Purity: The Plight of the Teenage Girl??

With all of the recent talk about fallen teenage idols: Miley, Lindsay, Paris, and Britney (and have you seen this new teen on the scene?), today's NYT article about girls pledging purity should put my concerns as a mother-of-a-rapidly-developing-pre-teen at ease.

It doesn't. Instead, I feel like running to the nearest open field, blasting Grateful Dead on my boom box, burning all of my bras and shaking my naked boobies with abandon.

Watch this video. The actual pledge is at 4:53 and a sad and frightening quote which illustrates my problem with the purity pledge is at 6:20.

I'm all for preserving our girls' virtue as long as possible but having a daughter promise her affections will belong to her father until the day she's married?? Ick. We're not just talking about sexual intercourse, we're talking first kisses and everything in between. Did you hear the girl in the video? She says, "I'm hoping I'll never kiss...but if I do, I'll ask for forgiveness and hope that I get it."

Sing-a-long with me:

??? and ??? sitting in a tree.
K-I-S-S-I-N-G
First comes love,
Then comes marriage,
Then comes ?? in a baby carriage.

S-c-r-a-a-t-c-h!!!!

Should we burn all those songbooks in the fire pit along with my bras? They'll be in good company with other U.S. banned books: Twains', Huckleberry Finn, The American Heritage Dictionary (I kid you not), Salinger's, Catcher In the Rye, Forever by Judy Blume (OMG!), Daddy's Roommate, Wilhoite's novel about gay couples and Herron's, Nappy Hair. (Just to name a few.)

I would love for my daughter to remain a virgin as long as possible. I would love for her and her father to have a close, trusting relationship. But I do not want the chastity belt chained so tight that it suffocates ALL of her God-given sexual impulses. I want her to take it slow, to develop confidence and common sense before giving up the big "V". Guiding her with THAT is how I see my parental responsibility - NOT imprisoning her until she reaches the proper, parentally-determined, age and then throwing her, ready or not, into the lion's mouth.

My sweetest memories are 0f my first kisses and my first love. I wouldn't give them up for anything. The boy was sweet, the love was mutual and intense, and while I ultimately got my heart broken, those hurts were life lessons, useful in future relationships.

Teens and sexual awakening are a natural part of life. I don't believe that those who use God as the reason for pledging purity understand teenage sexuality is included as part of His creation. We should be educating our children, listening to them, helping them deal with the changes and the urges; not re-interpreting nature and shifting it to fit our own fearful needs.
It reminds me of the fairy tales, Snow White and Rapunzel, where beautiful, young women were killed or trapped in order to keep their burgeoning sexual powers at bay.

Prohibiting your child from dating or kissing until marriage, telling them to forge their most intimate relationship with their father until they are deemed a woman, seems unnatural, backward, and a prescription for a future with a whole different kind of misery.

I empathize but I think this extreme approach is a dangerous disservice to our children.