Uhm, Oops.

Bah, I totally overslept today. Luckily, yesterday when people complained about the short notice of the seminar, the facilitator said about a billion times that if ANYTHING comes up, we can just call to reschedule, even for today...so I called and left a message to reschedule.

I hope that means I only have to redo today, not both days. I didn't WANT to do this, I just want the blasted thing over with.

(no subject)

Found the first cited article in a post on christianitysex
There's no regsitration to read any of the linked sites.

Okay...first of all, this article is extremey biased. To the point that some people may find it offensive. It is, however safe for work. Unless you work for Pat Robertson. If that's the case, and if you're at work, you probably shouldn't be reading my journal. Actually, if that's the situation, you probably shouldn't be friends with me.

Let me just pause a moment to say: I don't believe it's a sin or otherwise wrong to have sex before getting married. But I don't find it problematic that someone should want to wait either. There are things to be said for both sides of the coin. It's a personal descision. (And if you make the descision and keep it, especially if you dont get married very early, I must say your willpower is commendable.)

Now bring on the snarky commentary!

Father-Daughter Purity Balls.

So the above mentioned article talks about Purity Balls. Which is essentially a really fancy formal father-daughter dance (If you look at the pictures on some of these sites promoting them so heavily, it looks like a bizarrely-twisted prom) where part of the festivities includes girls as young as four (according to this article) pledging to protect their virginity until they get married, and their fathers pledging to protect their daughters' virginity. (Here's an example of such a father's pledge)

Perhaps I'm missing something...but A FOUR-YEAR-OLD?????????????

John Scalzi (One of the aforementioned bloggers) has this to say- and I agree:

"...we could go on all day about what's wrong about dads making their very small daughters think about sex, or indoctrinating them into thinking their sexuality should be contingent on the dictates of the men in their lives...."

But goes on to say this:

"Speaking as a father -- and one of a girl just about the right age to take to a "purity ball" at that -- I'm not going to criticize one of the underlying desires of the purity ball, which is a father's desire to express his commitment to care for and protect his child. I happen to have the same desire. I will note, however, that the expression of that desire can take on rather substantially different forms."

So I read the one article, and as I said before, its highly biased. But I followed a few of the links.

I also googled "purity ball", and if you do the same, you'll notice that there are a LOT of blogs and stuff commenting on them, Mostly against them. So I haven't been able to find a lot of material on the other perspective. Mostly just photos and "Order your very own Purity Ball kit now!" I've seen commentary about the father giving the daughter a "purity ring" at some bals, which the daughter is then supposed to give to her husband when she gets married. To be fair, I've only seen things about that on people's blogs, I haven't seen any mention of that on the actual sources. but IF that's the case somewhere....That's....ummmm...yeah, that's creepy.

By the way, heres an example of the daughter's pledge:

"I pledge to remain sexually pure...until the day I give myself as a wedding gift to my husband. ... I know that God requires this of me.. that he loves me. and that he will reward me for my faithfulness."

"A wedding gift to my husband"? Notice it says "until", which assumes that she WILL be married. (And to a man at that. But let's stay on topic, no?)

Mrph. I'm having a verrrrry difficult time of getting past the idea of the four year olds saying things like this. And I have yet to find any evidence pointing to them not making such young gilrs say it. (I'm looking for it though) Seems like some unnecessary corruption of innocence, no?

*dances around painfully trying to determine where to draw the line in the sand between respect for another's religion, beliefs etc, and WTF are you insane???*

Okay. A few questions. It's all rhetorical, really. Why is it all about the girls? I mean, why are there no Mother-Son Purity Balls?It's so one-sided. Is purity a chick thing? Would any mother bring her four-year-old son to a Mother-Son Purity Ball? If girls are princesses, aren't boys princes in the eyes of God? And why do you not see things like this where fathers pledge to be the Paragon Of Male Virtue for the sons, and mothers be the Paragon Of Female Virtue for the daughters?

I'd like to see a pledge for four-year-old boys to save their virginity as a wedding gift to their wives. And for mothers to be the protectors of their sons' virginity. Purity ring to later be given to the wife and all.

Yes, I already said it, I have a very hard time getting past the idea of imposing this on a four-year-old child.

My other issue...well, it could be said that there's two of them or it could be two ways of looking at the same thing. This focus on girls' chastity. Yes, I see it as an extremey sexist thing, and in many conservative circles, whether they come out and say it or not, the responsibility of the girl/woman to resist the temptation, and some go so far as to say that it's the woman who causes the man to sin. Sorry, but if a particular Argentinian dance were a solo thing it would have the same sex appeal as the electric slide- I'd have said the macarena, but it involves grabbing your own ass, which to some is vaguely provocative. (In case you didn't get the mangled figure of speech, I was saying It takes two to tango.)

There's that, and there's also a rather incestuous angle.

Here is a link to a series of blog posts- from a Christian perspective- arguing reasonably and respectfully against purity balls and suggesting other approaches that are far healthier.

I've seen it said on a lot of Christian websites, blogs, tv shows etc. that they want the world to see that girls are valued for more than their sexuality, but is such a hyperfocus on female virginity so different? And why don't they care so much about seeing boys for more than their sexuality?

I think it's really funny, that when I googled these things, a lot of the purity balls were sponsored at least in part by "pregnancy centers"

I know this post is a little jumpy and disjointed. Not one of my better works. Oh well.

(no subject)

I'm thinking of starting a blog. Separate from my journal, and probably on a service other than livejournal, specifically for the purpose of news/current events commentary.

Think it's a good idea? Or no?