The Purity Myth: Does Abstinence Work?
What is America's obsession with abstinence? A growing number of teenagers across the country are promising to remain virgins until marriage at events called Purity Balls -- a formal gathering in which young girls pledge their virginity to their father until marriage.
Anderson talks to one family whose commitment to their daughters’ abstinence has them attending Purity Balls. Their daughters also encourage other girls to take vows and hold their own purity balls. Joining the conversation is Randy Wilson, who started the Father-Daughter Purity Ball in Colorado Springs, and Jessica Valenti, whose documentary “The Purity Myth” claims that preaching abstinence is a terrible disservice to young girls.
Plus, a 13-year-old girl whose YouTube video quickly went viral, speaks out against the double standard associated with how young men are perceived when sexually active, as compared to young women.
Comments
Wow, there are so many different issues in today's show that have my mind racing. First I feel that all young people male or female need to be properly educated about sex, contraception and risk, but also about self respect, self esteem, self worth and how to engage with others in a healthy way through their own actions and abilities. I don't believe that a person is "impure" because they have had sex, and I certainly don't think that any young woman has to pledge their virginity to their father, infact I find that to be very disturbing that any father would be so interested in his daughter's virginity. Fathers should be more concerned about showing their daughters that good men do not beat or belittle their girlfriend or wife, and that a good man is caring and supportive and encouraging in helping his partner to attain her goals. I also feel that this should be reversed to teach young men the same, and that all fathers and mothers should be teaching their children that education is important as well as loving ones self and respecting ones self regardless of sexual history. If a young person wants to abstain then that is great, but to have fathers one step away from placing their daughters into a chastity belt is sending us back to times where women were deemed a possesion or property. And society and media is easy to blame for the state of our children, but where have we as parents been through all the hours of surfing the net and watching television? Why have our kids become so ingrossed with sex? Why have so many parents not been involved enough with their children to discuss openly these topics to really see how the young person has perceived all they have seen and heard through the media etc? I really feel that the emphasis on being "pure" for young women and girls could really cause long term damage when it is realized that there is no such person who is 100% pure, virgin or not, male or female. There is no knight in shining armor, no sleeping beauty, we are human and we learn through experience.
The purity contract seems a little creepy and a little off, about a dad controlling a daughter's virginity. Perhaps a healthy dialog about sex and relationships makes more sense. Signing something at 13 or 14 is not realistic and at that age your are in love with your daddy. Telling a young lady that if they have sex they are unpure is damaging to them. They should be teaching young men as well how to treat young men.
Just so we're all clear:
The National Institutes for Health reviewed all the best condom literature available in the world in 2000. They found that condoms, if used 100 percent of the time correctly, may reduce the risk of HIV by 87 percent in men and women, and it may reduce the risk of gonorrhea in men, but for all of the other sexually transmitted diseases there is insufficient evidence that condoms reduce the risk at all. Just google the report!
Better yet, Guttmacher Institute shares this with us:
"Fifty-four percent of women who have abortions had used a contraceptive method (usually the condom or the pill) during the month they became pregnant." Geez! that's alot of failure and that's what contraception was designed for!
http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_induced_abortion.html
And let's just think logically for a moment... if she got pregnant... she got an STD... duh!!! :)
And, of course, a teenage boy, who can't even make his bed everyday, is going to use a condom correctly and consistently every time! Give me a break! Just getting him to change his underwear is tough enough! LOL
I just saw your 'Purity' segment and what was most concerning to me was the lack of boundaries the fathers maintained with their daughters. Why are the fathers involved in the decision making of adult or nearly adult daughters regarding their sexuality? With younger girls the strong emphasis on making a commitment to the father to maintain their virginity sounds like a pseudo marriage to their dad. I am having a hard time understanding why a father needs to be so involved and in the discussion of virginity with their daughters. It actually sexualizes the father/daughter relationship in a strange but 'pure' way.
Women being called prudes or frigid for abstaining is just as negative as a man being asked if he's gay for doing the same thing. However a man can sleep around and to his peers he's "macho" and a woman is a "slut".
The issue should be "If you're going to have sex, be responsible". Obviously, that doesn't mean nothing bad/ unexpected can happen, but that is a risk you take when you make that choice. On the other hand, I don't think that someone should be looked at negatively for abstaining. I think it should be their choice to abstain, not to abstain because their parents tell them they are dirty if they don't.
What would these "purists" think if one of their daughters had been raped? Would they go around telling her that she's un-pure because of an act she had no control over? Would God condemn her because she had sex outside of marriage?
I agree that women in our society are objectified especially when it comes to sex but just as often men are vilified. That's why some of the things I herd in this episode bothered me. The issue I had with the show was the fact that the "double standard" held regarding a boy's sexuality vs. a girl's sexuality was pointed to as evidence to vilify men, as if men where all to some degree predators who just want to 'steal' a girls virginity.
The truth is that there is a double standard for abstinence that goes the other way. A woman can Abstain for sex and people will say shes being a lady, in general its held upas a good thing but men who abstain are mercilessly ridiculed and have there masculinity, there sexual orientation, and every aspect of there sexual identity called in to question. It's easy to complain that women are defined by there sexual activity but the hard truth is that men are to. The double standard of promiscuity is a myth, this IS a two way street and I'd argue it's actually WORSE for men.
I remember one time when I was serving over sees in the navy and my shipmates asked me if I wanted to go ashore with them to grab a beer. The drinking age in the country we where in was 18. I was 19 at the time but had made the choice not to drink till I was 21. When I told them I didn't drink there immediate response was, "What are you, gay?" That's how it always goes. Any time a man does something even slightly less than macho, there masculinity is questioned, even when the issue at hand has nothing to do with sex and this pressure is always there 24/7.
Anderson, I wish you would do a show about the culture of men and show woman kind that being a man is not as easy as they seem to think it is.
I don't like how anything regarding "purity" or virginity applies to males. I agree that abstinence is the only 100% way to protect from stds and pregnancy, but I don't believe that it makes you less of a person if you don't practice abstinence. It makes me sick to think that it is always a women's issue when it comes to virginity.
I got pregnant with my daughter when I was 24 years old. My parents were less than thrilled, and I had to listen to my mother telling me how horrible it was for me to be in that situation. She told me that if it was my brother who had gotten a girl pregnant, she wouldn't be bothered by it because, if things didn't work out or if he didn't want to be involved, all he had to do was pay money for child support. We are getting married in June, and don't have any regrets about our daughter despite what others said at the time.
I just can't believe how many people place blame on women only. If a woman chooses to abstain, she gets almost as much negative response as someone who sleeps around. There is no middle ground, and it seems that a woman's sexuality is always going to have something to do with the way society values her. Because of this, I feel that there are many women out there who, regardless or being abstinent or not, married or not, still feel guilty about sex because society teaches women that sex is bad or wrong and it is something that shouldn't be done.
The whole thing is really about choices and living with the consequences. I made my choice and in result, I have an amazing little girl with an amazing father. Those girls have made their choices not to go down the same path I have, that's their decision. I wonder if there was a little less pressure from these girls' parents, that they would still have the same values.
While I agree that it is necessary for parents to instill ideas of self worth in their children (regardless of gender) I do not think acting as the "gatekeeper" of your child's virginity is sending the right message. A person's sexuality does not determine their worth, and parents need to focus on raising a good person- and "good" has nothing to do with virginity. If a person chooses to save themselves for marriage that's perfectly fine and I give people who make that decision FOR THEMSELVES BY THEMSELVES a lot of credit. Making such a public scene like the purity ball or signing some contract seems to be an unnecessary ritual for the benefit of the parent, specifically father, to recognize his status as the chief decision maker in the family.
There's nothing wrong with encouraging your children not to have sex randomly with various partners and teaching them the potential consequences of having sex. But I do think the purity balls are really a way to reinforce the antiquated ideas of women being incapable of making their own decisions and needing a male in their lives to "do all the thinking" for them.
I think that people should be encouraging these young woman to stay pure. There is soooooo much SEX in the world. This is the problem with the world today!!
Ok, my 3rd post, and then I think I'm done. This one will deal with the issues that bother me most.
"You honour yourself and your future husband or wife by not having more than one partner" (Heather)
Only if the person you end up with believes this act has anything to do with honour. If someone I met told me they had waited all of their life to find someone like me and had never slept with anyone else, I would feel neither honoured nor dishonoured. If it was important for him to do that that's great for him on a personal level but it wouldn't be any sort of honour or compliment to me. I haven't gained anything from him having done it. In fact, I'd go as far as to say I'd lost the possibility of having any of those great conversations about our sexual pasts that I have enjoyed so much in all of my previous relationships.
"Having sez before marriage will definitely cause trouble later in your marriage. If you have had sex before marriage, it's never too late to stop and save yoruself for your future spouse (He/She will appreciate it very much)!!!!!
This is a contradiction if ever I saw one - it's never to late, but if you've already done it you've already done irreparable damage?! A bit of muddled thinking here I think! And no it won't definitely cause trouble in your marriage (please don't just pluck "facts" out of the air). I come from a place where we aren't' brought up to see sex outside marriage as an evil and consequently it's not something that causes any issues for anyone I've ever heard of. It's the stigmatising of sex outside marriage that causes problems for people who then go on to do it.
"..if someone wants to honor a future spouse and save themselves for them, why do people look down on this? But if they save themselves, that takes COMMITMENT, perseverance, and makes them unique. In my personal opinion, this kind of honorable decision intimidates the sexually active. If you are sexually active, good for you, do your thing. But respect those who chose to save themselves" (Nate)
It's not usually the decision itself that's looked down on. It's the way these people seem to see themselves as being morally superior (or more "honorable")to others. That they often get these morals from a god that has told them in a holy book of all the genocides he has carried out and therefore is not qualified to be giving out advice on morality also rankles. I didn't get my morals from a genocidal tirant. Why does this make me morally inferior to someone who did?
And this idea that abstinence is synonymous with "saving something" is a complete fiction. Having sex with someone does not equate to the person "losing" anything and so there is nothing to save. We do not have a finite amount of sex or love to give out over the course of our lives. There is such a thing as emotional damage as a result of romantic relationships but this is caused by love and not by sex. If an abstinent Christian girl is dumped by her virgin fiance a day before her wedding and is subsequently heartbroken, then remaining a virgin has not protected her; she is more "damaged" than a woman who has no strings sex with a man she likes and cares about but is not in love with. It is the virgin who has "given a little piece of her heart away" and not the girl who is sexually active. So this idea that we "save" ourselves is problematic to say the least.
Ok, rant over and apologies for the amount I've written but I come from a country where these views have all but died out and it astounds and saddens me that there are places in the developed world where people still hold them.
And as for the "prone to diseases thing" condoms can fail but so too can spouses who claim to be faithful but are not. One book suggests that infidelity occurs in 80% of marriages (Peggy Vaughan “The Monogamy Myth”) so statistically we are all arguably more likely to end up in a marriage that involves infidelity than not. While I'm aware that other surveys return lower figures, the point remains that the only way you can be sure never to catch an std is to remain abstinent for life. Even if you wait until marriage there is no guarantee your spouse won't cheat no matter how good or godly he or she seems. Look at Ted Haggard's poor wife; her example alone demonstrates the naivety of the purity movement and those who think that telling their kids to wait until marriage will put them out of harms way when it comes to STDS when it clearly will not. There is NO SUCH THING as safe sex, EVEN if you are a virgin at marriage and marry another virgin.
Furthermore, has noone heard of STD testing? When a sexually active person goes into a new relationship they can get tested to verify that they are "clean". The only risk is that they are lying (but this applies equally to those who say they are virgins; there is always the risk that this is not true).
Finally, while birth control can and does fail from time to time, by using several forms at once you can reduce the odds of failure down to a very insignificant number. Not all countries have the high unplanned pregnancy rates of the USA and there is a reason for this. Proper education
"Waiting to have sex until marriage is the best gift you could ever give your future souse (sic)".
Patently untrue. Would you rather be with someone who was cruel, dishonest, impatient, lazy, abusive, and uninterested in you but committed to remaining a virgin until marriage or would you rather be with someone who has had previous sexual experience but who is nevertheless free of STDs and also kind and decent, honest, patient, loving and hard working?.
"No one wants to be married to someone who has been with so many other people"
Also not true. I would far rather marry someone with experience and a sexual past than someone who has none (all else equal - if the man of my dreams came along and he was a virgin that's fine but it's not my preference). For me, hearing about my boyfriends' past sexual experiences is one of the most erotic and exciting parts of a relationship and I love telling a man about mine too. This has enriched my relationships rather than diminished them.
"Let’s take a look at the undisputable FACTS.....Condoms were never designed to protect against S.T.D.’s and there is NO conclusive evidence that they do!"
I'm sorry Puritypays, but I have to dispute your "indisputable" fact because it is clearly incorrect. I come from a country where we receive sex education and the focus is on accuracy rather than scare mongering. There is plenty of evidence condoms protect against STDS. (this website gives the American FDA's position, based on academic research: http://www.fda.gov/forconsumers/byaudience/forpatientadvo...). Just because they can fail does not mean they don't offer protection in the majority of cases. And yes, some STDs can still be transmitted even where a condom is used and doesn't break, but the risks are still enormously reduced. I will also point out that you can get HPV from kissing your aunt or grandmother (That's why you will sometimes see very young kids with cold sores) and can then transmit herpes to your partner by engaging in oral sex, so even if 2 people marry as virgins and remain faithful to each other, it is still possible that they could end up with an STD. None of us are 100% safe, it's ALWAYS a question of the degree of risk. You can't get rid of it all together unless you choose to remain abstinent until the day you die.
I was disappointed that nobody asked if the fathers stayed pure till marriage
I thought that the theme of "purity" borderd on religious indoctrination. I agree that what is appropriate for girls should also apply to boys.
Adam and Eve is a lie, one big clue, the sun above that shines on earth, will one day blow up.