To think I would rather my daughter be promiscuous than be like this.

[mrsspankythechristmaspoo]

If you have the time to watch the whole doc it's very interesting, but at the same time I was watching with my oh and I said if i had daughters i'd rather them do what 'normal teenagers' do and have boyfriends/ experiment. My oh was a bit and that I would rather have a knocked up teen than a 'pure' one

AIBU?

The issue I have is that these girls are going to get a big shock.

Say they wait until they're married, will sex then be the romanticised idea they have been told about? Sex is funny and messy and beautiful and embarrassing and animal and all sorts of other things.

How are they going to cope?

This is proper creepy. I'm fine with people who choose to wait until marriage - but throwing a ball about it? What?

If I have a daughter I hope she has the self respect to

• make choices that feel right for her
• enjoy sex
• have it with people she respects and who respect her

When I clicked on the title of the thread I was ready to scream YABU but actually really I agree.

I lost my virginity at 17 to my then boyfriend and it was a bit crap. I ended up dumping him as he was very clingy to the point of smothering me. I'm glad I experimented a bit before meeting DH as I had a much better idea of what I wanted and liked.

Sure, I could have done crap sex with my husband but I'm glad I knew a bit more when we met personally.

I'll rephrase - it is mainstream in the USA, which has a far more moral code than we have at this moment. I'm sure the purity rings etc will find their way over here, most American clap trap gets imported one way or another

Thanks, that is the funniest thing I have read all day.

Morality is closely tied to the/a/any church/religious belief. 60% of Americans attend church. 5% of the Uk attends church

No, that is.

off to change my tena lady pants

Haven't watched it, but will later

"60% of Americans attend church. 5% of the Uk attends church"

Actually, no. The US tends to be more religious, but not as high as 60%

"America?s rates of church affiliation have long been higher than those of Europe ? perhaps because of the First Amendment, which permitted a religious ?free market? that encouraged innovation and competition between spiritual entrepreneurs. Yet membership, as every exasperated parson knows, is not the same as showing up on Sunday morning. Rates of church attendance have never been as sterling as the Christian Right?s fable of national decline suggests. Before the Civil War, regular attendance probably never exceeded 30 percent, rising to a high of 40 percent around 1965 and declining to under 30 percent in recent years ? even as 77 percent still identify as Christians and 69 percent say they are ?very? or ?moderately? religious, according to a 2012 Gallup survey."

www.nytimes.com/2012/12/23/opinion/sunday/american-christianity-and-secularism-at-a-crossroads.html

It isn't just about numbers of practising Christians. I know lots of very conservative evangelical Christians over here (DH's family for example). While they don't believe in sex outside marriage they don't really have the same weird purity ring, father-daughter stuff.

Shudder. This sort of thing is truly horrifying on so many levels. And very, very creepy.

But just to clear up a misconception: "purity balls" are absolutely NOT part of mainstream life in the US. They exist within a subculture of religious extremists.

Just watched the whole documentary and found it interesting, so thanks for the link. It definitely does seem weird to me, especially the very young kids who really just don't even have a clue what they are saying and just parroting from the parents. The dad doing the blessings on all the kids felt creepy to me also. I feel sorry for the older girl Jessica who is now trying to live more of what I would call a "normal" life with her mum judging her and trying to wreck it!

Now, I'm not saying its fact but I had heard/read/been told (can't remember exactly), that in order to remain technical virgins a lot of these young ladies end up having anal sex instead.

" my DD was able to express her sexuality in whatever way she chooses" but if she chooses to express her sexuality by not showing it to others and staying a virgin until marriage that wouldnt be ok?

"will sex then be the romanticised idea they have been told about?" will any marriage be the romanticised idea that we are given in Hollywood and Bollywood? it is a hard ideal to live up to even if you have had sex before marriage. But plenty of people all around the world cope without having sex before marriage and then have happy sex lives!! lol they learn what they like together!

whoever said sex before marriage in the Quran is adultery you are wrong, it is fornication!

I agree with many of the points. It is weird to have this ball, attend so young, it s a bit meaningless for a 7 year old to say these things and pledge these things. Also as much emphasis should be given to the sons as the daughters!

"But plenty of people all around the world cope without having sex before marriage and then have happy sex lives!! "

I don't know if that is true, do you? How?

Watching it now.

The girls just seem to be rhyming off what they have been told, even the older girls who by now should have some sort of personal opinion of it all. It's not coming across as a real "choice" at all.

They are just doing as they are told which at 20 years old isn't right.

insancerre I couldn't read your link, it made my eyes bleed. I think people who use acid green as a font colour have 'ishoos' to begin with.

I've heard about these balls before and I do think these girls will find life hard when they go out into the real world.

I also think virginity is overrated - my parents went into married life as virgins and because of that and the total lack of sex education in those days (mid-1960s) they didn't realise that my mum had a medical issue that made sex physically impossible, and that this was not normal. They were on the verge of annulling the whole thing when they got up the courage to see a doctor. With a bit of knowledge and experimentation they could have saved themselves a lot of heartache.

I do think teaching young people of both genders that sharing something as important as your body is a significant step to take and that it's important not to be pressured into anything you don't want. However, having had a 'friend with benefits' at uni I'm firmly of the opinion that there's nothing wrong with enjoying sex without expecting a permanent relationship.

Religion has double standards all the time. Women are seen as breeding machines and the man wants to sure is wife is inpregnated by him.

The problem with these purity balls is that young girls are making pledges they don't understand.

I would rather than teens pledge to use a condom until marriage/ civil partnership than pledge celibacy.

Oh my goodness, the woman who said it "just happened". Sex doesn't "just happen" it's a conscious decision, what an excuse

When my mum found out id lost my virginity aged 18 she told me "i was ruined for all other men" I have left Catholicism in the past and that is where its staying.

Girls/women are seen to have more of a decision making role about whether sex takes place or not. A man cannot have sex with a woman if she doesn't give her consent (unless he decides to use force). Men are infanalised and seen to be less able/willing to be selective about who they have sex with. Both attitudes are flawed.

Personally I dont think there is anything wrong with not having premarital sex. I had one friend at uni who married a guy she had been seeing for three years without having sex first and she was really ridiculed when she told the rest of us. People thought she was weird for not trying him out first .

I also don't agree that having a promiscuous daughter is somehow better than this. I watched that show on bbc 1 (or 2 can't remember) recently about sexual health where they were in a clinic in Manchester and I thought the way many of those young people took such blatant risks by sleeping around and not using protection against stds were quite scary. One girl who confessed to her mum about how often she had ons with men she met when out clubbing and said she didn't ask them to use condoms cause it would give her a bad reputation I don't think there really is choice either if the prevalent culture pressures you to have sex with a man or risk being labelled frigid/cold whatever.

I don't mind if it is genuinely the young woman's choice to 'keep herself' for marriage, but I am uncomfortable with (as someone else said) these fathers' sense of ownership over the girls. As though it is their perogative to 'gift' them to the right young man, like a chattel. And like they need protecting from all other men in the meantime. A woman's sexuality is her own and only she should choose how and when she shares it.

Girls/women are seen to have more of a decision making role about whether sex takes place or not. A man cannot have sex with a woman if she doesn't give her consent (unless he decides to use force). Men are infanalised and seen to be less able/willing to be selective about who they have sex with. Both attitudes are flawed.

Yes, that is very true as well. We seem to be encourage young people to believe that a woman is bestowing an enormous honour on a man by sleeping with him, (even if it means going through a ridiculous charade of playing hard to get) but that men are usually happy to take what they can, where they can and that they have are incapable of exercising any quality control whatsoever.

Sort of skipped through. Caught the 11 year old going to her 6th ball and the bit at the end were fathers were making a declaration as the 'high priest' in their household.

Okay, I'm sniggering that the balls were started by a man called Randy. Yes, I'm that childish.

There is something very creepy about these fathers who think they own their daughters' sexuality. It's like handing over the keys to the chastity belt. Yuck yuck yuckety yuck.

Randy's Purity balls? Are they similar to Love eggs?

I find it interesting that the first sentence of the clip is 'young girls are expressing their desire to stay pure'.
Are they? Are they expressing their own desire to do this? More likely they are expressing their parents desire for them to stay pure.
I remember being about 12 and reading an article about Jessica Simpson saving herself for marriage. I showed it to my Mum, thinking she would think it was great. She gasped and told me it would be foolish to marry someone without knowing them fully first.
I think this helped to give me a healthy attitude towards sex. You don't need to be 'pure' to have self respect and sensible and happy understanding of sex and relationships, even as a young person!!