Pure as the Driven Snow Or How to Mess with Your 6-Year-Old's Head

Well, I just watched a nifty little doc on the cultural phenom of Purity Balls. The gist of it is that father's take their daughters, ages ranging from 5 to @ 17, to these lavish balls where they make goo-goo eyes at each other and the daughters swear before the crowd and a MASSIVE cross that they will save even their first kiss for marriage. As far as I know, it's an exclusively Christian ritual and man, oh, Manischewitz, is it crazy. Just the sprinkles on the top of this wacky sundae is that the girls' gowns seemed to me to embrace a lingerie theme. Hold me closer, Daddy!

This movement was founded, and is led by, a Colorado preacher with a really frightening toupee and five nearly identical daughters who seem to have arrived in two lots. He is fond of holding their precious faces in his cupped hands and telling them what their names mean. I adore my daughter but have never found the slightest urge to do this. Besides, her name has nothing to do with personal duties toward god or being a leader of men (Oh, wait, that was his one son!), so that kind of ruins the moment. Anyway, aside from the fact that the whole thing reeks of a money-making scheme to me, what with the ballroom and the printed covenant  and the rehearsals, choreography, new dress every year, the inevitable guides and inspirational readings and such. It just stunk out loud to me. And there was something deeply creepy and unsettling about seeing a 20-year-old  very attractive young woman who still lived at home, had never been on a date or even been so much as kissed by or held hands with a boy, stand in front of a crowd of fathers and daughters and wax rhapsodic about the wonders of her father even as tears rolled down her tanned and rested face. Brrrrrr. It was icky. I think my father is a man among men and I am deeply grateful to him for more things than I care to or am able to list, including him treating me like his flesh and blood from the day we met, but I don't feel a need to put on a prom gown and tiara, grab a mike and tell a ball room full of paying guests just what makes him and our relationship so darned grand. I'll tell him, thanks.

There's a disturbing amount of Princess imagery here as well. Now I am the first to admit that I am an anti-Princess bigot. I am. In general, I think the whole Princess thing is bad for little girls and I avoided it like the plague for my own. I like women who go to work, rescue themselves and live in something resembling a democracy or, if you prefer a fairy tale, a meritocracy. I am uncomfortable with castles and those who live in them and having actually lived in a country where there WAS a monarchy, if a powerless one, for a few years, I have more experience with this than the Yank who's only been to Disneyworld. Vast amounts of land and lucre that you had nothing to with but getting born to the right womb does not seem right to me. And I don't like the whole hanging around waiting for the Prince, waking up when he kisses you, all that malarkey. Cut your hair and come downstairs, girlfriend!

I've got more to say on this but I want to post something. Consistency is the goal here. Well, one of them.