The Atlantic article on purity

[19 cats and counting]

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/05/the-unintended-consequences-of-purity-pledges/481059/

 

[December]

More proof that making sex a taboo subject and withholding information about sexuality and sexual health is a bad idea. Of course, to make change in this issue, the groups at the heart of it would need to acknowledge the devastating effects of their purity culture on things like contraception/abortion access, Planned Parenthood funding, sex ed in schools and government help for teen parents.

Here's a similar one from the New Yorker in 2008: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/11/03/red-sex-blue-sex

Whenever this topic comes up, I just feel so grateful for having had comprehensive sex ed, reliable contraception, STI testing, etc. since I was a teen. It's sad that it's been over 40 years since Loretta Lynn recorded "The Pill" but so many people still want to keep teens in the dark about safe sex.

[19 cats and counting]

I made the mistake of reading the comments.  Everything was about the purity of the daughters and keeping them from being pregnant.

Very few people mentioned that (biologically) it takes a mother and a father to conceive a child.  There was nothing about keeping sons pure.

[Kittikatz]

Ugh. I loathe purity culture.

It's so obviously about controlling girls and women through the illusion of romance, shame and an unhealthy dose of conditional 'love'. It has nothing to do with protecting them from anything. A parent who wanted to protect their children, to me, at least, would want them to have things like an education, the ability to work to support themselves, good health care, and information about sexual health, including birth control and the prevention of STIs. I don't understand why so many parents think they have a right to control their children - and especially their daughters' - sexuality at all, much less in this kind of way.