The Purity Myth

by Jessica Valenti

  about the author

  Jessica Valenti is the founder and editor of Feministing.com, a popular blog and online community. She is the author of Full Frontal Feminism: A Young Woman’s Guide to Why Feminism Matters and He’s a Stud, She’s a Slut . . . and 49 Other Double Standards Every Woman Should Know, and coeditor of the anthology Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape.

  Jessica’s writing has appeared in The Nation, the Guardian (U.K.), Ms. magazine, and Bitch magazine, and on Salon.com and Babble.com. She received her master’s degree in women’s and gender studies from Rutgers University, where she is now a part-time lecturer. Jessica lives with her partner, Andrew, in Queens, New York.

  a After years of denying she ever said such a thing, to her benefit, my mother finally sheepishy apologized.

  b My college roommate Jen and I, I’m somewhat ashamed to admit, had a three pumps or more rule. Less than three pumps? You didn’t have to count it as sex . We thought it was genius, as the three pump chumps, as we called them, were not necessarily the guys you wanted to remember.

  c The “abstinence movement” would be accurate, as would the “chastity movement.” But neither quite captures how this obsession really is about virginity, virgins, and an almost too-enthusiastic focus on young women’s sexuality. So the “virginity movement” seemed not only appropriate, but also a bit needling. Which I enjoy.

  d Who, after all, can maintain a pearly white perma-grin through humiliating bathing suit competitions and inane questions—all for scholarships that are paltry in comparison to the money spent on gowns and coaches—other than women looking for some serious validation?

  e Most classroom exercises focus on girls and their potential filthiness.

  f As with most things in the virginity movement, there’s a lot of lip service when it comes to young men and secondary or born-again virginity, but the focus remains on women.

  g Contraception is for “bad” girls who planned out sex, not girls who got caught in the heat of the moment. And, of course, many of these teens are taught that birth control doesn’t work anyway, so why bother?

  h Like his trying to hold back by staring at a bottle of Drakkar Noir cologne and attempting to spell the name backward.

  i The word “hysteria” actually comes from the antiquated idea that women’s emotional problems were derived from the uterus.

  j Pleasure is widely dismissed, if not denounced, in the virginity movement. When the purpose of sex is simply procreation, pleasure is simply gratuitous.

  k Interestingly enough, a Google search reveals that Churchill is on staff with the Wisconsin state legislature—the virginity movement is not just on abstinence websites, they’re affecting policy!

  l Holier-than-thou joy in sex is just not something I can stand behind, no matter how good it is.

  m Girls as Grantmakers executive director Heather Arnet told me in a phone interview that she had agreed to let Shalit interview the teens (all minors) with her present. Shalit later contacted one of the girls without Arnet’s or parental permission and engaged in long, leading email exchanges to get the exact quote she was looking for. Journalism at its finest!

  n Yes, cookies.

  o Because the only kind of sex young women have is drunken post-party, regrettable sex, obviously.

  p Bratz dolls are frequently cited when discussing girls’ sexualization—the toys are dressed up in miniskirts, halter tops, and heavy makeup, sparking some people to say they look like “toy prostitutes.”

  q I’m not arguing that we should be paying more attention to one kind of sexualization than to another, but there’s a disturbing gap when it comes to which girls we’re more apt to hear about.

  r Yes, these exist. I’m somewhat embarrassed to admit that as a freshman in college (at Tulane University in New Orleans), I succumbed to the sexy-costume craze by donning a white minidress with a red cross drawn across the chest—I was a “nurse.” I promptly learned my lesson after a male passerby on Bourbon Street screamed out that I was a “bloody-hot nurse.” I thought perhaps he was British, but alas, he was actually oh-so-subtly letting me know that I had gotten my period early that month.

  s The APA defines sexualization as when “a person’s value comes only from his or her sexual appeal or behavior, to the exclusion of other characteristics; a person is held to a standard that equates physical attractiveness (narrowly defined) with being sexy; a person is sexually objectified—that is, made into a thing for others’ sexual use, rather than seen as a person with the capacity for independent action and decision making; and/or sexuality is inappropriately imposed upon a person.”

  t Ah, the ethics of passivity rears its ugly head! Not only do women need to do nothing (remain sexually abstinent) in order to be moral, we also must remain inert if we want to be considered sexy.

  u I was horrified (but not surprised) when, after I repeated this pledge at a talk I was giving at Cornell University in 2008, a student shouted out that “covering” is a term used to describe breeding horses. One horse “covers” another.

  v As my coblogger Ann Friedman put it: “Why is this glamorous evening not called a purity ball, too? Because it’s not up to young men to stay “pure.” They just have to seek out a wife who is.”10

  w Subtlety is a bit lost on the virginity movement, especially when it comes to any kind of phallic symbol.

  x When I first came across purity balls, I wondered if my feminism had jaded me too much. Maybe these were just daddy/daughter dances that I was imbuing with sexual meaning. So I showed my father some video footage of a purity ball and asked what he thought . The color drained from his face and he just said, “Jessica, that’s truly fucking weird.”

  y In the world of the virginity movement, “femininity” is synonymous with submissiveness and girlishness.

  z If you’re thinking that the mysterious world of purity balls doesn’t affect you and yours, and that the events are simply a creepy anomaly, remember that these virginity fetish free-for-alls are federally funded.

  aa Virginity movement logic: Better that girls risk getting cancer than be sexually active.

  ab I know, the image of your feminist author dancing around with glowsticks doesn’t exactly inspire confidence or gravitas, but it is what it is.

  ac As if a woman’s vagina were simply exhausted before the surgery.

  ad It occurs to me that when this surgery is performed on women in Africa, we call it female genital mutilation, but in the oh-so-enlightened United States, we call them designer vaginas. You know, because American women are empowered.

  ae Lloyd’s own story is worth telling: When she was thirteen years old, she left school to take care of her alcoholic mother. After working in factories and restaurants in her home country of England, she quickly turned to criminal activity as a way to make money. It wasn’t long before she got heavily involved in drugs and relationships with older men. By age seventeen, Lloyd had moved to Germany and was turning tricks in a Munich strip club. It wasn’t until her pimp tried to kill her that she turned to a local church for help. Years later, in 1999, she founded GEMS, which provides preventative and transitional services to young, mostly teenage women who are involved in prostitution or sexually violent situations.32

  af As it was referred to by Carmine Sarracino and Kevin Scott in their book, The Porning of America.

  ag And send our organizations money to fight the good fight against obscenity!

  ah Yes, these exist.

  ai A porn clip that became an Internet phenomenon, “2 girls, 1 cup” features two women defecating into a cup, eating the excrement, and throwing up into each other’s mouths.

  aj No nuance about male fantasy here!

  ak Porn revenue numbers are often contested because it’s difficult to know how much money is coming in from porn websites, but I’d argue anything in the billions equals pretty damn mainstream.

  al When I write about mainstream por n, I’m referring to the bulk of
the commercial por n industry—not including feminist and pro-woman porn, which, unfortunately, is not nearly as prevalent.

  am The idea that someone would want to consume “authentically” humiliating films is discouraging , to say the least, but it parallels current cultural notions of American women as stupid and vapid.

  an For the thrifty Real Doll purchaser, headless, limbless torsos run just $1, 299.

  ao I’m not anti sex toy. I am anti treating plastic dolls as if they were real women and wishing real women were like plastic dolls.

  ap Even celebrities deemed too “old” or “ugly” are sexualized by public chatter about their general unhotness.

  aq All of the CWA’s evidence is anecdotal.

  ar CWA seems concerned about any kind of progress—in its podcast on porn, La Rue also complained about iPods and portable DVD players.

  as One FBI agent joked in The Washington Post, “I guess this means we’ve won the war on terror.”22

  at Because, as we all know, conservative women don’t have vaginas.

  au In this case, “alternative” means lots of tattoos and body piercing, and some variety in body size and shape.

  av Though I have to say, I don’t know any “antisex” feminists!

  aw I’m betting the actual lesson learned is to steer clear of bad comics brandishing bricks.

  ax There are lots of things I imagine young girls would like to get from their dads—a phone call, advice about what to get their mom on her birthday, a pizza and ice-cream night—but I’m guessing a stand-in for sex isn’t one of them. # Like purity balls or a visit from the local crisis pregnancy center!

  ay Texts often attribute girls’ “promiscuity” (i.e., having any premarital sex) to low self-esteem, depression, or attention-seeking behavior. It’s never described as a natural or pleasurable urge.

  az Eighty-five thousand cases of child sexual abuse are reported every year.17

  ba Unless they want to remain closeted and marry someone of the opposite sex, of course—a popular course of action for some Republican lawmakers these days.

  bb This panel title is for a group of hip-hop dancers. Ahem.

  bc For this reason alone, I tried my darnedest to gain admission to the 2008 conference. Alas, security was tight, and they weren’t letting in any known anti-abstinence education writers.

  bd It was widely referred to as the Chastity Act, just in case there was any question about its purpose.

  be W here I had my first job out of grad school (in the interest of full disclosure).

  bf Another thing that really struck me while watching this film was how an organization composed of mostly white, Christian women was deciding what young women of color—many of them poor—would learn about appropriate sexual behavior and what constitutes a family. Many children in New Mexico come from single-parent homes (bad!); some of them may have parents who aren’t straight (sin!).

  bg Apparently, the virginity movement is not just concerned with the high rates of teen sex—it’s combating the evils of Bonne Bell Lip Smackers as well!

  bh Which, of course, they will.

  bi It ’s worth noting that coming forward with her story led to BB’s being terribly harassed—she was derided and threatened in hundreds of comments and emails.

  bj Shockingly, it’s not condoms, Viagra, or jock-itch medication that healthcare providers seem to have a problem with.

  bk Not exactly an easy hurdle for girls with abusive parents or, as is, sadly, sometimes the case, girls whose father is responsible for the pregnancy.

  bl This is what I like to call the “no dick, no deal” law.

  bm After an eight-year-long court battle, the South Carolina Supreme Court overturned McKnight’s conviction after finding that medical research linking cocaine to stillbirths is based on “outdated” medical information.

  bn The vessel will make sure to treat its uterus and surrounding matter with care for the preparation of the almighty fetus!

  bo The virginity movement argues that EC interferes with the implantation of a fertilized egg, and therefore ends a life. I can’t muster up much empathy for a bunch of cells, or people who would trump cells’ “rights” over an actual born person’s, so I’m going with the medical and scientific definition of the drug.

  bp In addition to pushing Jesus as a cure-all for cramps, in 2005 Hager’s former wife of thirty-two years accused him of regularly anally raping her. Just the kind of guy you want in charge of women’s sexual lives!

  bq I told you this reeked of made-for-TV movie.

  br I love the idea that there wouldn‘’t be wanton spring-break sex if campus health centers just stopped providing birth control. “No pills? Well, forget Daytona, gals—I’m headed straight to the library!”

  bs The FDA had no problem approving orlistat—a fat-blocking pill whose side effects include “ fecal incontinence, gas, and oily discharge”—for all ages, despite the approval panel ’s concerns that younger people would misuse the drug. Apparently, a diet pill that makes you shit your pants is preferable to a safe form of contraception.

  bt You have to give the virginity movement credit: It certainly knows how to adopt pro-woman rhetoric for antiwoman laws.

  bu Unfortunately for the women of SD, their state is the first place you should look when you want a good example of antiwoman legislation.

  bv As anyone who has experienced an unplanned pregnancy can tell you, there’s little else you do think about. The “deeper reflection” line is simply insulting.

  bw But of course, if Roe were overturned, she would be a criminal and would go to jail. It’s an inconvenient fact the virginity movement likes to ignore in favor of describing scary abortion doctors who go bump in the night.

  bx I write “he” because I have yet to discover an example of a female pharmacist refusing to dispense contraception.

  by It’s worth nothing that the Pharmacists for Life website features anti-choice columnist Jill Stanek, who actually asserted that abortion providers and Chinese people eat fetuses! The group also calls Feministing a radical feminazi site, so I have a special place in my heart for it.

  bz It’s telling that President Bush cited his Healthy Marriage Initiative in the same breath in which he defined marriage as a heterosexual institution in a 2003 statement on the creation of Marriage Protection Week.28

  ca Because, let’s face it, considering the low number of women in political decision-making positions in the United States (women hold only 24 percent of elected state offices), it really is men who are formulating policy.30

  cb Pemberton went on to safely give birth vaginally to four more children.

  cc The law bans“partial-birth abortion,” which is not a recognized medical term or procedure but refers to common abortion procedures used in a woman’s second trimester. The legislation is written so vaguely that it could apply to any abortion (which is, of course, its intent). In fact, in 1998, doctors in Wisconsin stopped performing abortions pretty much overnight when the ban was enacted in their state, for fear of going to jail. 33

  cd Incidentally, racial and sexual harassment costs them only $250.

  ce Just in case you’re unsure about how this one is related to purity, consider that the same lawmaker—who seems to have a penchant for legislation that involves women’s bodies—is the man behind a bill that requires strippers to wear pasties. 34

  cf Thankfully, the second trial delivered guilty verdicts, but not before one of the boys was arrested for raping another sixteen-year-old at a party held the night of his mistrial.

  cg The assumption in this case is that intoxicated women can’t be assaulted.

  ch Edgar Allan Poe once said (disturbingly), “The death of a beautiful woman is unquestionably the most poetical topic in the world.” That quote always comes to mind when I see how the media unrelentingly plays out that narrative.

  ci It’s akin to women “getting themselves” raped. The actual perpetrator is rarely spoken of; it’s another variatio
n of “she was asking for it.”

  cj Warnings about going to bars and drinking are rarely levied at men, despite the fact that in rape cases involving alcohol, it’s often the perpetrator who has been drinking. Why not tell men not to get drunk so they don’t rape?

  ck How willing these young women actually are is hard to determine. As you’ll see in the following stories, their consent is often contested, and it’s debatable how “willing” they can actually be to sign a legal contract when they’re so sauced they can barely stand.

  cl And these are only the incidents that have been reported.

  cm The young woman, as far as I know, did not press charges. But her description makes it impossible for me to describe the incident as anything other than sexual assault.