Daddy's little girls

Religion can make people do crazy things. Whether carrying out a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv or bombing an abortion clinic in Alabama, there’s no denying the dearth of rationality in religion. This is especially true of a country like ours where creationism is actually considered a theory, and women’s wombs are subject to legislation. But just when you think you’ve heard it all, I found an article celebrating the latest fad among Christian fundamentalists – “purity balls.” \nConjure up an image of a father pledging to protect his daughter’s virginity until her marriage in a ceremony replete with wedding cake, purity rings and ball gowns. In exact terms, the father promises to “cover his daughter as her authority and protection in the area of purity.” Moreover, the father anoints himself as the “high priest” in his home. You can’t make this stuff up. \nBefore you dismiss these balls as just a reflection of a fringe minority, it might help to know that about 1,400 such events have been organized around the country. Not to be outdone, “integrity balls” for mothers and sons are sprouting up around the country. Interestingly enough, the theme of these balls seems to rotate around your future wife’s purity and how unnatural sex is. In the eloquent words of a pastor present at one of these events, dogs have sex too, but that doesn’t make them men. Oh dear. \nFor a religious skeptic, stories like these are just easy targets. Firstly, there is empirical evidence to prove the ineffectiveness of virginity pledges. A study by Northern Kentucky University found that 61 percent of teens broke their pledges within a year of taking the vows. Another survey by Yale and Columbia University researchers found that teens who pledged abstinence were just as likely to engage in oral and anal sex, contract sexually transmitted diseases and less likely to use condoms. \nPerhaps more disturbing is the reinforcement of harmful and archaic rhetoric regarding women’s sexuality. These events seem to reduce young women to objects who present their virginities as some sort of relic to their more virtuous husbands. Especially disturbing is the negative roles that fathers are playing in such situations. By pledging to defend a daughter’s honor and “war for their purity,” they are implying that a woman’s sexuality isn’t intrinsically hers. The faux-wedding ceremony where the father places a “purity ring” on his daughter’s finger and has a “first dance” with her sounds very Freudian to me. \nReligious texts have long portrayed women as subservient and of an inferior nature. “The First Epistle of Peter” contains the following line: “Wives, in the same way be submissive to your husbands…” How can a book that brings comfort to many also contain such nonsense? If purity balls are truly perverting the message of God, where is the condemnation? Ultimately, it is not the shrill tones employed by Christian fundamentalists that bothers me but the complete silence of the so-called moderates.