Purity rings have been in and out of the news over the last fifteen years. Miley Cyrus wore one, and before her it was Britney’s statement. Recently, however, more and more stories have been revealed by girls who wear purity rings given to them by their fathers.
For some girls, it doesn’t stop there. Purity balls have surfaced in the past few years as a way for daughters to pledge their virginity to their fathers in an elaborate ceremony dangerously similar to a wedding. At these ceremonies, teenage girls dress in white gowns and receive a purity ring, only to be replaced by a wedding ring when they can finally break their spell of abstinence with their husbands.
The fact that girls are receiving purity rings from their fathers is alarming. The bulk of the issue here is what this symbolizes. There is nothing wrong with making a promise to yourself to remain abstinent until marriage. However, receiving a purity ring from your father symbolizes your pledge of abstinence on behalf of his values. This is especially critical in situations where girls receiving purity rings are thirteen or younger—how are you supposed to make an educated decision on your personal values related to abstinence when you have barely held hands with a boy? Herein lies the danger of gifted purity rings-abstinence is largely a personal value, and personal values should not be dictated from a third party.
Even more alarming is the public element of the purity ball. Here, young girls are pledging their purity to their fathers in ceremony, making it formal that their purity is the responsibility of their fathers to protect until they are of marriageable age. The purity pledge celebration is somewhat comparable to a birthday party, elevating the forced promise of abstinence to a special occasion. This is, again, dangerous to young teenage girls. By making abstinence a concept young girls may not fully understand an occasion for a party, purity balls glamourize a girl’s pledge of purity to her father.
In a larger sense, this isn’t just about a little metal band or a purity party–this is about women having control over their own bodies. Women have been able to make the decision about whom they want to have run the country for almost 100 years. Isn’t it just a tad bit antiquated to treat them like they can’t make personal decisions about their sexuality?
As I woman, if I choose to be sexually abstinent until marriage, I will make that choice and buy myself the purity ring. Women shouldn’t need to answer to their fathers (or anyone else, for that matter) as to how they are going to use their bodies.