Fundy-Lite family goes full fundy when it comes to "purity"

[FireIsCatching89]

Ditto! My first "fancy" date with my boyfriend was to Carrabba's, I enjoy going there. The seafood cannelloni is wonderful!

Senior high school homecoming dinner! I love their chicken soup, and they're a step above the Macaroni Grill and Olive Garden, in my opinion. Plus, who doesn't love a restaurant with trees on the roof? I got such a kick out of that when I was ten and one opened near my house.

[leena_noor]

This sounds pretty similar to what I've heard of from other fundie lite ppl actually.

[wtfrenchtoast]

Exactly! Who goes to a chain restaurant for a sacred religious initiation rite (albeit an arguably creepy one)?

Baptism at Six Flags Water Park? Marriage ceremony to follow at Burger King?

In my Weddings and Ceremonies class we watched a YouTube video about McWeddings. Yes, weddings at McDonalds. That is apparently a thing. Hahaha!

[ladypuglover]

I know! :shock:

Ok, I have to ask but what is wrong with the ring?

[Blonde not dumb]

Ralar expresses my own sentiments. It is fine if a person decides to wait until marriage to have sex. The choice is theirs. Parents, though, have no business caring what their one day adult daughters will do with their vagina's.

I am also confused as to why anyone would hold a fifteen year old to such a promise. The adolescent has no idea how she or he will feel in a few years about being a virgin until marriage.

Although I am glad that the young lady in the post is pleased with her choice, would she really be that different or a less moral person if a tiny piece of skin was missing from her body? I don't understand the pride that people take in perserving their virginity.

I totally agree. For awhile when I was young we attended a very conservative evangelical church (southern baptist). My parents were more liberal than the powers that be there, and I am decidedly more liberal, but I digress. I had never heard of purity balls or rings until I started following the Duggars and then other fundies on the internetz, but we did do some sort of purity vow at said church. I remember as young as 12 doing some sort of class about purity in youth group (kinda like reverse sex ed I guess) and then being told to sign this wallet-sized card with some vow about how you promised to be a virgin. From what I remember the card said you were promising God, your parents, your future spouse, future dates, and future children that you would be pure. Not sure why my future children of all people give a rat's ass? This was also repeated every year or two, guess they really wanted to drill it in our heads. I fail to see how you can ask a 12-year old to make a decision like that when he/she has barely started puberty. Must be why said vow didn't stick. :lol:

The whole thing is asinine in my opinion. Respect yourself, respect other people and decide what YOU want. If you want to wait for sex, then wait. A pledge card/purity ball/purity ring isn't going to validate your choice or make it for you.

[CanadianHippie]

Ok, I have to ask but what is wrong with the ring?

Ok, I have to admit that sometimes, in the wrong setting, a baguette cut is ugly. But it can also be a really nice cut.

[Jenesis Jexodus]

Am I the only one stuck on the fact that they chose Carrabba's for a purity ceremony, essentially?

LOL, oh man, surrounded by regular people. It must have seemed strange to on-lookers that night. A middle aged couple giving a teenage girl a diamond ring.

[BravaAmica]

Red Lobster isn't nice?

No. It's a generic chain restaurant that serves rubbery fish.

[Nothing2CHere]

No. It's a generic chain restaurant that serves rubbery fish.

Oh, but they've been advertising their 4-course meal for $15 deal on the TV all week, and I so want to get me some shrimp and cheddar biscuits!!!

[polabear]

I can't talk - when Olive Garden first opened in my home town, it counted as fancy in my family. :) It was SO exciting to go - they had cloth napkins!

[AnnoDomini]

Chain restaurants with reservations and wait times aren't 'nice'? This, I have to admit, I don't understand. Something like the Olive Garden to my family is 'nice', and most of the non-chain places I've seen aren't nearly as nice. Only one of them even approached the 'niceness' of the Olive Garden, and only one surpassed it..

[kb2]

I had my congratulations-on-graduating dinner at Carrabba's when I graduated high school. Chain restaurants are kind of meh, but in my smallish town the next step up is the super-fancy $100 per meal restaurant. They might just be missing a nice-but-not-a-chain restaurant where they are.

I've always found purity rings to be vulgar. The presence or absence of virginity is something I don't want to know about complete strangers.

[HijabiLady]

What disturbs me so much about purity rings/balls/whatever is they place such value on the physical. It harkens back to a time when women were valued for their virginity and nothing else. I've been watching the Tudors and there was such a hub bub over whether or not Queen Katherine was a virgin when she married King Henry VIII. (she was previously married to his brother but never consummated the marriage) An entire kingdom, culture and society was hinged on this woman's hymen and whether or not it was intact on her wedding night. Her worth stopped there according to the mentality of the day. The woman could read and speak in many languages, was highly educated and very charitable but none of that mattered as much as a piece of tissue.

So if one of these young women "stumble" and lose their virginity before marriage, then what? Is she considered a lost cause and worthless? And why is this ANY business of her parents? My main concern for my DD is disease and an unwanted pregnancy, not whether or not her future husband will consider her less than worthy of his love. I hope to raise her to be strong enough never to chose a man with that kind of mentality in the first place.

[2xx1xy1JD]

Shall I come up with a glowing post on how my mother lovingly slipped a package under my bedroom door, containing sex ed booklets and a pamphlet from public health showing the locations of the nearest teen clinics?

[Doomed Harlottt]

I fail to see how a vow under these circumstances can be considered to have any value whatsoever. It's so coercive, it can't possibly mean anything. I mean, I think it would be almost impossible for most 15 year olds to say to their parents, "Ya know, I 've thought about it and I really don't want to make this kind of commitment." I mean, is this really in any way optional?

[oolong]

I have a friend who is the product of a family just like this. The daughters went to college and all have highly successful careers now in their 30s and 40s, but my friend has so many sexual issues in her marriage that she feels are a result of her upbringing. It's truly heartbreaking. She ended up waiting until she was engaged, but not married. One of her sisters is over 40, unmarried, and has never had sex. She tells me her sister struggles immensely with that, all because she just never found Prince Charming.

I think the purity movement has grown in recent years and it not just fundies who get caught up in this purity culture. Actually, at 14, I was forced by my public school to sign a vow that I would remain "pure" until I married. Public school! At the time I thought it was ludicrous because I knew that at 14, I didn't even understand what I was promising. I had to sign, but it wasn't in my heart.

As for Carraba's being a "nice dinner", I have to make a confession... I didn't realize until about two years ago that Carraba's isn't considered a "nice" dinner in the culture at large. Olive Garden is where my family goes for nice occasions and was the "nicest" restaurant I had ever been to until the age of 24. It's called being lower class. :lol:

[AnnoDomini]

Thinking Olive Garden is a nice restaurant is indicative of being lower-class? Huh. My family says we're middle class.

[polabear]

Carraba's is definitely a step up from Olive Garden. Not that I don't get a random Olive Garden craving now and then.

Red Lobster, growing up, was crazy crazy been there like once and it was a grand experience, place. I know we went more than once, but one of my first memories is my little sister and I eating all of my mom's crab legs - she made the mistake of letting us "try" a bit, and we went to town. That's back when my mom was a single mother, so I have no idea what we were doing at Red Lobster.

[snarkbillie]

Thinking Olive Garden is a nice restaurant is indicative of being lower-class? Huh. My family says we're middle class.

All poor families say they're middle class. Nobody wants to be working poor.

[AnnoDomini]

I don't care what we're called--we are what we are and a label won't change it one way or another. I do feel that identifying as working poor would kind of be disrespectful to those who are worse off.

[samithemage]

I signed one of those "purity cards" too, and all through college was focused on finding a guy who would respect me for my choices...except I didn't respect myself for them. I got to the point around 20ish, that I didn't believe all the things I had promised...but I had promised them to God. I wasn't able to reconcile that for the better part of a decade. When I finally did have sex with my current bf (after several months of waiting, he was very understanding about my issues), it was amazingly liberating. I honestly wished I had started sooner :)

[Alana Rickman]

I've been watching the Tudors and there was such a hub bub over whether or not Queen Katherine was a virgin when she married King Henry VIII. (she was previously married to his brother but never consummated the marriage) An entire kingdom, culture and society was hinged on this woman's hymen and whether or not it was intact on her wedding night. Her worth stopped there according to the mentality of the day. The woman could read and speak in many languages, was highly educated and very charitable but none of that mattered as much as a piece of tissue.

OT, but with Catherine, the specific issue wasn't that she was a virgin in general, but that if she had had sex with Henry's brother specifically (even if they hadn't been married), she would have had an affinity with Henry--their marriage wouldn't have been valid in the eyes of the Church and none of their children could have inherited the throne. Of course, none of this mattered years later when Henry married Anne Boleyn after having had an affair with her sister, because Henry had broken with the Church at that point.

[tropaka]

Reading that blog post towards the end about being so glad about this promise as she walked down aisle made me think how backwards the thinking is...sex is part of marriage, but not the whole deal, and by placing such importance on virginity and pledges makes it so much more about sex than it should be - immodestly so. I was also thinking, "wonder if that evening she was hugely disappointed?"

[polabear]

I lost my virginity at 16, and I do wish I had waited a little bit longer. On the other hand, I never saw "My Virginity" as something that was sacred. I just wish I had waited for an actual bed. :)

[oolong]

I don't care what we're called--we are what we are and a label won't change it one way or another. I do feel that identifying as working poor would kind of be disrespectful to those who are worse off.

I agree that the labels are somewhat subjective and don't necessarily mean much. They certainly mean less in the United States than in many other places (the UK has very specific, governmentally-defined demarcations between classes if I am correct). For the record though, I don't think "lower class" = "poor". You can be "lower class" in my book and still not be lacking in any major material needs.