#purity balls

Being from a small town, while also attending high school, really opened my eyes on the topic of sexuality and virginity. As a teenager, I wasn’t throwing myself at boys to take my “virginity” like other individuals in my class were. Parties were the number one place for that type of activity, and I was never invited which may be why I wasn’t fond of being taken advantage of. THAT, and because I have more self respect for myself than that. 

I remember a conversation I had with a friend in grade 11. She was asking me about my relationship with my boyfriend and how “doing it” was. I’m not an open person and refused right away. She got defensive and said “if I were in your shoes I’d be bragging. You’re not a virgin anymore, that’s a big deal”. Is it really?She proceeded to say, “since you already have I’m definitely going to throw myself at the first guy I see at the party this weekend to catch up”. The jealousy and major lack of self respect blew me away, but the fact these people were trying to get the label of being a virgin off their backs blew me away even more. Why were these people so eager? I certainly didn’t care or was eager; it just happened to happen sooner than I thought, so what?

While reading Why is America So Obsessed with Virginity by Anastasia Kousakis and Jessica Valenti, the idea of Purity Balls struck me in an odd manner. I hate the idea so much, that’s very restricting and damaging to a woman that young. A Purity Ball is a formal father-daughter dance in which the daughter pledges to remain abstinent until marriage and their father vows to protect or care for their daughter’s virginity. In my opinion, when she grows up, she won’t have the experience of being with others to realize or understand what she wants or what she likes, but she’ll already be stuck in the marriage and feel as though there is no way out. After reading the entire section on the formal event, I thought about having Purity Balls in my hometown. There would be NO WAY IN HELL we could manage to pull something off like that, everyone is way too horny around home to agree to saving themselves until marriage. However, nobody would want that to happen around home for another stupid, judgemental reason; it’s a race to lose it and it’s a competition to see how many people one can be with before they settle down. Integrity Balls make me feel the same way, no male back home would pledge to be abstinent because they “don’t want to do that to someone’s future wife or someone’s current daughter” (421). This is not implying that they take advantage or sexually assault the females back home, their sex drives are just whack and want the same things the females want too. Both genders would 110% succumb to the pressure exhibited by everyone else and break their vows to their mother/father and to themselves.

For those who aren’t aware, a purity ball is basically an event in where adolescence girls take a vow of sexual abstinence   until marriage, while their fathers take on the responsibility of being “the caretakers of their virginity”

I was reading one of the articles about the concepts and how some people very arguably disagree with the idea, while some are on the fence. In the article Anastasia Kousakis speaks with Jessica Valenti and asks what purity balls are and what is considered unpure. She writes the following on what a purity ball is

“There’s one video where the fathers give the daughters a necklace it’s a lock and key. She keeps the lock and he keeps the key until the day she gets married and he gives the key/penis to her future husband. Very, very disturbing”

As she even states the idea and concept of purity balls are entwined with the old customs of how the father was the one who owned his daughter and how in aspects that her virginity is nothing to do with her father at all and even one source argued that it speaks the idea of incest in psychological aspects. [1]

Another thing that got brought up was how from a feminist perspective that some people started to ask where were the mother son purity balls? This brought on the idea of Integrity balls, these are the basically the same thing as Purity balls except the language of it is more of that the boy vows to be abstinent because I don’t want to do that to someone’s future wife or someone’s current daughter. This is still problematic because it’s seen in the essence of woman still being held as property.

To move onto the larger picture of obsession with virginity, even I can fall into this category sadly. I was the first daughter born to my parents and the only girl born to my father, as I grew up I was mostly talked too about being pure and not “sleeping around” due to my being as a woman, however when compared to my younger siblings who are male, they get teased and called heart breakers and mind my languages here that “they can get as many pussies as they want” 

In my words, not only is that incredibly sexist but it also relates to the concept of treating women as property, that even as a young age though I can only speak for myself, I was raised to be someone who was pure and not be a “slut” and honestly we just need to stop labeling woman for their concepts if they are a virgin or not, because news flash.

Virginity is just a social construct.

Articles Referenced:  Kousakis, Anastasia & Valenti, Jessica.  (2009, May 8). “Why is America so Obsessed with virginity?” Huffpost blog. Retrieved from: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/anastasia-kousakis/why-is-america-so-obsesse_b_183798.html.