Is it just me who finds this creepy?

[mickeym]

In Pursuit of Teen Purity

The pictures are bad enough -- the one at the top of the article has (presumably) two fathers and two daughters, and one "couple" are in what seriously looks like a couple-y pose. *shudder*

The whole thing is creepy, in my opinion, but this passage from the article just creeps me the fuck out (bolding is mine):

When Kylie was 13, her parents took her on a hike in Lake Tahoe, Calif. "We discussed what it means to be a teenager in today's world," she says. They gave her a charm for her bracelet--a lock in the shape of a heart. Her father has the key. "On my wedding day, he'll give it to my husband," she explains. "It's a symbol of my father giving up the covering of my heart, protecting me, since it means my husband is now the protector. He becomes like the shield to my heart, to love me as I'm supposed to be loved."

In theory, I get the idea behind the Purity Balls. But why isn't anyone addressing this with boys, too? Why isn't anyone getting all the kids together and saying "hey, you know what? You don't have to have sex, or (whatever, fill in the blank). Just be kids, have a good time growing up."

Honestly, I think the whole focus on 'purity' is more than a little weird (and not a little Victorian. Or, y'know, medieval.). If people want their daughters to be pure, well. Let's get rid of "french maid" halloween costumes for *children*. Or crop tops. Or shorts, etc., that have words written across the butt, or the other myriad of girls' fashions that seem determined to flaunt and exploit children and teens' sexuality.

And for God's sake, include the boys, too!

Comments

[vickita.livejournal.com]

Y'know, here's the thing: people have sex. People have *ALWAYS* had sex. And they tend to start thinking about having sex, 'round about puberty-ish.

Nothing anyone has ever done (that I'm aware of) has substantially changed this. People have always had sex. Kids (in the sense of 15-16-17-ish being kids) have always had sex. Young girls have always gotten pregnant. Thus has it ever been; thus shall it ever be. Hiding one's head in the sand doesn't make it go away. Generally speaking, people *deal*, or it gets ugly, real fast.

I live in Oklahoma, where an awful lot of fundamentalists like to teach that it's not okay to have sex before marriage. What that results in is lots of people getting married in their late teens or early twenties, because zomg, NOBODY (for Bell curve values of "nobody") can make hold out much past that. And the early marriages result in? Early divorces.

People need to get over it. Teach kids how to keep themselves safe from STDs and unwanted pregnancy, teach them about *human relationships* and valuing themselves, and hope they grow up to be relatively un-fucked-up, productive members of society.

That's my feeling about it, anyway.

[taselby.livejournal.com]

Exactly. I live in what's essentially the midwest of California. And for a lot of these kids, marriage = permission to have sex. So we have a lot of young mothers, single mothers (because of divorce or abandonment), and teen pregnancy because all the kids hear from their families is "sex is bad, don't do it" and never how to protect themselves once the biology takes over.

And a lot of it is tied up in poverty, lack of education, lack of opportunity, and all that jazz. It's a big knot. Fortunately the sex-ed (when parents don't opt their kids out of it) is top-notch at my older daughter's high school. The summer session brought in a lecturer from Planned Parenthood for a week. Mim was full of hand-flapping enthusiasm. There was even a unit on homosexuality, and another on abusive relationships.

CA never drank the Federal "Abstinence Only" kool-aid.