Ye Olde Chastity Belts back in fashion

Not quite, but these Purity Balls that are being held in parts of the US are not too far away.

In what is becoming a trend among conservative Christians in the US, 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.

Creepy, I reckon. Overtones of incest, paedophilia, unnatural fatherly interest in daughters’ sexuality, a view that daughters are the property of their father until handed over to their next owner, their husband. What next, hymen inspections? (by dad, or the family priest, minister etc?).

The teaching of abstinence is a big thing in the US, with the government funding such initiatives to the extent of more than $200 m. Doesn’t seem too effective either …the majority of adolescents who take purity pledges break them within a few years, often by engaging in risky and unprotected sex. One study conducted by researchers at the universities of Columbia and Yale found that 88 percent of pledgers wind up having sex before marriage. (What a surprise - I’d hardly imagine that 9, 10, 11 year old girls are reasonably placed to make particularly informed commitments about their future sexuality).

Technorati : abstinence, chastity belts, purity balls, sexuality, virginity