This week's NOW, the newsmagazine on PBS, detailed movements in South Dakota that seek to not only eliminate abortion (as they have just succeeded in doing) but also to impose an agenda of abstinence. As part of this latter effort, groups have established "purity balls" where young girls (it does always seem to be girls for some reason) pledge abstinence until, get this, "the day when they give themselves as wedding gifts to their husbands".
From ERA to "wedding gifts" in thirty years, women really have come a long way. Regardless of who is behind such efforts (the religious right, simple anti-feminists, prudes, etc), do we really want girls believing they are gifts to their future husbands? Here we go again with the glorification of female virginity, to such an extent that it has regained its place as a prize, a gift. Abstinence, of course, goes hand-in-hand with this approach. And, as a result, the use of contraceptive is vilified.
I see two ramifications of such a policy. First, young people become ignorant about sexuality and protection. Some studies have indicated that leads to increased STD infection rates, for the uninformed do not use condoms. In other cases, because vaginal sex is not an option, teenagers choose alternative routes of gratification. The other result may be far worse: young girls connect their importance with their sexual value. If the paramount moment of their lives is giving their virginity as a gift to their husband, then do they not associate sexuality with their chief role in society? It sounds paradoxical to the goals of the program but it may one of its chief unintended consequences.
With increased sexual imagery in the media, the means of exchange between individuals has increasingly been predicated on sexual identity. Mix this atmosphere with a program that rises to highest heights female sexuality and you have a problem. A girl's body becomes her chief commodity, more than her mind, her ambitions, her other skills. While men receive their wives are gifts, their sexuality seems to matter far less; their commodity, of course, is that they earn money for a family. Essentially, this desire to emphasis "purity" reasserts the gender roles of past centuries and subordinates females indefinitely. It also limits control of women over their own pleasure. But maybe that's the goal...
Young girls have many pressures placed upon them by peers and the images of sexuality that surround them. Instead of saving them, abstinence programs only makes their lives more difficult. For one, that are taught not to participate. On the other hand, though, they are told that their body is their greatest gift. Cognitive dissonance ensues. What happens in several cases is that teenage girls eventually give their body up. But when they do so, they are more likely to be unprotected or engage in untraditional sexual practices, those that have risen in popularity over the last three decades.
Their bodies of course are their chief means of social advance; the purity balls have told them so. So, in essence, they have the effect of degrading women's rights and hampering a woman's ability to succeed in society. But in an age where women are increasingly falling back on their traditional roles, maybe this isn't so surprising after all. It just has the unintended consequences, like blow jobs.
Update (5/7) - An article, "Contra-Contraception", from The New York Times Magazine explores similar topics to this one.
