Dads help daughters pledge 'sexual purity'
...and I just think, eh. The purity thing is reported fairly uncritically; the concerns that have been raised by the non-purity-vow camp are briefly summarized and dismissed with the verbal equivalent of a hand-wave.
They've heard what critics say, that the Purity Ball concept puts a girl's virginity in a metaphorical lockbox to which Daddy holds the key. But they say that's a misinterpretation of the event's purpose."It's not about a bunch of rules, about bolting a chastity belt on them," said the twins' father, Tom Worcester, 47, a Raytheon engineer. "That would really not be a successful approach. It's about a choice a young lady can make and stick with."
Oh. Okay.
There's the requisite talk about the importance of the father in a girl's life, plenty of stories of happy fathers and daughters, and the requisite mention of Motherboy "Knight to Remember" mother-son events. Little craw-stickers for the cynics among us are the reporter's dutiful adoption of "purity" and "pure" for "abstinence" and "abstinent," as well as this little gem from the Family Research Council's Randy Wilson:
"We believe a girl's identity and self-worth comes from the father. "If the father is not there," Wilson added, "she will wander outside the home and look for the answer to whether she is beautiful and worthy of being pursued."
...because Daddy's all the pursuit she should need? Snark aside, why the consistent reduction of a girl to her genitals, with her ascribed value derived solely from whether those genitals have come in contact with someone else's, reserving them for the day when, ultimately, she is finally penetrated married? Stupid question, I know; the reduction of people to their sexuality--whether it's Teh Gay or female virgins--is what this camp does best.
1 comment:
That article gave me the creeps, I had to stop reading it. Fathers spending so much time thinking about their daughters' genitals are just plain fucked up.
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