If you have an overwhelming need to vomit, you should read this

Digby reports on the Father-Daughter Purity Ball, in which very young girls dance with their daddys (that part is sweet), and then the little girls read this from a pledge card:

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.

And then the fathers sign a pledge:

I, (daughter’s name)’s father, choose before God to cover my daughter as her authority and protection in the area of purity. I will be pure in my own life as a man, husband and father. I will be a man of integrity and accountability as I lead, guide and pray over my daughter and as the high priest in my home. This covering will be used by God to influence generations to come.

Digby, in a turn of overwhelming understatement, says of this event "Girls pledging to their dads to stay virginal in ritualistic ceremonies just doesn't seem like a healthy thing to do." No kidding. It reinforces the idea that the daughter and all of her womanly goods belong to her father, but eventually, she and they will belong to another man.

Digby also had the same question I have: Where are the Mother-Son Purity Balls?

It shouldn't surprise anyone, in a "progressive" society that still asks a father to "give away" his daughter in marriage, little girls are being ask to hold back the goods until the substitute daddy comes along. This purity pledge dance thing is disgusting because it assumes that everyone but a female has authority over a female's body. But I think it is even more disgusting than that: There is a clearly incestuous flavor to holding a ceremonious dance so that men can declare their ownership of their daughters' sexuality.

I would love to know how many of these girls' mothers, deep in their hearts, are creeped out by this repulsive display.