Virginity Pledges Can Work for Some
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His friend Brook Jefcoat, 17, also made the commitment. “My parents back me 100 percent,” she said. “You see the stuff on the news about girls getting pregnant and not caring want they are doing. I didn’t want to have sex with any guy except the person I love. It’s a sacred thing for a husband.” –
ABC reports (with video) For Keith Dorscht, escorting his daughters to the annual “purity ball”
is about chivalry, not chastity. For his five girls — ages 10 years to
9 months — it’s a fairy tale night filled with ball gowns, swirling
ballerinas and dancing past midnight.
At this highly ritualized event, Dorscht walks through an arch
of swords, as she lays a rose — the symbol of purity — on a Christian
cross and he signs a covenant pledging to serve as her protector.
Dorscht and other evangelical parents view the purity ball as a
“fatherhood event,” which helps their daughters build self-esteem and
inner beauty . The girls do not sign the covenant right away, but many
will later make “purity pledges” vowing to refrain from sex before
marriage.
Some reports show as many as one in six American girls between the ages
of 12 and 18 take some kind of purity pledge, part of a growing
movement that has been buoyed by evangelical fervor and wholesome music
idols like Miley Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers, who fuel the notion that
teens can be both cool and celibate.