The Purity Myth
Posted By: Jessica Valenti on 2009-05-29
In Reply to:
How America's Obsession With Virginity is Hurting Young Women is a book by Jessica Valenti, and makes some really valid and interesting points.
They turn women and girls into /moral/good or immoral/bad sisters. There is no room for the idea that young women might want to be sexy or to have sex. It teaches girls that their moral status comes from their sexual (in)activity, whereas boys learn that being moral means making responsible choices.
The obsession with virginity overshadows real issues that effect women such as affordable healthcare, reproductive rights, and sexual trafficking.
Abstinenence commitments do not work, and have resulted in higher STDs among these young people.
The chastity movement also promotes the idea that girls/women cannot be trusted to make decisions about their bodies, and fetishizes virginity.
Also- what is sex? Merely intercourse? Oral sex? Are lesbians then virgins?
One final point- those who "cherish" and save their virginity, are more often than not very disappointed by sexuality.
I highly recommend this book for all who have contact with girls and young women.
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Purity Myth...
There are very valid emotional development reasons for a teenaged girl not to have sex.
Teenage girls and teenaged boys are very different at this age. The girls want to be loved, cherished, and taken care of, and the boys would tell a girl anything to convince her to have sex. Love and a healthy relationship just aren't in a teenaged boy's emotional ability. That unbalance can have some devastating consequences to a young girl's self esteem.
Rejection by a boy is hard enough to take at that age, it is a million times harder if the girl has been intimate with the boy. It is especially devastating when the boy then brags to his peers that he has made the conquest.
There are more reasons for remaining a virgin until you are an adult and capable of adult judgement than just the fear of pregnancy or an STD.
I think that the idea of a 15 year old girl having sex with a boy because he has lied to her and made her promises that he has no intention of keeping is much worse than any damage done by advising that girl to wait until she is an adult to have sex.
This is not religion, this is MYTH.
x
The locking jaws are just a myth
Do some research. This is something I did find out. No dog has the bony or muscular structure in their anatomy to have a locking jaw.
Also the huge muscular looking pits are hybrid. A good show quality pit does not have the huge blocky head, short legs and overly exaggerated muscular. I actually think they are a beautiful breed. Especially the reds.
I just read some reports of a couple of kids killed by huskies in the last year. My SIL's huskies completely tore apart a cat that wondered into their yard. Fox terriers are hugely prey-driven dogs. They can and will hunt down and kill small animals, just for the kill. Are we going to ban those breeds?
There are some pictures of my vicious killer here:
It is all a myth, and they just want to modernize it and make it more palatable. sm
In short, they want to make money on the film.
Also try reading about comparative religion and myth - sm
I recommend The Power of Myth (book and series of specials on PBS) with Joseph Campbell. Interesting stuff. The search for the meaning of life is world-wide and Christianity is certainly not the only belief system out there, nor organized religion in general for that matter!
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