Purity Balls and Chastity Among Girls

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While I do not think Purity Balls or movements have intentionally positioned women as sex objects, I do think these balls have created a sex cloud over young girls and women. "Indeed, purity balls enter women into a system of commerce in which their sexuality becomes an object to be traded by and between men." (Fahs p. 133) In Chapter 10, Wood states, "Women continue to be portrayed as sex objects for men's pleasure". (Wood p. 279) Even the music industry and video games portray women as sex objects. Wood tells us romance novels send messages to young girls that their popularity depends on the clothes they wear, if they are rich, thin, sexy, and engage in casual sex. Valenti argues in the film that we are creating a culture that girls/women are not valued by their accomplishments, but by their passivity. She states, "The purity myth is the lie that women's sexuality has some bearing on who we are and how good we are because really I think we all know that young women are so much more than whether or not they have sex". Breanne Fahs states in "Daddy's Little Girls" that girls from elementary school to universities are participating in purity balls and chastity clubs, all of which have the goal of "protecting female purity". She reports this has led to a culture that is "sex-obsessed". She states this "reinforces women's oppressed sociosexual status as the property of men". "With today's peer pressure, high teen pregnancy rates, absent parent figures, cohabitation and epidemic levels of sexually transmitted diseases it is vital for us to protect our daughters from unhealthy relationships and offer them, love and security. " That is how, The New Life Pregnancy Center, a sponsor of Arizona's purity balls descri... ... middle of paper ... ...evokes strong emotions on both sides. Christians, politicians and women’s rights groups for years, have discussed the topics in this film. Some believe that the agenda is to roll back women's rights. Works Cited Fahs, Breanne. "Daddy's Little Girls: On the Perils of Chastity Clubs, Purity Balls, and Ritualized Abstinence.” Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 31.3 (2010): 116-142. Project MUSE. Web. 5 Mar. 2014. . Rose, Dawn. "'Purity' Myth Hurts Young Women." 31 January 2013. Social Action. 5 March 2014 . Vanessa. "The Purity Myth, the documentary." 6 December 2011. Feministing. 5 March 2013 . Wood, Julia. Gendered Lives: Communication, Gender, & Culture. Tenth. Boston: Wadsworth, 2013.

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