Purity Balls? Girls Are Having Ceremonies To Pledge Their Purity To Their Fathers
As if those virginity pledges weren't creepy enough, some ultra-conservative dads are encouraging their daughters to save themselves for marriage, and celebrating their future celibacy with daddy-daughter Purity Balls.
These dances are a phenomenon that supposedly occur in 48 states and 17 countries, but I think they clearly cross cultural and national boundaries to be considered sketchy and offensive.
These fathers are prompting their daughters, who typically take the pledge when they're 12 or 13 years old, to abstain from all sexual contact with males, including kissing and other touching.
But in a turn for the weirder (because let's be real, this whole thing is already super bizarre), one dad says the male patriarch assumes the role as the man who satisfies his daughter's need for "physical touch." Not sure he understood the implication of the below quote, but here it is...
"What I hear from these young ladies is that there's this need for that physical touch, and from a male being. I believe that's what the father's role is."
Father-of-the-year Randy Wilson first popularized Purity Balls in 1998, but a renewed interest in this creepy ritual was spurned by a recent "Nightline Prime" investigation, filmed in October 2013.
Looking into these pledges and Purity Balls, it's clear that these events aren't for women and young girls to decide for themselves their sexual future.
Instead, it puts the male head of household in charge of the female body, with both young girls and their overbearing fathers signing a purity covenant promising “before God to cover my daughter as her authority and protection in the area of purity."
Yeah, that's right, these men have so graciously made themselves their daughter's keepers.
If you can look past the Purity Ball's fancy clothes and civilized waltzes, see it for what it really is: an epically backward and obvious attempt to control women in the 21st century.
