OH SQUICK

[moonwise]

The Pursuit of Teen Girl Purity

When Kylie was 13, her parents took her on a hike in Lake Tahoe, Calif. "We discussed what it means to be a teenager in today's world," she says. They gave her a charm for her bracelet--a lock in the shape of a heart. Her father has the key. "On my wedding day, he'll give it to my husband," she explains.

That's not phallic at all.

1. Are we also having Teen Boy Purity parties? What kinds of charms are exchanged to represent these mother and son vows?

2. Why is so much of the onus for remaining pure placed on the girls? (rhetorical question, because there's no physical indication of whether a boy is a virgin.)

Comments

[cassandramorgan.livejournal.com]

What I hate the most is that this whole thing is basically treating girls like possessions. Using that quote you posted about the charm bracelet....that is basically them saying "See? My father owns me now then he will give me to my husband, who will then own me." If she wanted to "stay pure," she doesn't need her goddamn father's permission or approval for it. And, IMHO, no matter what those girls are saying, they are NOT doing it "because they want to" stay pure...they are doing it "because they want to" make their daddies happy.

[sleepherealone.livejournal.com]

I really, REALLY don't see the need for all of this OMG PURITY crap. Hell, I never had The Talk with my parents, my mom just gave me a book about periods, puberty, sex, etc. when I was twelve or thirteen and I still haven't had sex and I'm nineteen now. It's just... this abstinence stuff really rubs me the wrong way. Makes me wonder what they think about masturbation, really.

...the entirety of the second page of that article is making me crack up, to be honest.

[ladyofthesea.livejournal.com]

When did we go back to the medieval ages? Will her father also provide a handsome dowry to the eligible man?

[keelieinblack.livejournal.com]

Super-skeevy, but also hard to take seriously since I saw a similar concept mocked in an over-the-top fashion in an anime just last week. And isn't this key/lock metaphor underestimating the creativity of any teenage boy (or girl) who knows where to get a set of lockpicks?

[geckophobe.livejournal.com]

Ugh, it is so squicky. I don't know exactly why I find it so disgusting and creepy and incestuous and ick for a father to take such an interest in his daughter's state of virginity. I think you touched on it with the lock&key phallic crap, though. It's one thing for parents to talk frankly about sex ed or to encourage abstinence, it's something else entirely when you throw in rituals and symbols of ownership and paternal "oversight" of the hymen ohgodthesquickcontinues!

[archaeologist-d.livejournal.com]

Creepy, creepy, creepy.

[dougras.livejournal.com]

I'll once again mention Lancelot Lives.

Your average young evangelical male gets a much different message than the girls do. He's going to be Tempted. Because things in society are, well, tempting. But God will help him get over that temptation.

The question arises, of course, where do these temptations come from? The answer - girls in short shorts. The Modesty Survey was done by a group of Christian guys - they had girls ask questions about apparel, and then Christian guys from the internet voted to say if a certain fashion choice was modest or not.

What it boiled down to was, "I can't control having bad thoughts about girls if you wear a bikini, so you need to not wear a bikini." Yes, that's right. The onus was put on the girls. If the girl's not dressed modestly, the guy will have thoughts and struggle, ergo, the person with the problem is the woman. Not the guy. The girl.

One of the most telling things from that survey was a question that they made fun of - apparently like 17 people said it was immodest for girls to show their calves. They made fun of this by saying, "So what does this mean, I should wear a burka?" I'm rather surprised that they put it that simply, because yes. For those 17 guys who took this test, in the name of Christian modesty, they would put you in a burka. Because these guys, otherwise, would be Tempted.

(Also as an aside, should a guy mess up, well, in this culture it's a sort of 'boys will be boys' sort of thing. You can understand the guy (HE WAS TEMPTED) but the girl? Oh no, you can't understand her, she doesn't have a penis that gets erect to tell her she needs the sex, so this was all her.)

[pantswarrior]

I dunno - in my youth group when I was a teen, it wasn't separated by gender when we talked about abstinence. Boys and girls both heard the same stuff, boys and girls both were told there would be temptations and were encouraged to make the same decisions - we made little promise bracelets together, a simple little leather cord with some beads that didn't look out of place on boys or girls. So even in my (apparently) conservative church, it wasn't a gender thing.

So basically, if they're not also having Teen Boy Purity parties, even many conservative Christians would think it's a nasty double standard. ;)

[dougras.livejournal.com]

Was your church "Evangelical" ? Either in name or in general practice? (Technically my church was Baptist, which doesn't have to fall under that banner, but mine did.) Because that's the subset that these sort of things usually fall into.

Did you ever go to a Youth Conference? Like, things for Christian Youth where you'd leave home for a weekend and Do Christian Things and Attend Seminars? I did.

At these things they have very popular panels about Men's Issues and Women's Issues. It's not something like the Purity Ball, but it is a separate activity, each under the same banner of 'issues mostly about sex.'

The best example of a men's group that runs along sort-of-similar-lines that I can come up with is the Wild at Heart Retreats that get staged (the link is to one of them, there are many) around the country. This tends to be for older guys, though. Mid-teens and up. It's about being Godly but also Damn Manly. People who go to these things do stuff like give each other claymores, because of Braveheart.

Yeah, that's right. Braveheart as Christian Ideal.

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

1. Apparently there are a few events for the boys these days, but they're more challenging the boys to be Modern Knights.

2. Also, because women have historically been property for thousands of years, and because we're the gatekeepers of men's Horrible Out of Control Sexuality.

Ick.

[arafel.livejournal.com]

A-freaking-men.

[arafel.livejournal.com]

And then the bridegroom will have to produce a bloody sheet to prove that his intended was, indeed, virginal?

[arafel.livejournal.com]

The argument is that abstinence teaches that sex is something special and holy, but what it ends up teaching is that sex is wrong. That's what I have the most problem with.

[arafel.livejournal.com]

Yeah, jaina posted that particular article. Being daddy's little girls is one thing, but locks and keys... *shudder*

[arafel.livejournal.com]

What anime was that? O_o

I like your lockpicks corollary. XD

[arafel.livejournal.com]

Yeees. Exactly. Couldn't have said it better. Ew, ew, ew.

[arafel.livejournal.com]

If the girl's not dressed modestly, the guy will have thoughts and struggle, ergo, the person with the problem is the woman. Not the guy. The girl.

Sadly, this pops up in many religions - orthodox Jewish women cover their bodies and wear (at the least) a snood. We've all seen burkas, of course, and both sexes of Mormons wear the longjohns (though the women have to wear the prairie dresses over 'em.)

The Japanese put an interesting spin on it with the layered Heian kimono sets, but then the suitor could consummate his relationship with the lady after an exchange of poetry and that was Just Fine.

[arafel.livejournal.com]

...Modern Knights? What's that?

Also, isn't the fable of the knight gallant just that? An awful lot of knights weren't particularly admirable.

[arafel.livejournal.com]

People who go to these things do stuff like give each other claymores, because of Braveheart.

You have got to be joking.

[arafel.livejournal.com]

Definitely. O_o

[keelieinblack.livejournal.com]

Shugo Chara. Silly magical girl anime--girl has a magic lock, boy has a magic key, and in the most recent episode he...tries to put his key into her lock. XD The lock doesn't specifically symbolize purity or anything, but way it was animated and acted made it clear that everyone involved knew exactly what the symbolism was and decided to play it as over-the-top as they possibly could, so the scene ended up ridiculously suggestive and hilarious all at once.

[dougras.livejournal.com]

http://www.nerve.com/dispatches/sharlet/sexasaweapon/

And

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_24-1-2005_pg4_12

I've seen that second story floating around various places, but since it's an older story, a lot of news websites have taken it down or moved it around.

[dougras.livejournal.com]

Well, the Dobson group named it's article about being a modern knight "Lancelot Lives."

Are they aware about what Lancelot did? Sleep around with his king's wife and abandon his king afterwards? That's, um, what they want boys emulating?

Galahad Guys just didn't have the ring they wanted, I guess.

[dougras.livejournal.com]

And one of the things I don't get is that, apparently, the woman is a sexless creature, since nobody is running around telling guys to cover up. Apparently the sight of a guy with his shirt off is not attractive in the least, or would in any way cause a girl to "stumble."

Guys can run around without shirts and, apparently, this is fine. A guy can wear swim trunks and that's okay. A speedo is probably Too Much (bulge!!) but he can run around with a good 70%-80% of his skin showing. A woman with 80% of her skin showing at the beach is Going Too Far.

[caoin.livejournal.com]

Blerrr...I nearly brought up my lunch!

The patriarchy is alive and well and living in California. Daddy giving his penis sorry key to the husband so he can ‘unlock’ his daughter...these people are sooo sick.

[torquemadman.livejournal.com]

Ew ew ew ewwwww! To make such a serious business (and creepy creepy one!) out of a simple natural parental jealousy, it's...ew. :S I mean, when dad's all transparently smug when you dump your bf and says something like "Ha, I always knew he was no good!", that's one (funny) thing, but the keyhole/keymaster stuff...ugh. Ew.

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

Yeah, they're pretty clueless. It's all about Keeping Pure for your Lady.

[arafel.livejournal.com]

A few years ago, I learned in an evangelical magazine what to do in such a situation: push your anger down and store it inside your heart, where Jesus will work it over it until it is ready to be "released," transformed into "white-hot brother love."

*chokes*

Oh my goodness.

[arafel.livejournal.com]

Sir Had-a-Gal must not have been appealing enough. What about poor ol' Percival? Didn't he find the Grail? Maybe that was too suggestive.

[arafel.livejournal.com]

I honestly can't tell whether these folks realize just how strange their purity ball sounds to those outside the circle. O_O

[arafel.livejournal.com]

Yes, isn't it somewhat cliche' that fathers will be jealous of boyfriends and mothers will be jealous of girlfriends? This definitely takes it way too far.

[dougras.livejournal.com]

The slash practically writes itself, doesn't it?

[fadingembers.livejournal.com]

Having spent my rebellious teenage years being a born-again Christian, I'm terribly familiar with this sort of thing. I think what a lot of people don't know about abstinence-only education is that it doesn't just say "don't do it": it teaches gender roles where all women really aren't interested in sex and just want to get married and boys want it nonstop, so you shouldn't tempt him, lest you get in "trouble."

That being said, when I read "a lock in the shape of a heart", I thought it was "a lock in the shape of her heart" and thought of it like, "I'm saving the left ventricle for my future husband, but my pulmonary artery gets around town."

[arafel.livejournal.com]

I can't imagine you as a born-again. Amazing. Is the gender-role thing what changed your mind, or is that a non-LJ conversation?

[fadingembers.livejournal.com]

It was pretty much a slow decline. I'm sure someone smarter than me has a quote about education being the antithesis for religion, but it really kicked off in college. You know, with meeting actual gay people. Who weren't making a *choice* to be gay, but really enjoying themselves. And sincerely good people who weren't christian. All that good stuff. And actually thinking about the things I believed and so on and so forth. So the born-again thing happened very quickly, but getting it out of my system was a slow crawl.

I still believe in God, though, because I'm so clumsy and accident-prone that I believe the only way I've survived this long is through divine intervention.