


The number of premarital sex partners had also increased substantially since the 1970s. By the early years of 1990s, AIDS had become the number one cause of death for United States men ages 25 to 44, and the teen pregnancy rate had reached an all-time high. The purity culture movement began in the 1990s as Christians who were children or teens during the beginning of the 1960s-era sexual revolution began to have children and teenagers of their own.

How did the purity culture movement get started? The dances were originally conceived in 1998 by a California couple, Randy and Lisa Wilson, as a way of “celebrating God’s design and life’s little growth spurts.” At the balls the fathers would often sign a pledge that they would be the example of purity and model integrity for their daughter. Purity balls (or Father-Daughter Purity Balls) are formal dance events attended by fathers and their daughters that promote virginity until marriage for teenage girls. A decade ago, the rings were worn by several young actors and pop stars, including Miley Cyrus, Demi Lovato, Selena Gomez, and the Jonas Brothers. The rings were popularized by the Christian ministry The Silver Ring Thing, which promoted abstinence primarily through music events. Purity rings are sometimes worn as outward symbols by those who have made a purity pledge. A prime example is the original pledge from True Love Waits (1993), which read: “Believing that true love waits, I make a commitment to God, myself, my family, those I date, and my future mate to be sexually pure until the day I enter marriage.”

Purity pledges are vows taken by teenagers and young adults to abstain from sex before marriage. Perhaps someone should remind Time of that fact.Advertise on TGC What are purity pledges, purity rings, and purity balls? "Flowery language and valorizing these days doesn’t change what purity balls are about: the ownership and fetishizing of young girls’ sexuality. "Are families who don’t expect their daughters to promise their virginity to their dads promoting sex for 12 year-olds? Can’t dads be engaged in the lives of their daughters without worrying about the state of their hymen? And is telling women that their moral compass lays in between their legs really setting the bar high? The goal seems less about making judgments than about making memories."į had this take on the Time story: Whatever guests came looking for, they are likely to come away with something unexpected. "Leave aside for a moment the critics who recoil at the symbols, the patriarchy, the very use of the term purity, with its shadow of stains and stigma. "So what, exactly, does all this ceremony achieve?" reads the story. Yet Time’s glowing account of the Colorado Springs ball barely touched on those issues. And some studies show that teens who make abstinence pledges tend to break them and then don’t use condoms during intercourse. Randy Wilson, who founded the Colorado Springs purity ball, has drawn loads of criticism for his event detractors say that it teaches women not to take responsibility for their own sexuality. The event is laden with symbolism girls dressed as little brides take a white rose in hand and join their fathers in prayer beneath a wooden crucifix flanked by a pair of crossed swords. The ball, which takes place in the Broadmoor hotel each year, is a kind of glorified daddy-daughter dance, where girls make a ceremonial virginity pledge to their fathers. Colorado Springs’ legendary - and media-friendly - purity ball received a rhapsodic write-up by Time magazine last week.
