Quote:
Originally Posted by Munchkin03
1. They don't really work.
2. It's a way to control female sexuality.
3. It puts the responsibility on girls.
4. Kids are encouraged to make these pledges when they're too young.
|
Again, all of these things really speak more to the people behind the pledges than the pledges themselves. The pledge does not make a person see sex as something dirty or bad. If the young person has immense guilt after having sex, they would very likely have that guilt whether or not they had signed that little card. I say this because, if the person did not already feel that premarital sex was something they shouldn't do, they would not have sworn before God not to do it. If the church and/or family is pushing the young person to make the pledge, then that church and/family were likely attempting to control these kids (read: girls) way before the pledge was thought of and would continue to do so after. The vow of purity is like a marriage vow in a sense--one can make it when they are not ready or totally skew the meaning of the words to control another person (usually the wife). But the amount of power the words have depends entirely on the person saying them and the ideals that have already been instilled in them prior to the vow.
FTR I am not a fan of churches or families encouraging kids/teens to take the purity vow. It's a deeply personal decision that no parent can make for you and the choice to make it/keep it/break it is up to the you. If you have been raised to make the decision for yourself and stick by whatever values you have that make this the best choice for you, then the pledge is really just a nice afterthought to a decision already made. If it's the opposite scenario, the pledge itself isn't the cause of a sort of sexist shame--that would be there because of a sexist, shame-fostering environment.
BTW Munchkin, I have seen photos from mother-son purity balls and I feel the same about them as the father-daughter ones--they were slightly vomitatious and the boys looked WAY too young.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DrPhil
Did your dad putting the ring on you symbolize something?
|
It symbolized how proud he was of me and the fact that I made such a huge decision (for very sound reasons) on my own. He was obviously very pleased that I wouldn't be having sex (what dad wouldn't be?) but moreso that I had really thought through why it was the best choice for me and my life. I didn't want a public announcement or for him to take me to a ball--that was the first and last time we ever talked about it.