Purity balls, in which a girl pledges to remain ‘pure’ until her wedding day, symbolically ‘marries’ God, and promises her father that she will remain a virgin until she's a wife, have become a phenomenon in America, now taking place in 48 out of the 50 states.
The balls resemble giant wedding ceremonies, with the girls - all around the age of 12 - wearing white gowns and dancing with their fathers who promise to ‘protect’ their daughter’s chastity.
During the ceremony, fathers present their daughters with purity rings, which they wear to symbolise their commitment to virginity.
In the movement purity means no sexual contact of any kind, including kisses, until after marriage.
One of the largest father-faughter purity balls - which is the subject of a Nightline Prime investigation - has been held for 14 consecutive years in Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs. The event sees upwards of 60 fathers pledging to ‘protect their daughter’s choices for purity'.
Fathers taking part are expected to sign a ‘purity covenant’ in which they, as ‘High Priest of their home and family’ pledge ‘before God to cover my daughter as her authority and protection in the area of purity.’
The daughters silently commit to live pure lives before God through the symbol of laying down a white rose at the cross, before engaging in a wedding-type dance with their father.
"You're married to the Lord, and your father is your boyfriend." Holy crap that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand straight up.
This idea of virginity being some sacred entity which must be protected at all cost, and that the loss of it stains a woman's virtue beyond repair, is based on primitive concepts and has no real value in this day and age.
As a father we should be prepared to defend our daughters against ne'er do wells, give them good advice about sex, and comfort when their hearts get broken, but we should NOT be constantly involved in their sex life of dictating when and with whom that can begin.
So creepy!
That is just freaky!!!
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteThis reminds me of the Quadroon Balls in Louisiana where young fair skinned girls were "sold" as mistresses to older men in exchange for money or acknowledgement of the children produced by that union.
DeleteI just want to know which 2 states is this NOT happening. How fucking creepy!
ReplyDeleteHe said "Your father is your boyfriend". That is inappropriate.
ReplyDeleteMarried to God, but has a boyfriend on the side? Also at some point she will be divorcing God to marry her next husband. Great job Christians, teaching them early to split loyalties between your husband and boyfriend, and then divorce and get remarried.
DeleteDoes daddy get to do the "honors"? Talk about making me feel like I need to wash my brain
ReplyDeleteDisturbing. The thought that any father obsesses over his daughter's virginity completely weirds me out. Completely.
ReplyDeleteThat made me uncomfortable just reading about it and watching the video! That's creepy. Not even kisses until marriage?!! LOL What are the odds? I wouldn't want my son to marry a girl who refused to ... kiss him before the wedding ceremony. Before the poor girl gets out of junior high school, she's going to be carrying a huge amount of guilt. Wonder what happens if Little Lolita kisses a boy? Does she have to confess to daddy who then looks down on her forevermore? Those damn people are sick.
ReplyDeleteMore likely Daddy wallops her with a broom stick.
DeleteHoly shit.
ReplyDeleteIt's all about control.
ReplyDeleteGee, and here I thought that the Taliban terrorists had it good with the promise of 72 virgins in the afterlife! If I were Christ, I wouldn't know whether to shit or go blind!
ReplyDeletePoor Todd is out of luck, then.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds really sick. Talk about perverting religion.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't watch the video. Just reading about it made me sick.
ReplyDeleteHow many of those same fathers will encourage their sons to "sow their wild oats"? How many of those fathers were virgins themselves when they married?
ReplyDeleteI'll bet my life the answer to both is none.
What is that old saying? "Better to cast thy seed in the belly of a whore instead of a rock" or something?
DeleteCreepy beyond words and very sad that these young girls are being subjected to this. Sick, sick, sick.
ReplyDeleteWhat about purity balls for the young men? The pun works, anyway.
ReplyDeleteSo she never owns her own life? She's her father's property, then her husband's. A recipe for mental illness, divorce, suicide, murder and Christ knows what else. This makes me nauseous.
ReplyDeleteGood to see you, dviaries! I wholeheartedly agree.
Deleteagreed
DeleteThis is beyond stupid to expect a young girl to live their entire life without even holding hands or kissing a boy until some "marriage" ceremony.
DeleteIt's a guaranteed recipe for failure, guilt, and teen pregnancy.
The Christian Ayatollahs must be so proud of their Jihad against young females in Jeebus name
At puberty, her sexuality is locked down and obsessed over by her father. That's creepy and sick. Then, whenever he's done with her, her father picks out a man and marries her off.
DeleteNext up - Daddies will train their daughters in proper sex technique.
DeleteO/T
ReplyDeleteCourt Documents Confirm NSA Surveillance of Americans Solely on Bush’s Orders
http://www.politicususa.com/2014/03/20/court-documents-confirm-nsa-surveillance-americans-solely-bushs-orders.html
.."It took these lawsuits against the Obama Administration to see court documents that reveal what a Republican Administration did to our privacy rights solely on the orders of then President George. W. Bush. So yes, in a back handed way, if it wasn’t for Rand Paul trying to make himself over as a civil libertarian, we might still be in the dark about the origins of the NSA program and why the Bush Administration eventually disclosed its existence to the secret Fisa Court..."
Opps, that didn't work out too well, I guess it is back to remember Benghazi !!!
That photo of the girls carrying a cross is just too incredibly creepy for words. And it looks like they're barefoot. What is the point of being barefoot? Married to the Lord? Father as boyfriend? I'm no psychologist but that whole thing sounds sick to me. Now this a "culture" Lyin' Ryan should be concerned about.
ReplyDeleteBarefoot as preparation for being 'barefoot and pregnant'...
DeleteThis sounds very "Gothard" -- you know, the person whose philosophy the Duggars follow. Gothard had to resign because of sexual contact with co-workers, and girls who came to his office. And, I agree--talk about a double standard! Where's the promise of "purity" for the guys?
ReplyDeleteI think it's going to be a challenge to some guys when they see those rings. They will give it a good try and some girls may even be raped over it. That's what I think. I think these girls are being set up by their religion and their fathers. This is really creepy! dvlaries, you are so right! It is a recipe for mental illness, suicide, murder and rape. It's sickening.
ReplyDelete'The Loophole' by Garfunkel and Oates
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8ZF_R_j0OY
'nuff said.
Exactly, they are still virgins in a technical sense.
DeleteI'm pretty sure 'purity ball' is urban dictionary lingo for "sex through a hole in a sheet"... Hardly something a stern conservative Daddy would do with his virginal young....
ReplyDeleteOh.
I get it now.
Yikes....
+ 100 Beldar, you're killing me.
DeleteReminds me of an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm w Larry David.
sex through a hole in a sheet with daddy that is..
Deleteso, do the moms enjoy a purity ball with their sons too? only seems fair.
ReplyDeleteThis is "quiver full" and Dominionist crap. Of course young girls need the love and support of their fathers - and mothers - but this "tradition" is awful. Girls and boys are sexually curious when puberty hits. What they need is truthful information about their bodies, not "purity" rings. I'd be willing to bet there is a small percentage of young women that make it to their wedding day never sharing a kiss with a young man.
ReplyDeleteString those fucks high by their purdy balls.
ReplyDeletewhat, no test drives ?!?
ReplyDeleteSick. I wonder if we'll hear anything about that from the Quitter Queen. She just did a post or tweet on 3/20 about feminists and liberated women.
ReplyDeleteCan't wait.
Oh and she just this evening directs us to Bristol's blog to "celebrate Down Syndrome Day". 2 hours ago. She must have been busy reading IM comments razzing about not hearing anything from her :)
We OWN her! And why direct to Nancy's blog? Because guess, just GUESS, whose child it is.
Delete"Pass me a baby. Not the retarded one."
This is way beyond creepy and (I think) crosses the border into abuse.
ReplyDeleteGee, how do they explain Mary and Joseph? And how do they still support the Palins as the perfect Christian family? And how do these 'fathers' think they are God Almighty and in charge of every little kiss their daughter might share before marriage? My gracious...talk about taking us back in time...even the Amish allow the girls and boys to experiment before they commit to the church. This is behavior from Arabia or Iran. And these people were worried about Sharia Law? Piece of cake compared to the Christian Dominionists.
ReplyDeleteHow do they support the Palin's? Back in 2008, the right-wing noise machine was filled with apologists insisting, "It happens in EVERY family!" and "They're in twue WUB!!!!"
DeleteIs it too late for the Palin girls to have Purity Balls?
ReplyDeleteMaybe they can borrow a wash cloth from their daddy Toad, and at least wipe em off before they tea bag em.
DeleteI love my daughters but I would not like for my husband to have my daughters as his girlfriends and giving them wedding rings. and what is the mother's role in this relationship? What if Daddy has several daughters. They are all his girlfriends?
ReplyDeleteThe mother's role in the fundy world is a quiet doormat, barefoot and pregnant and submissive, the perfect "host" for a pweshus BAYBEEEE.
DeleteDo the fathers also sign an oath not to cheat on their wives, to remain faithful and pure? Not to get drunk or take drugs? Not to abuse anyone in the family, mentally or physically?
ReplyDeleteWhy don't the sons have to make the same kind of agreement? This seems extremely sexist to me, to say nothing of the "creep factor." The girls get lured into it because they'll get to wear fancy dresses and have a big party. Twelve year old girls are not usually already planning their sexual lives.
DeleteBeaglemom
Someone had retweeted this article from last year in my Twitter feed.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.salon.com/2013/05/06/my_virginity_mistake/
Anecdotal evidence that in today's world this fundamentalist custom is a recipe for the hypocritical family values we realists have noticed the evangelicals practice.
Remember red-glassed Sally Jesse Rapheal? Bored channel surfing one time (was never a fan) and she had teens on there that did everything but "the act" so they could say they were a virgin on their wedding night, and I do mean everything.
ReplyDeleteAdded note: Good thing I checked my typing....it would have said "the cat." Probably that, too! Here's to Friday night beer!
"Good" christian kids preserve their "virginity" by practicing anal and oral, because they believe it doesn't count.
DeleteI read about this a couple of years ago, as an aberation. Creeped me out then, creeps me out even more now.
ReplyDeleteI know a young girl who went to a small christian school here in the Valley and there were 11 girls at her 9th grade purity ball. 5 of them were pregnant before they graduated.
ReplyDeleteIf Daddy was their boyfriend, at least the list of suspects was very short.
DeletePalin Purity Balls
ReplyDelete...on sale now on The Sportsman Channel
Yeee-haaaw!
Back in the day, I remember hard stares from a few Dads and was "interrogated" by a couple of them that I felt were giving me the "Mafia" look, trying to size me up for a pine box if I crossed him, but I understood that it was all a part of the drill, and always played along.
ReplyDeleteThere was only one girl that I wanted to go out with that was truly prohibited from actually dating until she was 18 (she was a couple months shy of her 17th bday). I felt sorry for her because she was pretty normal other than her parents were so domineering and a constant shadow. I went to church with her for a few months, just to get to know her a little, all the while thinking that I was building up her parents' confidence in me, but to no avail. I played every high school sport in season, and played against one of her brothers in football and baseball, so it wasn't like I was a complete stranger to their family, even though we went to different schools. I did get to manage a little bit of "alone time" with her, thanks to her brother running interference for us after a baseball game, but being treated like I was on probation got really tiresome pretty fast, despite the fact that she was gorgeous, a great kisser, super intelligent, and was funny as hell.
I couldn't put my life on hold for someone who could only leave her house without a chaperone to go to school, to church, and to her part-time job on weekends. Her brothers weren't kept in check nearly as closely, but they weren't allowed to roam the countryside either. They were all members of Jimmy Swaggart's (Pentacostal and Charismatic) church in Baton Rouge. A year after our little fling, Swaggart got caught with a street hooker in the seedy part of town, and all of a sudden, Ted Koppel's Nightline Production crew had a satellite truck with a dish and several rental cars parked in the parking lot of our apartments in a staging area for their "assault". The rest is history. It's just a shame it happened before the internet was available. By then I was at LSU, and she was at a Bible College that I'm sure was more restricted than we were with an 18-yr old drinking age in BR in a party atmosphere.
I remember that show - that's when 'oral sex' became 'not sex, JUST oral', like all teens and pre-teens did it routinely.
ReplyDeleteI would like to see little boys making the same creepy pledge and promising their virginity to their mothers. They can carry the cross too while wearing their little white shorts and beanies on their heads...preferably with propellers so they can fly away like monkeys in Oz.
What is happening to these little girls is sick and perverted.
Hey Bristol how about throwing a Purity Ball for yourself?
ReplyDeletePurity Balls?
ReplyDeleteWell, um, that might be an exaggeration, but I did have a robust shower a couple of hours ago. And I used that good-smellin' Axe body wash that gets you all hot and whatnot, sugar britches.
Though this may sound trivial, I wish my own father took an interest in my welfare - there were many mistakes made by myself because I had been mentally and emotionally abandoned by both my parents. I have paid the physical price ever since aka 'looking for love in all the wrong places'. No guidance whatsoever.
ReplyDeleteThese 'purity balls' may be over the top and outrageous to most; however, in these days of overt sexuality being media promoted every.single.day., fathers of young daughters should take the time to guide them wisely and protect them from the horrors of manipulation these girls face every.single.day.
Just sayin'....dads, protect your precious daughters, just don't do it in 'purity balls'. Just talk to them and let them know you really, honestly, and sincerely care about their lives. The biggest problem is America today lies with absent parents. Untold heartache is the result.
This is soooooooo true. Thank you for saying it, my life was the same.
DeleteDon't think sex is something that only got discovered in 2000. Remember those "wonderful" 1950s? When the rate for first-time mothers was 19, the lowest its been in our country's history? Plenty of sex going on then. How about the 1940s, when the Baby Boom got started? Where do you think those babies came from? How about the decade of the 1920s and the flappers? Sex has been part of human history.
DeleteBig difference in the '50's is those 19 year olds were married to soldiers and working men.
DeleteI recall a literary reference to "covering" a woman in connection with successfully impregnating her. Can't recall it for sure. It may not be biblical, but it resonates with me as an old usage. In this context, it strikes me as very strange.
ReplyDeletecan't. stop. vomiting.
ReplyDeleteif we as a society cannot call this child abuse...
sick sick sick. they should all be registered the same as sex offenders.
And I suppose perhaps that father who shot and killed the boy in his daughter's bedroom was one of those Purity Ball protectors?
ReplyDelete"Purity" in the Bible is not linked to virginity at all.
ReplyDeleteLeviticus states precisely what causes impurity and while menstrual blood features there prominently, along with eating some stuff, anything leaking from male genitals, discolored skin and discolored walls of houses (yes, walls of houses are included in the impurity list) -- lack of virginity DOES NOT.
All those "purity=virginity" advocates are HERETICS. And should be denounced and excluded from Christianity as such.
http://scarychristianshyt.wordpress.com/2007/06/01/abstinence-the-new-cottage-industry
ReplyDeleteThere have been enough of these "balls" that there should be some statistics. I can see the lead now: A father who pledged his daughters' virginity in elaborate dance ceremonies has been arrested and charged with (fill in your state's incest charges here.)
ReplyDeleteAs a single working Mom I had a long talk with my daughter and my words were to her…"how do you know when you are ready to have sex with someone you care about…when you can come to me and ask me to make an appt. to go to the Dr. for birth control." If you can't ask or are afraid to ask then you really aren't ready. When that day cam I just said…no problem and made the call. She was almost 18 ;)
ReplyDeleteYou're a Mother who knows what she's doing. My kids can come to me and talk about anything, but just in case, I let them know where Planned Parenthood is and what they do. Did the same for my son....
DeleteSomebody needs to take these daddies and teach them what their little girl are doing in lieu of vaginal sex. lol Now that would be fun!
ReplyDeleteSeems kind of odd to me that the boys don't have some sort of ceremony where they pledge not to lose thier virginity either. Oh, silly me, I forgot, boys will be boys.
ReplyDeleteSo exactly what sort of "verification" process does Daddy-O use to "protect" his interests? As in "trust," but verify?
ReplyDeleteLederhosen-wearing Transylvanians would like you to keep your American bred-and-born trash in your USA, thankyouverymuch.
ReplyDeleteWhen one of these "purity ball" girls is raped she will feel worthless since she has always been told that she is nothing if she loses her virginity before marriage.
ReplyDeleteMy sister-in-law waited until marriage and it was a huge mistake. She was a wreck on her wedding day and they ended their honeymoon early. Obviously works for some but there was so much hype it was too much for her.
Disgusting.
So daughter marries God, but has daddy as a boyfriend on the side. (Daddy who is married to his wife, has girlfriends, and God has tens of thousands of wives who have boyfriends within their "marriage") At some point daughter will divorce her husband God, and dump her boyfriend daddy to get married to a new husband.
ReplyDeleteIs this traditional marriage that will be destroyed if gays were able to marry?
Uh,it was a joke. You know, about the villagers and the monster and old Universal horror movies. Pay attention, Igor. Now go clean my fuckin lab equipment, you're fixing to get Lou Costello's brain.
ReplyDeleteAll I can say is 'sick'! I would never have put my daughter through something like this and I raised one (now in her 40's) of whom I'm very proud!
ReplyDeleteThose little girls carrying that cross look like female Hitler-Youth members.
ReplyDeleteSick, Sick, Sick and disgusting. And what about girls whose father passed away or come from a single parent home? By bringing so much attention to it, I bet the rate of virginity goes way down.
ReplyDeleteSo daddy gets his sick fantasies tended to. Married to his wife and his daughters. I thought bigamy was wrong?
What's the cross for? Does a girl get crucified if she has sex? Or do they put it on the lawn and set it on fire? Nothing for the males?