[quote]WASHINGTON (AFP) - It has all the ingredients of a wedding. The proud tuxedo-clad father, the frosted white cake, the limousines and an exchange of vows.
But there is no groom and the girl in the long gown is no bride. She’s daddy’s little girl, there to take a vow of chastity.
In what is becoming a trend among conservative Christians in the United States, girls as young as nine are pledging to their fathers to remain virgins until they wed, in elaborate ceremonies dubbed “Purity Balls.”
The gala affairs are intended to celebrate the father-daughter relationship.
The highlight is when the fathers and daughters exchange vows, with dad signing a covenant to protect his daughter’s chastity by living an unblemished life and the daughter promising not to have sex until marriage.
Many fathers at the ceremonies also slip “purity rings” around the finger of their misty-eyed daughters or offer them “chastity bracelets” and other jewelry that the girls can entrust to their husbands on their wedding night.[/quote]
Man, I don’t want to sound cynical, but this just…I don’t know…it just weirds me out. Not quite as much as that couple who had sex in front of their children to “educate” them, but it’s still a little bizarre. I wonder how they’ll explain it to little Susy when she asks why her brother Bobby doesn’t have to go to a “purity ball”…
[quote=“Stray Dog”]I and a couple of other Forumosans had a purity dinner for SuchAFob on St paddy’s Day … wondering how effective that has proven to be …[/quote]Very effective in my case…
And all that for nothing, or less than nothing, that is. According to this piece, there’s no difference between the pledgers and the non-pledgers when it comes to STD rates:
No kidding. Much more likely to engage in oral or anal sex.
School districts that promote abstinence only programs also have far higher rates of teen pregnancy and abortion.
Ignorance ain’t bliss, and it ain’t moral.
Not surprising. Zappa’s Catholic Girls laid it out pretty well.
Nine years old? Before many of them even know what a “virgin” is? The mind boggles.
Seems like a perfect recipe to increase the incidence of underage sex. There’s no better way to guarantee that a kid WILL do something than to tell her/him NOT to do something.
