The Purity Myth (33 page)

• 218
  the Purity myth
  

• FDA approval for Plan B, the morning after pill that prevents pregnancy,
  was held up after a FDA medical official wrote in an internal memo that over-the-counter status could cause “extreme promiscuous behaviors such as the medication taking on an ‘urban legend’ status that would lead adolescents to form sex-based cults centered around the use of Plan B.”
  

• More and more laws are cropping up that attempt to curb pregnant
  women’s rights, and even punish them. In 2004, a Utah woman was charged with murder after refusing to have a cesarean section and one
  

  of her twin babies was delivered stillborn. One legislator in Virginia even introduced a bill in 2005 that would make it a crime—one punishable
  

  by a year in jail—for a woman not to report her miscarriage to the police within 12 hours.
  

  jessica valenti
  219
  

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  questions for d i scussion
  

• How do you define virginity? Where do you think this definition came
  

  from (i.e. society, parents, friends)?
  

• How do you think the ethics of passivity affected your life, or how do you
  

  see it play out around you?
  

• What values—other than “purity”—should we be instilling in young
  

  women to ensure that they grow up to be active moral agents?
  

• Were you brought up to think of female sexuality as somehow dirty? How
  

  did it affect you?
  

• How can we create a more positive vision of women’s sexuality? What
  about younger women’s sexuality—how can we do the same while not falling into the trap of sexualizing youth?
  

• 221
  

• How can we battle back against mainstream pornography that degrades
  

  women while still valuing women’s sexuality and feminist expressions of it?
  

• Did you (or does your child) attend abstinence-only classes? What did
  

  you think?
  

• How can we get the word out in our communities and beyond that
  abstinence-only education teaches more than “don’t have sex”— but sexist gender roles?
  

• How do you think the purity myth manifests itself in violence
  

  against women?
  

• In what ways can we use dismantling the purity myth to also fight back
  

  against rape culture?
  

• What do you think it means to “be a man”? Do you think that definition is
  

  useful, dangerous, etc.?
  

• How do you think masculinity contributes to the purity myth? How have
  

  you seen this play out in your own life?
  

• What are some tangible ways we change the culture of virginity fetish?
  

• Who are some young women in your life who counteract the current no
  - tion of apathetic, un-engaged youth?
  

• Imagine a world without “purity” and virginity. What does it look like?
  

notes

introduction

1. Jocelyne Zablit. “No sex please, we’re daddy’s little girls,”
   The Raw Story,
   March 22, 2007.
   

2. PBS Online NewsHour. “South Dakota Abortion Ban,” March 3, 2006, www.pbs.org
   / newshour.
   

c h a P t e r 1

the cult of v i rginity

1. www.scarleteen.com
   

2. Laura M. Carpenter.
   Virginity Lost: An Intimate Portrait of First Sexual Experiences
   (New York: New York University Press, November 2005).
   

3. Laura M. Carpenter. Interview with the author, March 2008.
   

4. Dictionary.com definition of “virgin,” http://dictionary.reference.com.
   

5. Hanne Blank.
   Virgin: The Untouched History
   (New York: Bloomsbury USA, 2007), 29.
   

6. Feministing.com. “Ivy Hymens: Why glorifying virginity is bad for women,” March 31, 2008, www.feministing.com/archives/008913.html.
   

7. Randall Patterson. “Students of Virginity,”
   New York Times Magazine,
   March 30, 2008.
   

1. 223
   

2. Jill Filipovic. Response to “Chastity Clubs: Bringing the Hymens to Harvard Since 2001,”
   

   Feministe,
   March 31, 2008, www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2008.
   

3. Advocates for Youth. “Myths & Facts about Sex Education,” www.advocatesfor youth.org.
   

4. MTV. “True Life: I’m Celibate,” July 2007, www.mtv.com/videos.
   

5. Denise Felder. “Miss America ‘Purity Rule’ Change Halted,” September 14, 1999,
   www. ktvu.com/entertainment.
   

6. New York Daily News.
   “Miss USA Tara Conner Sex & Cocaine Shame,” December 17, 2006, www.feministing.com/archives/006220.html.
   

7. Mark Coulton. “Trump deals disgraced Miss USA a new hand,”
   The Age,
   December 21, 2006, www.theage.com.au/news.
   

8. Page Six. “Duck and Cover,”
   New York Post,
   January 4, 2007, www.nypost.com/
   sev- en/01042007/gossip/pagesix/duck_and_cover_pagesix_.htm.
   

9. Fox News. “Miss Nevada Katie Rees Fired Over Raunchy Photos,” December 22, 2006, www.foxnews.com.
   

10. Abstinence Clearinghouse. Online store, www.abstinence.net/store.
    

11. Feministing.com. “Shit . . . I’m out of petals,” September 27, 2006, www.feministing. com/archives/005775.html.
    

12. Ultra Teen Choice. Abstinence Awareness Week advertisement, www.ultrateenchoice.org/.
    

13. Tyler LePard. “What Teenagers Learn (and Don’t Learn) in Sex Ed,”
    RH Reality Check,
    

    October 13, 2006, www.rhrealitycheck.org.
    

14. Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States. “The Five Most Egregious Uses of Welfare’s Title V Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage-Funds.”
    

15. Pure Love Club. Online store, www.chastity.com/store.
    

16. Carpenter.
    Virginity Lost,
    40.
    

17. Love Matters. “Five Steps to Becoming a Secondary Virgin,” www.lovematters.c
    om/ startover.htm.
    

18. Laurel Cornell. “Pure Again,” www.focusonthefamily.com/lifechallenges.
    

19. A Pregnancy Resource Center of Northeast Ohio. “Take2 Renewed Virginity,”
    www. pscstark.com/42.
    

20. Ibid.
    

21. www.modestyzone.net.
    

22. http://blogs.modestlyyours.net.
    

23. Janet Rosenbaum. “Reborn a Virgin: Adolescents’ Retracting of Virginity Pledges and Sexual Histories,”
    American Journal of Public Health,
    May 2, 2006.
    

24. Alexa: The Web Information Company. Web traffic data, www.alexa.com/data.
    

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   the Purity myth
   

2. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 2008 National STD Prevention Confer- ence press release, www.cdc.gov/stdconference/2008/media.
   

3. Feministing.com. “One more reason for comprehensive sex education,” April 3, 2008, www.feministing.com/archives/008936.html.
   

4. Feministing.com. “If your hymen could be gift-wrapped, what would the bow look like?” December 28, 2007, www.feministing.com/archives/008311.html.
   

c h a P t e r 2

tainted love

1. Camille Hahn. “Virgin Territory,”
   Ms.
   magazine, fall 2004.
   

2. Laura Kipnis.
   The Female Thing: Dirt, Sex, Envy, Vulnerability
   (New York: Pantheon Books, 2006).
   

3. www.abstinence.net.
   

4. Ibid.
   

5. www.puriTeewear.com.
   

6. bell hooks. “Naked without shame: A counter-hegemonic body politic,” in
   Talking Vi- sions: Multicultural Feminism in a Transnational Age,
   ed. Ella Shohat (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998).
   

7. Ibid, 69.
   

8. Patricia Hill Collins.
   Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment
   (New York: Routledge, 2000), 134.
   

9. Education Portal. “Leaving Men Behind: Women Go to College in Ever-Greater Num- bers,” November 13, 2007, http://education-portal.com.
   

10. Via a Nexis search.
    

11. Mark Morford. “Bikini waxes for little girls—trend alert!,”
    San Francisco Chronicle,
    April 11, 2008.
    

12. Cassandra Tognoni. “Giving out eye candy,”
    Daily Pennsylvanian,
    October 29, 2007.
    

13. Kathleen Deveny and Raina Kelley. “Girls Gone Bad,”
    Newsweek,
    August 21, 2007.
    

14. Lawrence Downes. “Middle School Girls Gone Wild,”
    The New York Times,
    December 29, 2006.
    

15. Feministing.com. “A ‘modest’ appropriation of feminism,” July 6, 2007, www.feminist- ing.com/archives/007318.html.
    

16. Wendy Shalit.
    Girls Gone Mild: Young Women Reclaim Self-Respect and Find It’s Not Bad to Be Good
    (New York: Random House, 2007), 10.
    

17. Physicians for Life. “Teen Sex, Depression, and Suicide,” June 2003, www.physiciansfor- life.org.
    

    jessica valenti
    225
    

18. Shalit.
    Girls Gone Mild,
    11.
    

19. Laura Sessions Stepp.
    Unhooked: How Young Women Pursue Sex, Delay Love, and Lose at Both
    (New York: Riverhead Books, 2007).
    

20. Ann Friedman. “Moral Panic Comes ‘Unhooked,’”
    American Prospect,
    March 8, 2007.
    

21. Laura Sessions Stepp. “Cupid’s Broken Arrow,”
    Washington Post,
    May 7, 2006.
    

22. Miriam Grossman. “Shocked,”
    Town Hall,
    March 17, 2008, www.townhall.com.
    

23. Kathleen Parker. “Dying to Date,” November 16, 2007, www.townhall.com.
    

24. Ibid.
    

25. Feministing.com. “The child-like delusions of Dr. Eric Keroack,” November 17, 2006, www.feministing.com/archives/006084.html.
    

26. Carol Platt Liebau.
    Prude: How the Sex-Obsessed Culture Hurts Young Women (and America, Too!)
    (New York: Center Street, 2007), 152.
    

27. http://dawneden.blogspot.com.
    

28. Dawn Eden. “Casual sex is a con: women just aren’t like men,”
    Sunday Times,
    January 14, 2007.
    

29. Carol Platt Liebau. “Girls Growing Wilder?” February 12, 2008, http://carolliebau
    . blogspot.com.
    

30. Carol Platt Liebau. “A ‘Do-Me Feminist’ Speaks,” December 18, 2007, http://caro
    l- liebau.blogspot.com.
    

31. Ethics and Public Policy Center. “Modest Proposals” conference announcement,
    www. eppc.org/conferences.
    

32. Public Health Reports.
    “Trends in Premarital Sex in the United States, 1954–2003,” Jan/ Feb 2007.
    

33. Laura Duberstein Lindberg et al. “Sexual Behavior of Single Adult American Women,”
    

    Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health,
    March 2008.
    

34. Guttmacher Institute. “Single Women Have Sex Too,” March 11, 2008, www.guttmach- er.org/media.
    

35. Guttmacher Institute. “Facts on American Teens’ Sexual and Reproductive Health,” September 2006, www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_ATSRH.html
    ; John Santelli. “Explain- ing Recent Declines in Adolescent Pregnancy in the United States: The Contribution of Abstinence and Improved Contraceptive Use,”
    American Journal of Public Health,
    2006.
    

36. Advocates for Youth. “Decline in Teenage Pregnancy Rates Precedes Abstinence-Only- Until Marriage Funding,” www.advocatesforyouth.org/factsfigures.
    

37. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Adolescent Reproductive Health,”
    www. cdc.gov/reproductivehealth.
    

38. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 2008 National STD Prevention Confer- ence press release, www.cdc.gov/stdconference/2008/media.
    

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   the Purity myth
   

2. Jacob Goldstein. “Teen STD Rates Cause for Concern, Not Panic,”
   Wall Street Journal,
   

   March 11, 2008.
   

3. Yolanda Young. “Black teen STD rate needs our attention,”
   USA Today,
   April 4, 2008, http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped.
   

4. Robert Fullilove et al. “An Epidemic No One Wants to Talk About,”
   Washington Post,
   

March 21, 2008.

c h a P ter 3

forever young

1. Feministing.com. “Padded bras for six-year-olds,” September 11, 2006, www.feministing. com/archives/005685.html.
   

2. Feministing.com. “Who needs credit cards when you have a junior vagina?” December 11, 2007, www.feministing.com/archives/008226.html.
   

3. Cory Silverberg. “The 25 Sexiest Novels Ever Written,” http://sexuality.about.com/o
   d/ eroticbooks.
   

4. M. Gigi Durham.
   The Lolita Effect: The Media Sexualization of Young Girls and What We Can Do About It
   (New York: Overlook Press, 2008).
   

5. M. Gigi Durham. Email interview with the author.
   

6. APA Task Force. Report on the sexualization of girls, 2007.
   

7. Ibid.
   

8. Generations of Light. “What is a Purity Ball?” www.generationsoflight.com.
   

9. Generations of Light. Purity pledge, www.generationsoflight.com.
   

10. Feministing.com. “Dating your parents: Not just for girls anymore,” January 18, 2007, www.feministing.com/archives/006375.html.
    

11. Feministing.com. “Quick Video Hit: Purity Balls,” October 24, 2007, www.feministing
    

    .com/archives/007972.html.
    

12. Pamela Jean. “Tell Me—What’s So Wrong With A ‘Purity Ball’?”
    Digital Journal,
    March 16, 2007, www.digitaljournal.com.
    

13. Jennifer Baumgardner. “Would you pledge your virginity to your father?”
    Glamour
    

    magazine, January 2007.
    

14. Lynne M. Thompson and Cheryl Gochnauer. “A Date With Dad,” Focus on the Family, 2005.
    

15. Generations of Light. Testimonial, www.generationsoflight.com.
    

16. Judith Warner. “Pure Tyranny,”
    The New York Times,
    June 12, 2008.
    

17. Ovetta Sampson. “Broadmoor formal aims to reinforce importance of father-daughter bond,”
    Gazette,
    March 8, 2001.
    

    jessica valenti
    227
    

18. Gary Cleland. “Tesco accused over padded bra for 7-year-olds,”
    Telegraph,
    April 2008.
    

19. Charlotte Allen. “It’s OK for Little Girls to Have Sex—As Long As They’re Vaccinated,” Independent Women’s Forum, June 30, 2006, www.iwf.org/inkwell.
    

20. Katha Pollitt. “Virginity or Death!”
    Nation,
    May 12, 2005, www.thenation.com/doc.
    

21. Bill Maher. “Christians crusade against cancer vaccine,”
    Salon,
    www.salon.com/opin
    - ion/feature/2007/03/02/hpv.
    

22. Rob Stein. “Vaccine for Girls Raises Thorny Issues,”
    Washington Post,
    November 7, 2006.
    

23. http://blogs.modestlyyours.net/modestly_ yours/2006/01/immunized_again.htm
    l www.parentspromotinginnocence.org/index.html.
    

24. Dr. Billy Goldberg and Mark Leyner. “Lost innocence or hormonal hazard?” The Body Odd,
    MSNBC,
    April 30, 2008, http://bodyodd.msnbc.msn.com.
    

25. American Society of Plastic Surgeons. “2000/2005/2006 National Plastic Surgery Statistics.”
    

26. Laser Vaginal Rejuvenation Institute of New York. “Women Now Have Equal Sexuality Rights,”
    PR Web,
    November 15, 2002, www.prweb.com.
    

27. Judith Graham. “Women urged to shun trendy plastic surgery,”
    Chicago Tribune,
    August 31, 2007.
    

28. Kaiser Daily Women’s Health Policy, Public Health & Education. “ACOG To Warn Against Vaginal Rejuvenation, Other Cosmetic Procedures,” August 31, 2007.
    

29. Sandra Boodman. “Cosmetic Surgery’s New Frontier,”
    Washington Post,
    March 6, 2007.
    

30. Blank.
    Virgin: The Untouched History,
    24.
    

31. Richard Estes. “The Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in the U.S., Canada and Mexico,” University of Pennsylvania, 2001.
    

32. Girls Educational & Mentoring Services. Message from the director, www.gems-girls
    

    .org/message.html.
    

33. Rachel Lloyd. “From Victim to Survivor, From Survivor to Leader: The Importance of Leadership Programming and Opportunities for Commercially Sexually Exploited and Trafficked Young Women & Girls, Girls Educational & Mentoring Services, 2008, www
    

    .gems-girls.org.
    

34. Julia Scheeres. “Girl Model Sites Crossing Line?”
    Wired
    magazine, July 2001.