The Purity Movement

[Godscreated]

Their girls are not your responsibility. Now I do not agree with all the purity movement but, there are good things about it.

I find the bolded to be a really, really disgusting sentiment. Yes, they are our - the collective "our" - responsibility.

If I had children they would not be a part of any collective, they would be mine and I would harm you if you tried to interfere.

I live in a place where you can't force other people to raise their kids how you would, and that's a very good thing.

Then what are you talking about with this collective crap. No one in this country can force another's child to do anything, parents have the right to raise their children as they see fit.

But when children (individually and collectively) are being taught things like "feel bad if you think about sex before marriage" (and, for that matter, bullshit like "science is all a big liberal plot, so don't listen to your biology teacher" and "the highest goal in your life should be to protect the unborn"), it's a BIG problem because it means lots of individual children are going to be harmed and stifled, and a huge chunk of society is going to be unprepared to help us make any accomplishments to help humans' lives improve.

Did I say I agreed with the entire Purity movement, no I did not, so take your opinion of what I said and stuff it. If I wanted to raise my children to try and be sexually pure I would, personally I believe it's a good idea, it keeps things from getting complicated in their future.
But then I wouldn't expect atheist to agree with me because for them it's get all you can when you can and don't think about the consequences down the road. There is a great value to virginity, one I'm sure you can't nor care to see.

IT IS OUR RESPONSIBILITY

Try and stick your hand into the way my sister and her husband raised their children and you would pull back a nub, then you would have to deal with their uncle. Christians have the right to raise their children the way they feel is best for them, so you and the world can stay out of our families.

GC

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Now I do not agree with all the purity movement but, there are good things about it.

Lots of Christians do not agree with the purity movement, thankfully. It causes a lot of harm. Elizabeth Smart has spoken out about harmful the movement's idea of sexual purity was to her after she was kidnapped and raped.

I wouldn't say it causes a lot of harm, what you hear and are referring to are a few cases out of tens of thousands of teens and young adult. Please remember that many young adults are participating in the purity program and they make their own choices to be involved. Like all programs with the best intentions, there will always be problems to work out and problems that are exaggerated because someone gets hurt by something not expected. No program is perfect but, if this one works with 90% of young people that's a great deal of young people who do not get STD's, pregnant and many other problems. I know this program want reach 90% it was a number I brought up to stress what good can come from the program.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree...al-assault

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The dehumanization that purity culture inflicts was described by Smart in her speech when she talked about the sex education:

"I had a teacher who was talking about abstinence, she said, 'Imagine you're a stick of gum and when you engage in sex, that's like getting chewed, and if you do that lots of times, you're going to become an old piece of gum, and who's going to want you after that?"

Smart says those words rang in her memory. She felt ruined.

This is from the same article in the link.
[/quote]

Like I said not all parts of the program work well mostly because teachers get over zealous in their teachings, which is unfortunate.
One thing I see out of atheist, they will jump on an issue that comes up in Christianity and run Christians down. They never explore all the good that comes from many Christian programs, hatred of a people is a very bad thing, we try to do what's best for our families just like most others.

GC

[robvalue]

Not much more I can add. Utterly disgusting in every way.

[Brian37]

How?


GC

Because everyone is a sexual being. It's a natural urge. If you surpress that to the point where even masturbation is considered a sin and combined with guilt, you get a seriously disturbed individual in the process.

Humn, I guess since I don't believe the crap about it being a sin, I am the happiest healthiest man by Guinness Book Of Word Records standards.

[Spooky]

My wife is glad I had plenty of "Practice"

[Cato]

Their girls are not your responsibility. Now I do not agree with all the purity movement but, there are good things about it.

Christians do not see things like this as limiting, we see it as growing in a relationship with the God we'll spend eternity with.

Purity my ass. Injecting God into the equation immediately gets you a threesome. Knowing that Jesus and the Holy Spirit are tagging along means it is more likely a gangbang.

[Godscreated]

My wife is glad I had plenty of "Practice"

And did she have plenty of practice?

GC

[Nope]

The problem with the purity moment isn't the fact that some people wait until they are married to have sex.

From a biblical point of view, it makes no sense. There are a few passages in the New Testament about sexually purity, mainly from Paul. Jesus' emphasis was on helping others, not judging and being humble. It would make better sense to have your children pledge to help others or to not judge or to be humble then to keep their physical purity.

Second, there are aspects of the purity movement that go far beyond just not having sexual intercourse. GC, you have probably discussed with your daughters your beliefs on sexual activity in marriage and given them reasons to wait. You probably did not tell them that having any sexual thought about the opposite sex is the same as committing adultery against your future spouse.

[Strider]

I wouldn't say it causes a lot of harm, what you hear and are referring to are a few cases out of tens of thousands of teens and young adult. Please remember that many young adults are participating in the purity program and they make their own choices to be involved. Like all programs with the best intentions, there will always be problems to work out and problems that are exaggerated because someone gets hurt by something not expected. No program is perfect but, if this one works with 90% of young people that's a great deal of young people who do not get STD's, pregnant and many other problems. I know this program want reach 90% it was a number I brought up to stress what good can come from the program.

Abstinence-only education is disastrous, and it absolutely does harm. There is no good that comes from it. So let's examine your puritan values in action in regards to teaching abstinence.

For years and years, the state of Mississippi had an abstinence-until-marriage-only policy (starting in 2012, districts were allowed to choose between abstinence-only and a so-called abstinence-plus program). High school kids weren't taught a damn thing about sex; they were only admonished that it was only for marriage. Here's the results of that dismal failure:

- Second highest rate of teen pregnancies
- Second highest rate of gonorrhea and chlamydia infections
- Seventh highest rate of HIV infections
- Higher than national percentage levels of high school student sexual behavior

If you want the full, ugly report then here you are: http://www.siecus.org/document/docWindow...rmatId=257

I live in and see the results of abstinence-only programs daily. There is nothing you can say about those results. Abstinence-only education is a total failure.

[polar bear]

Having raised two daughter through their teenage years (yes I was a christian at the time) I would not change a thing about how they were raised. They are both independent, strong, free thinking and very secure in who they are. This is not because of some purity bullshit pack we made. In fact quite the opposite.

We talked about everything. Boys and sex, drugs and what they did both good and bad and alcohol both good and bad. When they went out with a boy, I had to meet them and talk to them. Not to intimidate them, but I wanted to know who my daughter was choosing to hang out with. Every single boy for both of them were very nice people. I am not stupid though, they were teenage boys and I am sure that things went on that I would rather not think about. But that is why we had the discussion about safe sex prior to them dating. I did not encourage them to be indiscriminate but I wanted them to be protected.

Yes, my son went through the same discussion. The only difference was I made sure he understood, a girl should be respected and treated as such.

So far I have 3 well adjusted kids. I am certain they will continue to make wise decisions.

[TheRealJoeFish]

GC,

I was, of course, being a bit melodramatic, because your post struck me in a sort of visceral way. I'll retreat from the emotional slant of my words, because I think my sort of ranting manner obfuscated the content, but I won't back away from the content itself.

What I mean to say is this:

1. Everyone here in the USA has the right to believe what they want to believe and raise their kids the way they want, to a point. I don't dispute anyone's right to raise their children in the "purity movement," and I would not want to live in a place where people don't have that right.
2. Just because someone has the right to do something doesn't mean they should.
3. I believe that things like the purity movement affirmatively harm children. Not to the level of child abuse under the law, certainly not to the level that would allow an outside force to intervene against the parents' wishes, but in a real, psychological way nonetheless.
4. I will try my hardest to convince parents who don't want their kids to hear about anything other than abstinence, who teach their kids that it's harmful to feel sexual urges and the like, that they are actively harming their children. I can't do anything about it other than that, and I don't want to.
5. I say this from an American perspective: the gaps between this country and others in the sciences are growing. There are a whole lot of reasons for this, and one of those reasons is religious fundamentalism placing a sizeable portion of each generation in a position to be unable to contribute to academic and societal advances.

To summarize: I'll never interfere with parental rights. I'll advocate up and down that parents change the way they exercise those rights.

Just a couple of things from your response:

1. I never advocated for children being part of a "collective" in the way you seemed to use it. The collectives I'm talking about are "the country" and "the world."

2.

There is a great value to virginity, one I'm sure you can't nor care to see.

You're right about that. There's value in "waiting until you're ready," and "making responsible decisions." But I don't see, nor care to see, the value in "being a virgin."