really thankful for them, they are amazing.

So, yeah, the purity balls are pretty much missing point, if you ask me.

There was another story about purity balls I ran across a while ago that was even creepier. Basically the parents wanted the daughters to spend more time with their father, so the daughters went on dates with their father. Obviously there wasn’t any actual incest involved, but it still seemed like a really bad way to teach the girls that they have a worth other then a sexual one. Really, if there is any man who should be willing to spend time with you without defining the experience in romantic terms it should be your father. In case anyone thinks I’m making this up, watch the youtube video over at http://feministing.com/archives/007710.html

True, but notice that they are asking the boys to find a wife who is “pure”, not to remain so themselves.

Is it true that it is easier for girls to say no to sex than boys? Is that why they don’t have these ridiculous rituals for boys, because they know it’s a lost cause? Come on girls, tell us the truth, do you think about sex as often as men do?

Haha, yeah, the whole vision of women as pure, virginal, and uninterested in sex is stupid. Girls want it as bad as boys, it’s just a question of social conditioning. That is to say, boys are told by popular culture that they need to seek out sex obsessively, so some follow the stereotype and confirm it, while the ones that don’t are taken as exceptions. At the same time, girls are told that they need to seek out love, rather than sex, so the ones who do confirm the stereotype are thought of as representative of our entire gender. In reality, I doubt there’s a significant difference, as long as the societal stereotypes haven’t been internalised by the people you’re comparing.

As for purity balls, I always found the idea incredibly creepy, especially since it seems to me that a girl who chose not to follow through with a purity pledge would be viewed by her community as a deviant, which really doesn’t leave one with much of a choice in the matter. Plus, the whole idea that I should have to promise Daddy not to sleep around, while my (hypothetical) brother would never be made to publically announce his intended sexual future, much less promise anything to either of his parents, really ticks me off.

Dude I almost spat my drink all over the keyboard. Thanks – that has made my day!

My original joke was less clever and more graphic. I’m glad I rewrote it.