Nightline Prime: Purity Balls

[Koala]

Nightline Prime is doing a report on purity balls tonight. ABC 8:00 P.M. CST

[YPestis]

Yup, gonna have to watch that. It's always nice to see mainstream media attention on fundies. We get a skewed population on FJ. I want to see how the general population looks at these fundie rites of passages.

[Jana814]

Saw the commericals advertising it. I set my DVR.

[Ampak]

From the preview "you're married to God and daddy is your boyfriend" not creepy at all.

[Jana814]

From the preview "you're married to God and daddy is your boyfriend" not creepy at all.

Oh my!!

[ari_belle]

Someone needs to make a joke about the title of this thread. I do not have enough brain power to be clever right now.

[DGayle]

:sick:

From the preview "you're married to God and daddy is your boyfriend" not creepy at all.

A little girl wanting to marry her daddy because she's 5 and loves her daddy and doesn't understand what certain things are all about is cute. My littler likes to pretend to be a prince and me the princess and marry me, and then go and be a princess and have daddy be the prince and marry him. Sometimes she tells people daddy is her prince and they're getting married.

Teenagers claiming the same was is entirely different and just plain sick. That really shows they're in the mindset of small children that there's nothing wrong with pledging the sanctity of your vagina to your daddy-boyfriend.

[ViolaSebastian]

Someone needs to make a joke about the title of this thread. I do not have enough brain power to be clever right now.

Some balls are held for charity

And some for fancy dress

But when they're held for pleasure

They're the balls that I like best... :wink-kitty:

[ari_belle]

Some balls are held for charity

And some for fancy dress

But when they're held for pleasure

They're the balls that I like best... :wink-kitty:

Thank you.

[Toothfairy]

From the preview "you're married to God and daddy is your boyfriend" not creepy at all.

That sounds gross. Why not say you're waiting for your future spouse?

[SallyDraper]

I watched, it looked like a dog and pony from hell.

[Arete]

I couldn't watch. I have seen the documentary of the Purity Ball that Randy Wilson's family hosts and the thought of it still disturb me. The way his college age son was watching his younger sisters get ready for the ball just gave me the creeps and sent shivers up my spine.

The virgins dancing around a cross....ugh, just NO.

[doggie]

as usual fundies and their obsession with sex. they are such big pervs compared to normal people.

[Jana814]

I agree creepy. The other family that they profiled, their kids go to public school.

[Lucygoosey]

The whole concept behind purity balls- that fathers are the gatekeepers of their daughters' hymens and that they're failures if they fail to guard their daughters' virginity before marriage-is the type of thinking that leads to honor killings.

[Koala]

I watched. Creeped me right the fuck out. A father should never be referred to as a boyfriend.

[DGayle]

Elizabeth Smart said that the reason she didn't run away when there were time she could has was that so much emphasize was put on this idea that not being a virgin means not being pure, and impure is dirty, and dirty is wrong and gross and bad. The very idea these balls promote is what made her feel she had to stay with her rapist. Who would want a nasty, filthy girl like her? Who wants non-virgins? Virginity is prized above all else!

And the Smart family doesn't even go as far as purity balls. Let that sink in a moment.

[2xx1xy1JD]

I'm not sure whether to snark on this event or not:

http://www.680news.com/2013/01/20/magic ... hter-ball/

It's not being billed as a "purity ball", and I doubt that term would go over well here. At least they raise money for charity.

A friend of Girl 2 is going with her dad, and the dad asked if Girl 2 would want to go with my husband. Girl 2 thought that it was just weird and had absolutely no desire to do it.

[debrand]

The whole concept behind purity balls- that fathers are the gatekeepers of their daughters' hymens and that they're failures if they fail to guard their daughters' virginity before marriage-is the type of thinking that leads to honor killings.

There is nothing weird about a daddy/daughter dance, or about a person deciding to wait until marriage to have sex or even a parent explaining to a child why they believe that premarital sex is wrong. However, somehow fundies manage to combine these elements in a creepy and intrusive way.

Unless your daughter has a disease of her genitals, a dad should not be concerned with what his adult child will do with her vagina. Nope. Not. At. All. It is not his business and it is crossing a line for him to be overly involved with what she does or doesn't do with her sexuality.

Fundies don't want their children to make mistakes but you don't grow or become an adult if you don't fail occasionally and that means that a person of faith will have moments when they screw up or don't live up to their own personal ethics.

Anyone who reads the bible will quickly see that one of the main ethics is not being pure until marriage but taking care of the poor. Despite all the violence and weirdness in the Old Testament, the message that the poor need to be cared for can still be found. This message is louder in Jesus's gospel even though Paul pays far less attention to caring for the vulnerable but it is still there. If someone was going to go by the bible alone as far as deciding to what their kids need to swear to do, it should be to feed the hungry or house the homeless.

[NotALoserLikeYou]

Lame. But those French acrobats in the second segment were awesome!

[geeklove]

What I want to know is what if one of the daughters says they don't want to wait?

[samurai_sarah]

What I want to know is what if one of the daughters says they don't want to wait?

"The Virgin Daughters" on Channel 4 (UK) featured a US woman from the purity culture, who didn't wait. She explained how she got pregnant and pressured into marriage, and subsequently shunned for not going through with the marriage, after she miscarried.

If you want to see it in full:

[FloraKitty35]

I read about purity balls in one of Jessica Valenti's book. In a word: EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!

[Chowder Head]

This makes me squirmy . Why is the hymen so dang "important" . IMO sex should be talked about as a normal thing, kids be given information on options and parents, including dad be a part of their kids life in all avenues .

[YPestis]

I don't understand why these fundies don't just focus on strengthening the father-daughter relationship, instead of pulling this purity crap. Studies have shown one of the best ways to prevent girls from entering abusive relationships is to have a strong relationship with their fathers. Rather than having parties that celebrate fathers controlling their daughters' sex lives (ewww), why not just have a party that celebrate the father-daughter relationship? You know, a father-daughter tea party with dancing, and maybe throw in a few fun activities. All this focus on virginity will only make girls feel like their worthy is tied to their virginity. This type of thinking also makes them vulnerable to abuse, because it makes girls think someone else should control their sexuality, and that that's done to them reflects their value.