This might be the creepiest thing I’ve ever seen. Thanks to Jessica for making me vomit in my mouth a little bit.
I feel dirty.
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i kept waiting for that baby to puke all over that dude.
i think having a good relationship with your parents is really important. i think if you’ve waiting and are hoping that a purity ball is going to give you that…you are gonna be pretty disappointed.
although i do remember fondly my father/daughter girl scout square dances. when i was in THIRD GRADE.
There are no words.
I *did* enjoy the part where the girl was talking to her dad about how she didn’t want a boyfriend, and her father pointed out that she got the “male attention” she needed from him.
The undertones are a little creepy, but the message is actually fairly accurate. Of course, I had a very good relationship with my father, and I was still boycrazy from a young age. (And then girlcrazy, once I figured that part out.)
This whole phenomenon is one of those “So close, yet so far” kind of things. I think encouraging fathers and daughters to have better relationships is incredibly important. However, bringing the whole “purity and abstinence” thing into it is the step too far.
It all reminds me a bit of The Promise Keepers, where you had a group calling for men to be responsible and supportive and caring to their families…with this “on the other hand…” that was incredibly old fashioned and misogynistic.
Bottom line? Anything that encourages families to have better relationships is good. Anything that then drags unnecessary focus onto womens’ sexual identities (or the restriction thereof) is not.
This is going to sound wrong or maybe too harsh but its honestly like looking at another world or something. The level of creepiness is just off the charts. I’m going to give the benefit of the doubt and say I imagine the intentions are some what positive but still. I mean, come on now.
Did anyone hear hints of the Firefly score in the last 30 seconds or so? (When the woman was reading about gifting herself to her husband, I think.) I would love to think that there’s some rogue videographer out there splicing the music of Mal and Inara’s unconsummated affair into this kind of pap.
I recently went to a wedding of a friend who stayed a virgin until her wedding night, and though I was happy she married someone she loved, and the whole affair was very lovely, I was a tad disturbed by the emphasis on the “trade-off” of her from her father to her husband. At the reception, she and her father danced to a song called “I Loved Her First” or somesuch, and I hoped everyone understood that there are different types of loving people. RIGHT?
It occurs to me that they could foster the close, loving father-daughter relationships through things like father/daughter outings, and yes, even dances, without bringing in the overly controlling overtones of protecting your daughter’s “innocence” by protecting her virginity until she is handed off to her husband. (Note to parents: protecting your kids’ innocence is not a bad idea in my book, but you *have* to realize that it’s pretty futile. Kids are exposed to a LOT that you can’t control through their friends. Even if you do succeed, you are simply opening them up to a lot of harassment from their peers if they don’t get what said peers are nattering about.)
My father and I *never* discussed any of that — he left that to my mom, who, as I recall never had the “why sex before you are married would be bad” discussion with me. Then again, they were from a totally different generation, one where talking about sex was pretty taboo. *shrugs* I managed to turn out OK, and not have horrible, empty, exploitive relationships. Then again, that may have had to do with having decent sex ed, a pretty good role model in my father, and enough brains to realize that yes, I *could* in fact get pregnant or infected if I did risky/stupid things. Not trying to be self righteous; I’m just saying that there HAS to be a better way to get that across to youngsters so they can make informed decisions and not just follow blindly what has been pounded into them.
Just an interesting side note: the term “covering” is used in horse breeding to mean the actual sex act between stallion and mare. I knew that from a frighteningly young age, and the useage of THAT term to mean “protect” would have weirded me out. A LOT. Just sayin’….
I don’t know about anybody else, but what I wanted from a boyfriend and what I wanted from my father had naught to do with each other.
Thank you for this post. I’m off to take a shower and autoclave my computer now.
Jeez, Jill, ya need to put a warning label on that thing! Ya don’t wanna be sued BEFORE ya graduate, right?
Little pink boxes?
“Cover you in the area of purity”?
Good God, why don’t they just institute assembly-line hymenal inspections and be done with it?
y’know, once upon a time, it’s true, the “patriarchy” meant exactly this: girl goes from being her father’s to her husband’s. that would pretty much be the whole, you know, dowry business. as in, it’s -business.- not saying, hey! that’d be MUCH BETTER! but, you know: it wasn’t exactly the stuff of hearts and flowers either. not with dad, certainly.
and then came a whole bunch of stuff, not least of which including Victorian ideas of Romanticism. now marriage isn’t just about strong childbearing hips and a good bride price; now it’s, y’know, hearts & flowers.
so, okay: being generous, there’s probably still a place for Hallmark and all that happy crappy as well, even among yer more “traditional marriage” types, sure;
putting them BOTH TOGETHER however is one serious
EEWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
i mean, there’s having your Freudian slip showing, and then there’s having it puddled all the way around your ankles.
SO TRUE. I didn’t learn about sex till the fourth grade and while I turned out okay and have I like to think a healthy attitude towards the whole deal… I mean it was bad enough being a straight A student, I didn’t need anything else to help me get picked on.
More on topic: this video is so creepy and wrong. How do these people not see that having a girl refer to herself as a wedding gift is total objectification of women?
Thank you, Laurie. That’s what I was trying to say. Wordy McWord.
Eeeeeek. While I definitely look forward to my as yet entirely in my head, not even a wisp of a reality, wedding and the idea of my father giving me away, it’s more in a romantic-honoring-of-tradition sense rather than the “Here’s my daughter. I made sure she was pure for you, Son-in-Law-to-be!” sense.
Cos that shit is creepy.
I went to the father/daughter dances too, but only untilI was in like 7th grade, and they weren’t wrapped in creepy “my daddy is my boyfriend” packaging. They were fun, though. They played upbeat music and my sister and I and my cousin went with our dad and had fun dancing in circles and being goofy. This would’ve creeped me out a lot, had I been on the receiving end of it. I think a good relationship with your parents is important and I do hope that my daughter has a good realationship with her father. I know we will both want to teach responsible sexuality, waiting until she is ready and such, but I would be creeped out if he showed that much interest in her virginity. Even if they want to encourage their daughters to wait until they are married, I think there is a far less creepy way to do it.
We never had any father/daughter dances, and I’m kind of sad about that, really. My dad was an *awesome* dancer — I learned practically everything I know about standard social dance from dancing with him in our kitchen. Dancing with him at my wedding was a very special thing. I miss him every day. *snif*
Sorry about that. Where I was going with that was more along the lines of, “but we did other things, too”. I went to the hardware store with him, and ran other errands. We went out to lunch at the local burger chain and watched people. I “helped” him build things. (That’s in quotes because I was really very young at the time, and was probably more in the way than anything. But I did a bang-up job of fetching tools for him, or so he said. :) We went fishing, and he showed me how to bait the hook and gut and fillet fish. And somehow, he managed to instill in me a sense of “I don’t want to disappoint my father; that would be the worst thing ever” without making inappropriate “vows” regarding my sexual “purity”. Huh. I wonder how that worked, eh?
/snark
Don’t you slutty types understand that it’s “godly affection” we’re dealing with here? Now that’s creepy!
And the Mother/Son Purity Ball was the following evening, right?
…Right?
Gee… my pop apparently had it all wrong. like Laurie’s dad, he actually treated me like a person and not a walking hymen. Through modelling respect and actually doing things like coach my sports team, listen to me, and teach me. It didn’t keep me out of the pre-martial sack – but did teach me not to put up with being treated less the fabulously.
That video is just bloody hilarious. I love watching things like that because I ignore the extreme scariness and freakiness of it and think of the idiocy of it all.
It reminds me of the ad I heard on the local Christian radio station that fathers were told to hug their sons “because if they don’t, another man would.”
Sure shows true compassion that they both have to read their “purity” promises instead of look at eachother and say it by heart. That’s just pure creepiness. And it’s funny because I always thought I would wait until marriage before I had sex, but that all changed when I got to college. Even when I had my virginity I thought it was an annoying thing I wanted to get rid of asap, but I still waited for the right person to come along.
I think that if I were a dad, I’d be weirded out knowing the exact night my daughter was going to see someone’s penis, and not only that but to do things with it. That’s what weirds me out the most. I’d rather her figure it all out before then, when I wasn’t damn sure it was bound to happen. That’s just my take on it.
Not only that, but you don’t see any purity balls for boys! What the crap!
Haha, not only that but I laughed my ass off when he said she doesnt have the interest in boys that the other girls have…I thought to myself
“ITS CAUSE SHE’S A LESBIAN! WOOHOO!!!”
Oh man, I love it.
I am deeply disturbed by that video. It’s just creepy on so many levels.
yeah, the mother/son purity ball would be a hoot. mommy vows to cover little junior’s johnson until it can be ceremoniously handed over to his wife…..
Covenant is not a verb. “Memories key to captivating beauty” is not a grammatical phrase.
I want GRAMMATICAL purity from one generation to the next. Is that so much to ask?
Covenant is both a noun and a verb.
That’s why I like the Jewish processional. The groom walks in, escorted by both his parents, and then the bride walks in, escorted by both her parents. Yes, there’s still a sense of handing off property, but both son and daughter are considered property.
As someone who grew up evangelical? None of that really shocked me. Which makes me feel like I’ve been brainwashed still into just nodding and ignoring when that kind of thing comes up.
Just another issue of control.
My college roommate’s father promised her a large, expensive present which happened to have a phallic shape, if she would keep her virginity until age 21. She accepted, and got the present. I could not believe it for 2 reasons: a) this was in the 1970s, in California;
b) I could maybe, conceivably, see doing that, in SOME circumstances, but for a phallic-shaped present…how could they…!
Professor Zero:
Now I *gotta* know what that present was! :) I must be somewhat braindead just now, ’cause I seriously can’t picture one that could be large/expensive enough….
OMG YES! I was thinking the exact same thing!
Professor Zero: I assume it was a car, right? Also, did the dad CHECK? Or did he just take her word for it (I hope I hope I hope)? In which case, if I were her, I would totally have just lied. :)
This whole phenomenon reminds me of one of my friends in high school who went to an evangelical church where they told all the girls that their bodies were like a “treasure chest” and that every time they did something naughty with a guy, they were “giving away pieces of their treasure.” The idea being, obviously, that without all your “treasure” you’ll be totally worthless down the line and therefore no man will want to buy you. SO GROSS.
Could anyone else just not help wondering which/how many of the girls were being molested by their upstanding Christian fathers? …even before the teenager sitting on Daddy’s lap.
My dad gave me as much attention as a two-weekends-a-month father could, and involved me in his fishing and fixing and skeet shooting and, um, bullet-making. Seriously. I carried bags of lead shot as an eight-year-old. This instilled in me the value of washing your hands.
My dad’s love didn’t keep me from being a boycrazy adolescent (and eventually developing a tendency towards interest in older men, hmm) – but maybe it did give me the confidence to keep those guys out of my pants until I felt ready.
Doesn’t mean I would’ve wanted to talk about it with him. Much less in public. Much less on camera.
And the Mother/Son Purity Ball was the following evening, right?
Wouldn’t it be embarrassing to hear your mother talk about your purty balls in public?
/squint/
Oh. Nev-er mind.
Count me in as another who wants that answer from Professor Zero. So what was it? A dachshund? A broom? A rocketship? The Washington Monument?
its not like that girl giving the pledge could get laid anyway…
Hmm, I dunno. I feel like just about any teenage girl can get laid, assuming she takes stock of the fact that she’s surrounded by teenage boys and doesn’t necessarily have, um, standards. Ugly, creepy, geeky, whatever: surrounded by teenage boys = able to get laid.
Not that what I just said is really on topic…I’m just sayin.
Russell said:
– it’s not like that girl giving the pledge could get laid anyway…
Why? Because she was a little chunky? Because she isn’t drop dead, Teen Cosmo gorgeous? Because she may have more than two brain cells firing in sequence?
Who the hell are you to judge her anyway?!? and people wonder why young women never consider themselves to be good enough, or *pretty* enough. Yeeesh!
I call sexist bullshit on this one unless you come up with a REALLY good answer to ‘why’, bucko. And I’m thinkin’ you’ll have to tap dance REALLY HARD to come up with one.
Had a friend who was waiting until marriage. Funny as hell though, she did anal, oral and hand jobs but not the “real” thing.
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