Purity Balls, Plan B and Bad Sex Policy: Inside America's Virginity Obsession

[eridani]

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/273-40/23538-purity-balls-plan-b-and-bad-sex-policy-inside-americas-virginity-obsession

When the FDA finally did recommend Plan B become available on pharmacy shelves, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius publicly overturned the agency's decision. When President Obama voiced his support for the unprecedented move, he invoked fatherhood and protectionism: "As the father of two young daughters, I think it is important for us to make sure we apply some common sense to various rules when it comes to over-the-counter medicine." Apparently fatherly concern was meant to trump science. As Ann Friedman wrote last year at New York magazine, "Obama may be setting policies based on his preteen daughters, but all women have to live with the consequences."

American paternalism and patriarchy also reared its head recently when Harvard professor Dr Kimberly Theidon filed a discrimination suit against the college, claiming she was denied tenure because of her work supporting sexual assault victims. (Harvard is one of the 55 colleges and universities named by the Education Department on Thursday as currently under federal investigation for mishandling sexual violence and harassment on campus.) Theidon alleges she was told numerous times to be a "dutiful daughter" if she wanted to succeed at the college.

I have no doubt that families who participate in purity balls are doing what they think is best for their children – but that doesn't make them any less wrong. When we teach girls that their virginity makes them special and valuable, we're sending the simultaneous message that without their virginity they are tainted and damaged.

Take Elizabeth Smart – now an activist against child abuse and sexual exploitation – who was kidnapped when she was 14, raped and held for nine months before she escaped. At a forum last year, Smart talked about the way that abstinence-only education made her feel "dirty and filthy" after she was raped. "That's how easy it is to feel like you no longer have worth, you no longer have value. Why would it even be worth screaming out? Why would it even make a difference if you are rescued? Your life still has no value."

But our lives do have value, whether we're "chaste" or not. Too bad there's no party for that.

[Android3.14]

1. Too bad there's no party for that

Valenti points out the biggest weakness of progressive politics.

[ismnotwasm]

2. They're creepy

To demonstrate how strange our society is, imagine mother/son purity balls.

As far as chaste, or virginal, "Responsible" and "sex education" and "birth control" are better words. I know a woman in her 30's whose 2 sons both are going to be fathers-- at 14 and 16. Since they are minors, apparently she will pay the child support.