It's so tribal and bestial at the same time. Think going to the Prom with your opposite-gendered parent!!
These stories from the New York Times and Salon caught my attention the other day-- http://tinyurl.com/42gnet and http://tinyurl.com/5advn6
The girls may dress up in glittery princess gowns, drape themselves in purity jewelray, make silent vows and place a white rose at the foot of a cross -- but the fathers are the ones who actually make a purity pledge. Not the girls, whose "purity" is at issue, but their fathers. Each father signs a pledge reading, in part:
"I will be pure in my own life as a man, husband and father. I will be a man of integrity and accountability as a I lead, guide and pray over my daughter and my family as the high priest in my home."
Many mammals that organize themselves into social groups such as lions, wolves, chimpanzees, and apes will kill any young animals when a new leader acquires dominance to insure that the group's young are carrying the DNA of the new leader and not that of the predecessor.
I think subliminally there's something like that going on with "purity balls". I could make a cheap and obvious joke with that description, but I didn't make it up, the fundies use that term themselves.
What is it with some hetero guys who are such sex machines that they can't honor, without a threat, the oh-so-holy marriage vows they've made between their wives and their religion? Why must they hold themselves hostage to their vows by holding their daughters's virginity as an offering on the altar of a sky-god?
How different is this in principle from the Islamic tradition of keeping wives tented and segregated in order to keep the men from lusting through their dashikis? It would seem hetero-fundie daddies can't keep their pants zipped without holy threats of some kind.
By the way, why aren't there Purity Balls for fundie mothers and their sons?
Why is the purity of marriage a one-way street directed at the daughters?
