You are a typical American teenage girl and your Dad is a conservative Christian who believes that pre-marital sex is a sin and a disgrace before God. Maybe you buy into your Dad’s prudish morality or maybe you are just too young to really understand or care. Either way, how would feel about pledging your virginity to him?

Awkward?

Perhaps, but that is what many young girls are doing as they participate in such elaborate ceremonies like ‘purity balls‘ or ‘purity weddings’ in which the daughters put on a purity ring and pledge their virginity to their father. I was reminded of this as I read the blog post, “Purity Balls – Because Metaphorical Incest is Totally Cool,” which provides some humorous commentary on such practices.

The sex-as-taboo mentality cannot possibly be conducive to constructive conversation between parent and child about the facts of life. And, as the blog author points out, what about the boys? Why is it the daughter’s duty to restrain her sexuality? I mean, the image of a boy pledging his virginity to his mother is more or less equally strange as this cartoon aptly illustrates:

“The point is”, the blog author concludes. “I really don’t think anyone needs a virginity ring, or a ball, or even a virginity pot–luck. I think what people need is an on-going dialogue that evolves organically from the world around you.” This is, after all, how we tend to approach other aspects of our lives.

But beyond the humor and making-fun there is a serious issue here. According to at least one study, 88% of women who made virginity pledges broke them before being married (so much for the fear of God). How much do you want to bet that these women as girls were taught about safe sex? Probably not. On the other hand, how many of the remaining 12% got married too early (and possibly to the wrong person) so that they wouldn’t break the pledge?

Religion makes people believe a lot of silly things, to be sure. But so far as I can tell, only religion influences otherwise normal people to demonize natural inclinations and induce unnecessary guilt.