"Purity balls", 'purity dances'. With this name an unusual ceremony is known that consists of the promise of girls and adolescents to get virgins to marriage. Of not having sexual relations until going through the altar, when some do not even have defined their sexual condition, when they do not even know very well what is that of "losing purity".
This is a fairly recent creation ceremony that takes place in several states of the United States, when dozens of father-daughter couples meet to, through a clearly nuptial aesthetic (with photographic report and waltz included), virginity is promised until Marriage and protection of the girl by the father.
The origin of the "Purity balls" or 'dances of puereza' dates back to 1998, when this ceremony was first organized in Colorado Springs (United States). The event was created by Randy and Lisa Wilson for their five daughters as a way of vindicating the role of the father (religious pastor) in the life of the girls, since he felt he did not occupy an important place.
Then, a ceremony was devised in which the participants are adorned as boyfriends, there is a dinner, a speaker, some words are said about the sexual abstinence to which the daughter commits and there is dance and photo reportage. Parents promise protect the purity of girls' minds, bodies and souls. Fathers and daughters make their vows.
Sometimes memories are given to dance goers (those wedding and communion details) to perpetuate the promises made by fathers and daughters. Joint ceremonies are usually held in hotel rooms.
The Christian religious roots of the event are evident, in the name of God they and they make their respective promises and the father intends to be a good Christian model for his whole family. In fact, as I said Randy Wilson is a pastor and his wife, Lisa Wilson, co-founder of "Generations of Light," the "Generations of Light," a popular Christian ministry in Colorado Springs.
Four-year-old girls promising chastity?
The most striking thing to me is the tender age of some participants in the ceremony. Because while most are teenagers (it's not that I see it normal, but it seems more understandable to make more or less thoughtful and responsible decisions, although there may be a "brainwashing" behind) there are cases of girls up to four years promising their virginity.
In general, girls are expected to have menstruation to make this promise and in some places a minimum age is established to participate. But girls of four and five years, there have been in the purity dances and will continue to have, seen the success of these promises in several states ...
The defenders of these events maintain that they foster close and deeply affectionate relationships between fathers and daughters, thus avoiding sexual activity before marriage in an attitude of Christian roots and clearly puritanist (and hypocritical, I am convinced).
Critics claim that purity dances promulgate invasive messages of women's freedom, promote anti-feminist ideals and ignore homosexuality and other sexual tendencies, along with other objections that we comment below.
I imagine that many of these girls will end up ignoring their promises, in the style of Miley Cyrus, who went from expressing a few years ago her desire to get a virgin to marriage to air the loss of her virginity and become a creamy sexual provocateur. But it is not necessary to reach so much.
You can lose your virginity without reaching those media extremes. With maturity and integrity, through its own decision, reflected and in a safe way. Because this is another point where the detractors of this practice are supported: the girls who star in these purity dances are more susceptible to suffering from sexual diseases and unwanted pregnancies because they lack sexual education.
That are not incompatible, sex education and the desire for chastity, but usually go hand in hand. Because, if the girl is not going to get married for another fifteen years, why do you want to know how this or that is done, how this or that is prevented? And at school sometimes you don't get enough education ...
By the way, the magazine "Time" has investigated the "purity balls" and has verified that there is no evidence that the girls who made this promise fulfill it or that virgins reach the marriage to a greater extent than other women. And, in matters of pleasure, love and hormones, where I said "Diego" ...
Discrimination and incest dyes
We reach some controversial but inescapable topics. The purity dances are for girls, for girls. What's up with the boys? Can they have sex at any time? Discrimination is evident, women are seen differently from men, no matter if they have more or less young relationships, before marriage ... the concern is in them.
They are free to have sex, we imagine. But not with the daughters of "their peers," so to speak. With those who did not make their promise (although, as we have said, more than one will).
No purity dances are made for children, for boys. The supposed values are measured with double standards.
And since I started researching this topic and some of the images I have seen, an incestuous tuffillo has come to mind. The incest slope of this unusual ceremony does not go unnoticed Nor for his detractors, for critics. Because father and daughter dress like traditional boyfriends (most, others with party costumes), they dance a waltz like boyfriends, make their vows, pose for photographs as boyfriends, with romantic poses.
The father promises to monitor "the integrity of his body and his soul" by becoming a watchman, a kind of chastity belt with legs. The Electra complex, which not only involves the crush of the daughter but also that of the father, flies over this matter ... "It is only mine", many of the photographs seem to shout ... Like the "possession" of the marriage that is recreated, to which Follow the honeymoon at weddings. It seems that the father's role is relegated to that of the husband.
On the other hand, there is the issue of the sex education we claim for our sons and daughters. What value can the promise of a four-year-old girl have in this regard? When they barely understand the functioning of the human body, pretending that their concept of sexuality is mature and complete is utopian. Do parents explain what virginity is? Or precisely that ignorance is wanted?
When girls stop being so and they are teenagers, their sexual education is more complete and they can have clearer these issues, although at this stage the hormones can also play bad passes and it is not necessary too much for them to change their feelings, their ideals, even Your idols I mean, the father can come replaced in a plas plis by any equally adolescent young man.
And if there is not a "job" behind mere dancing and photos of the purity ball about people's values, integrity and protection, it is when stories we like less come, such as unwanted pregnancies or transmission diseases sexual…
Finally, I would not like to miss another aspect that disgusts me of these dances of purity, and it is that in the ceremony and the mentality that underlies that the value of a woman is that of her virginity instead of her whole being, her actions and attitudes A sexual object, again?
In short, I do not give credit to these retrograde purity dances in which girls promise virginity until marriage and her parents watch over her. I would like parents to worry that our sons and daughters were whole and good people, look for their well-being and that of those around them, for their health ... and in the end find happiness.
Photos | Slate and Thinkstock
In Babies and more | Hypersexualization of childhood: when children grow early, Sexual education guide for parents of young children
