Today’s news: Creeps
Today’s version Journal Star doesn’t have a whole lot of local news (on the Web anyway), but I was able to cobble a few interesting links anyway.
- I am the only creeped out by these “purity balls?” In which 14-year-old girls publicly pledge to their fathers they will stay virgins? And then they give their daddies’ a key to their hearts? What’s next? Chastity belts? Checking the bed sheets for blood on the morning after the wedding?
- LaHood says disaster relief declarations aren’t political. Somewhere, Karl Rove is pondering all the delicious, unexplored opportunities.
- Jerry Klein thinks we’re going to Hell, thanks to Pamela Anderson. I think if Jerry really thinks the 11-year-old of his era weren’t thinking about sex all the time, then he must have a bad memory.
- This school district says its test scores would be absolutely great, if you just don’t count all the students who don’t do well on tests. It’s exactly the sort of institutional denial that I consistently heard from school superintendents througout all the years I spent covering school districts in Illinois and Missouri. I just wish these people would shut up, own the problem and stop making excuses.
- Doug Finke tries to give readers a sense of what’s not happening in Springfield.
Billy Dennis is a former reporter and editor at small daily and weekly newspapers in Illinois and Missouri. He comments on media, news and politics. He also owns and operates 
Go buy the newspaper. There’s lots of local news in it. Stop being cheap
For two bucks you get about 5lbs of ads. After I chuck the ads in the recycle bin along with the classifieds, there’s really not much left.
So, I’m at the Itoo Society Supper an hours ago ad the subject of the Journal Star comes up. Before I say ONE word, this person I never met before says “There’s never anything IN it anymore.”
And the food was delicious.
They are girls so don’t pick on them. Isn’t that your logic?
That purity ball is super creepy. (Perfect for Halloween.) Wonder who sponsors it? I couldn’t bear to read the story closely (too weird) but I don’t recall that it said who the sponsors are, what it costs, etc. Studies show that this kind of stuff doesn’t work with teens to keep them from having sex, tho it may make them feel so guilty that when the sex moment comes they don’t use birth control. Comprehensive sex ed works better. At least maybe they won’t get pregnant at age 15 if they know the scientific, objective facts, instead of being subjected to hysterical propaganda.
I agree, the purity ball is kinda creepy. Every stat I’ve read about them also sez they mean naught in stopping premarital sex. Just more mind frelling of our youth.
Wow, fathers and daughters bonding, communicating. Daughters pledging not to have sex until marriage. Gee, that is creepy. I sure hope THAT doesn’t catch on!
[/sarcasm]
I have to admit the Purity Ball does kind of make me squirm. I agree with the principal, but just something about having to talk about sex with your Dad. eeewwwww.
Hey, I like the Ads! That’s the only reason I buy the Sunday paper this time of year!
The paper has nothing? Then stop linking and talking about. Funny how you complain and bitch yet rely on it.
I thought it was creepy, too, not that abstinence is bad, but that it had such patriarchal overtones. You pledge this to your father, not yourself, you give him the key to your heart, then he gives it to your husband? It’s like your virginity is property owned first by your father, and second, by your husband… ick.
Part of what conservatives (like me) and dads (like me) dislike so much about sex ed and birth control in schools and the pervasiveness of sex is that we don’t like our kids imbued in sex. Hormones imbue them enough; we don’t need to make it such a focus in the most formative time in their lives (no thanks to the 1960’s). There are, I believe, more important things for kids and people to focus upon, especially publically. And I especially hate that others would think that they know better how to teach my or anyone’s kids, making me out as a passé prude for believing and teaching a particular value about sex. In other words, let us each keep it to ourselves and our families.
And then, in the name of doing just that, these folks go a pull this indeed ‘creepy’ event. No doubt, it’s an attempt to combat the ubiquitous message of “go have sex, just do it right†with a “just do it right and don’t have sex†message. Yea, we all think about it, but do we have to fixate on it?
No doubt, this event was also about love, respect, self-respect, interest in others, faith, morality, et al. But it was, above all, about sex. Again, let us each keep it to ourselves and our families.
And Mr. Dennis: “Checking the bed sheets for blood on the morning after the wedding?†– a bit over the top, I think. Yuck.
Kris: Yuck was the point I was trying to make. I recall reading that this was something that happened because delivering a virgin girl to the husband was considered SO important, they did this. Because this could be faked, sometimes witnesses were placed inside the room to make sure a deflowering actually took place.
And I have a question for the Daddies who think purity is so important. If your daughter isn’t a virgin, does that make her dirty? Is that the message you are giving her?
It’s one thing to teach a kid of the value of NOT engaging in sex at an early age. It’s another to teach than the lack of an intact hymen is to be less than pure, less loved by God. This is, by definition, a value out of the dark ages. We long for the good old days when sex was hidden. But there were drawbacks, too.
Billy, you know what I find creepy? I think it’s creepy that a single guy who posts “eye candy” and fantasizes publicly about women who are less than half his age is lecturing fathers on what values are harmful to instill in their daughters.
You don’t have any idea what it’s like to raise a daughter today. It’s not an easy thing to build healthy self-esteem in a young girl when she’s immersed in a culture that objectifies women and places all value on how physically attractive they are. Have you ever gone shopping for clothes for a 4-year-old, and seen the kinds of inappropriately tight and skin-baring clothing that are on the racks? Have you ever had to explain to a perfectly normal 7-year-old that she’s not fat? Do you really think that fathers taking their daughters to a dance, opening up communication with them, affirming them, and trying to teach them the value of self-control in something as serious as sexual activity is such a terrible thing? The purity ball isn’t about teaching daughters that they’re worth less if they have sex, it’s about teaching daughters that they’re valuable and should have enough self-respect to protect themselves from being exploited by hormonal boys who just want to score.
The personal comment is uncalled for, I think. I don’t need to have raised daughters to be very much aware of what’s going on. I think perhaps you might be too close to the subject.
My two cents: It’s one thing to teach the valuer of waiting to have sex. Only an idiot thinks young teens ought to be having sex. What I find creepy is the ceremony involved. It’s not the opposite of the over-emphasis on sex of which you complain, it’s simply over-emphasis of sex is another form.
Madonna, Britney Spears and their use sex as a marketing tool to promote their mediocre talents. The result is kids convinced that their are missing out on something really, really, really good. This purity ball nonsense will have the same effect, I think. It leaves kids thinking, “Wow. This sex stuff is really, really, really something the adults don’t want us to do. Can’t wait!”
Purity Balls, etc. is a hysterical over-reaction to a problem that’s best solved by giving children ALL the information they need and not by wrapping it around a bunch of mystical nonsense about having one’s hymen makes one pure, whatever the hell that means.
I like the way chastity advocate Mary Beth Bonacci (a frequent speaker at Catholic youth rallies) puts it: Virginity is about your past, but chastity is about your present and your future. She does not place a lot of emphasis on virginity (or even what some have dubbed “secondary virginity”) because she wants to emphasize that the important thing is to choose chastity NOW — no matter what your past.
There ought to be a middle ground between treating every woman who isn’t a virgin on her wedding night as “damaged goods” and treating every woman (or man) who IS a virgin when they marry as some kind of repressed freak or weirdo, which is what popular culture does today.
Perhaps a more suitable alternative to the ‘purity ball’ might be something along the lines of the Mexican Quinceaneara, or 15th birthday celebration, which originally signaled that a girl was of marriageable age but today is regarded as simply a general coming-of-age celebration. It usually includes a Mass or other religious service with an invocation of God’s blessing on the young woman.
I agree the purity ball might be over the top but then that’s what you see in reaction to a society out of control in terms of teen sexuality.
Until you have raised kids, you have no idea what you are talking about
I have 3. 2 boys and a girl.
WMBD just aired part one of a two part series on Purity Balls. Check out the website for more.
[...] The issue also was discussed here. [...]