Why Purity Balls Wouldn’t Work In My Small Town.
Being from a small town, while also attending high school, really opened my eyes on the topic of sexuality and virginity. As a teenager, I wasn’t throwing myself at boys to take my “virginity” like other individuals in my class were. Parties were the number one place for that type of activity, and I was never invited which may be why I wasn’t fond of being taken advantage of. THAT, and because I have more self respect for myself than that.
I remember a conversation I had with a friend in grade 11. She was asking me about my relationship with my boyfriend and how “doing it” was. I’m not an open person and refused right away. She got defensive and said “if I were in your shoes I’d be bragging. You’re not a virgin anymore, that’s a big deal”. Is it really?She proceeded to say, “since you already have I’m definitely going to throw myself at the first guy I see at the party this weekend to catch up”. The jealousy and major lack of self respect blew me away, but the fact these people were trying to get the label of being a virgin off their backs blew me away even more. Why were these people so eager? I certainly didn’t care or was eager; it just happened to happen sooner than I thought, so what?
While reading Why is America So Obsessed with Virginity by Anastasia Kousakis and Jessica Valenti, the idea of Purity Balls struck me in an odd manner. I hate the idea so much, that’s very restricting and damaging to a woman that young. A Purity Ball is a formal father-daughter dance in which the daughter pledges to remain abstinent until marriage and their father vows to protect or care for their daughter’s virginity. In my opinion, when she grows up, she won’t have the experience of being with others to realize or understand what she wants or what she likes, but she’ll already be stuck in the marriage and feel as though there is no way out. After reading the entire section on the formal event, I thought about having Purity Balls in my hometown. There would be NO WAY IN HELL we could manage to pull something off like that, everyone is way too horny around home to agree to saving themselves until marriage. However, nobody would want that to happen around home for another stupid, judgemental reason; it’s a race to lose it and it’s a competition to see how many people one can be with before they settle down. Integrity Balls make me feel the same way, no male back home would pledge to be abstinent because they “don’t want to do that to someone’s future wife or someone’s current daughter” (421). This is not implying that they take advantage or sexually assault the females back home, their sex drives are just whack and want the same things the females want too. Both genders would 110% succumb to the pressure exhibited by everyone else and break their vows to their mother/father and to themselves.
Purity Balls could be introduced, but I can guarantee it wouldn't go over swell with the community. The community is very accepting for the LGBTQ+ community, and many of my friends have only come out this past year, the majority of them entering grade 12 this past September or starting University. These Purity Balls are initiated when a young female is at the age of 12. That’s my youngest sister’s age. That is literally disturbing to think of considering she’s at the age where she starts asking me about boys and for advice. That’s what a girl in grade 7 should be doing, not saving themselves for something they don’t completely understand yet. It’s a violation of something they don’t know, because they only start to learn about it in grade 7. In addition, I cannot see our community willing to partake in this event due to our religions and beliefs as well as how far we’ve already come to accept such behaviour and sexual orientation. It would destroy what we have worked so hard to overcome.