"Father-daughter purity balls?" My reaction on reading this was almost one of nausea. To my mind this practice, even if it were effective in promoting abstinence rather than hypocrisy, is a major step backwards. It is the explicit symbolic demonstration that a woman or a girl is not an autonomous member of humanity but the property of the male she is most closely related to. This arises from taking writings directed to a tribal society 3ooo years ago as the literal word of God to apply for all people for all time. The organ to be found resting within the cranium was given to us by God for us to use!

Alice MacArthur

For a father, if a purity ball would be the seal one's teaching about intimacy (e.g. friends with benefits is a bad idea), then I don't see the harm.

But what I'd say is that you're probably already a pretty good dad, and the purity ball is not the cause that leads to the effect.

I did gag on the idea of purity balls, but more out of snobbery, I think. I really don't see it as perpetuating the notion that men protect helpless women and women must obey men.

Having lived in another country I am aware -- indirectly of course -- of what that is like. Can you imagine, for example, a situation where your brothers, including your younger brothers, can determine if you can leave the house?

Why couldn't a mother be the key-holding protector of her daughter?

And why could the daughter not take back the key to her own heart in adulthood and give it to her husband herself?

For better or for worse - and it can certainly be debated - there seems to be a rather clear issue of patriarchal power in all this.

How about some mother-son/father-son purity balls as well.

Honestly, emphasizing chastity is itself not the problem. It's the way this is being done and one-sided to boot, imho.

I’m glad for the comments here. Something really does feel amiss in this darkly sacramental-sounding ritual.

Research on abstinence-only programs tell us that they not only don’t work but actually increase somewhat the likelihood of unprotected sex. People, even young people, need information because they will (and should) claim for themselves moral authority to make choices.

Good parenting is more about loving and mentoring, than about the impossible task of ‘keeping safe’ or ‘guarding.’ On that score we’ve got to do a lot of letting-go as WE grow into honoring the trustworthy (and sometimes fallible) judgment of the children who began life so completely dependent on us.

Doubtless there are good, loving fathers who participate in this ritual. But is the ritual the best expression of that love and what is it that makes it feel uncomfortable to us? Is it just our dark imaginings that make it feel like the girl is marrying her dad?

Lucy Berliner, Clinical Associate Professor at the University of Washington School of social Work and Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Director of the Harborview Center of Sexual Assault and Traumatic Stress (and other researchers and practitioners in her field) identifies one of three typical family patterns in incest victims as a ‘possessive-passive’ relationship that emphasizes the headship of father/male as God-ordained. A doctrine and ritual celebrating the father’s ultimate authority and divinely-sanctioned power over children (and wife) can give 'sacred' cover for an immature man, perhaps himself an abuse survivor, to rationalize abusive behavior and demand secrecy of the family.

The notion of giving a golden key to the father who will give it to the husband on the wedding day makes my skin crawl...does this evoke images of chastity belts for anyone else? At the very least it is a return to (or continuance of ) a kind of patriarchal power I hoped we had begun to leave behind.

A concern I have about this approach is that it reduces life to "follow the rules" as opposed to "make wise choices". Focusing on chastity alone, if it "works" at all, would seem primarily to insure that these young women are virgins when they marry. It does not seem to me to address a much larger problem: the need for them to make good choices as to whom to marry (if anyone). This approach places too much emphasis on the sexual dimension of relationship (even if it is in a "negative" sense, i.e., that sex should not be part of a pre-marital relationship) as opposed to what should be part of a good pre-marital, or marital, relationship. Don't get me wrong, I think it's fine for me to talk with my daughter about the very real dangers of sexual relationships, meaning not just pregnancy and STDs, but abuse and a range of emotional impacts that are difficult for anyone to deal with, especially when relationships go sour, and to talk with her about the positive aspects of waiting. And I want her educated about all aspects of sexual health. But let's get beyond body parts and really talk about quality of relationships!

- Eliot Moss

Also, since most child sexual abuse is perpetrated by someone known to the child, there is an overtone to this that is just nasty. Here's the key to my sexuality, daddy ...

Ick.

I'll hold my own damn key, thank you very much.

I have to say I am in the "ick!" category myself.

I have a pretty good relationship with my father - not perfect, what relationship is? - but pretty good. We spend time together and talk and throughout my life he has been there in a variety of practical ways. I know he looked after me when I was a child and that he sometimes worried about me when I was out with friends or on dates. He taught me how to change a tire and bought me tools for my first home and asked me important questions about my now-ex-husband before we were married.

I know that some of the things I look for in a man are qualities he has. I also know that a significant part of my ability to have a healthy and growing relationship with God - who is so thoroughly imagined as masculine and as "father" - is because of the positive relationship I have with my human father.

I wish the same quality of relationship for all fathers and daughters (as well as for mothers and daughters and fathers and sons, but all the research I've read or heard about indicates that a woman's relationship with her human father plays a unique role in her ability to form and maintain healthy intimate relationships and that seems to be at least implicitly a part of the purpose of the Purity Balls - even though the focus is overtly on sexual activity). And I certainly wouldn't trade my relationship with my dad for anything.

My guess is that indeed all this is background to the Purity Ball concept. But ends really don't justify means and the means here are repulsive. In addition, I do have a difficult time believing that the end result is really going to be a group of women with a better ability to make healthy decisions about their intimate relationships. There is way too much of the "handing over of one's moral authority to someone else." That it is a handing over by a young woman to her male parent and in the context of conservative Christianity plays into traditional understandings of patriarchy and is especially repugnant to me because it seems to be a distortion of my own faith. However, even when that layer is stripped off, the problem of giving up one's moral authority still remains.

More even than God wanting us to use "the organ to be found resting within the cranium," the Bible suggests that God also wants us to use the free will God gave us, and to use it for good. In the language of the Christian people that means "for the building up of the Body of Christ," which includes the development and maintenance of relationships of mutuality and personal accountability.

So, the question is: if we are serious about faith and we know that abstinence education and moral education as currently constructed don't work, how can we teach our children what they need to make choices that will build them up as well as the Body of Christ?

- LZ Cole

Ewwww! ICK! Yes, let's perpetuate paternalistic, heterosexist, women and children as chattel property to be handed over and dowered in full to their equally paternalistic, daddyfied spouse. Ewwwww!

--Kit Wang