<p>As cringe-inducing as it is to sit next to my teenage daughter when commercials and TV “news” promos educate us all on the details of erectile dysfunction, etc., the thought that she should “belong” to me until she becomes the property of one of the mouth-breathing cavemen who circle the abode like vultures (okay, I exaggerate a little) is even more repellent. As much as I try to instill in my daughter the merits of being strong and self reliant, I find popular culture preaching the Cinderella/Sleeping Beauty theme that a girl’s route to happiness is through attaching herself to “the right man” and that the key to success for a woman is sex - either in dangling it like a prize or by withholding it until the “right” time. </p>
<p>Well, there’s no prohibition against non-virgins wearing them, not even a purification ceremony for the “fallen” so they can wear them again. </p>
<p>Jews have “tsitsis”. They can get caught in candy-rolling machines, or other heavy equipment, though I imagine, somewhere along the line, there was a man saved by the skin of his tsitsis, with the fringe caught in the crevice saving him from a plunge to certain death.</p>
<p>Emerald, would you provide links? I’m a bit surprised that the Mormon girls my d has known were able to hide these graments under their bikinis and dancewear. And did Steve Young donate his special garment to be displayed in the NFL Hall of Fame, next to his jersey?</p>
<p>Thanks! That made my day. As for erectile dysfunction, I just tell my daughter that if she can find a man who can maintain an erection for four hours, she should marry him. ;-)</p>
<p>I don’t think LDS families like my sisters- who are very serious (about every aspect that they agree with), would consider families that allowed their kids to wear immodest clothing to be “good” Mormons ;)</p>
<p>Hanna: I did not mean to insult you. I simply meant that you probably haven’t seen a Glamour magazine without sex advice columns, since the magazine has changed quite a lot since I was a girl; nothing personal.</p>
<p>There is no talking to people who are intent on having girls “liberated” to have sex in the same way as males. As I’ve said a hundred times, the earlier a girl has sex the more at risk she is for depression, substance abuse, and other disorders (let alone std’s, cervical cancer and unwanted pregnancy). Every teenage girl I’ve known in discussing this has said she had wished she waited. Every study has shown that girls who have sex at an early age overwhelmingly say they wish they waited until they were older. When they are pressured by boys, the education establishment/culture at large is not giving them the tools to enable them to say no. In that regard, I also don’t think these magazines help a bit. I understand the liberal/feminist mindset that congratulates itself in its belief that girls should/can enjoy victimless sex (the zipless ****) just as much as boys, but girls are just wired differently. The victim ends up being the girl herself more often than not. I personally find it tragic.</p>
<p>A quick google of media/publishing websites found these comments on teen magazines.</p>
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As is her younger sister, more than likely.</p>
<p>P.S. I’m purposely skipping the expert commentary on the history of sex in Catholicism/Christianity here. :)</p>
<p>I would say that I think standards can be set by the adults of the house.</p>
<p>Instyle and Lucky I think are all about shopping- and I don’t remember articles on dating or sex.
More about how to update your wardrobe, what stars wore to the award ceremony and where you can find a copy, and the latest mascara.</p>
<p>My 16 yr old reads Teen Vogue- which out of the “teen” magazines, I think has better articles than ones who assume that you want to spend your time working on your “relationship” with a boy or dressing to attract them.</p>
<p>She also reads Vogue, which doesn’t have articles on diets, desserts and sex techniques, but articles by Nora Ephron on turning 60 and essays about how Cate Blanchett picks roles.
( I think it is great that she is reading magazines that talk about aging & not in a way that makes women sound like they are desperate to be 30 again)</p>
<p>I don’t read Cosmo- I never did except for brief period when I was about 19. Its pretty stupid- but the quizzes were fun.
I read Outside, and Cooks and fitness magazines for new exercises.</p>
<p>( 17 also has an awful lot of articles on boys- while their advice seems to be good in the ones I have browsed through- that does seem to be the emphasis- I want my daughters to know their worth is not related to men, to being attractive to men or in pleasing men- so far, they seem to have got it):)</p>
<p>( my daughters also read American Girl until they were 14 or so & Cicada)</p>
Ignoring the obligatory slap at liberals and feminists, how sure are you that girls are actually “wired differently” in that particular way? Given that popular culture calls a girl who is sexually active a “slut” and a boy who is sexually active a “player” might it not be true that there’s actually not that much difference between the sexes in how they are “wired” to respond emotionally to having sex as teenagers, but a huge difference in the social response to those who do? That is, if the social structure which is illustrated so clearly by the male possession ceremonies described in the Glamour article were reversed, and boys “married” their Moms in a ceremony of “purity” while young women’s sowing of their “wild oats” was winked at - who would be the ones with low self-esteem afterwards? I realize that its a complex phenomenon, and no two teenagers are alike, and we have to deal practically with the real world with all its biases and unfairness, but isn’t asserting that females are “wired” to suffer from premarital sex (as opposed to males) kind of an unprovable assumption?</p>
<p>I didn’t see any mention of Catholics OR Mormons in that article. What I did see were key words like courtship, first kisses at weddings which made me think of this:</p>
<p>As I said, there is no talking to people who are intent on having girls “liberated” to have sex in the same way as males. These people are normally feminists and liberals. That is just a fact. We are talking about girls NOT women, and yet, as above, there are people fighting tooth and nail (usually not conservatives) for the right/freedom/duty(?) of these girls to have sex. Okay, then.</p>
<p>Pastor Randy Wilson, host of the event and cofounder of the ball, strides to the front of the room, takes the microphone and asks the men, “Are you ready to war for your daughters’ purity?”</p>
<p>from the 2nd paragraph</p>
<p>eww
*
In fact, in the parlance of the purity ball folks, one-on-one time with dad is a “date,” and the only sanctioned one a girl can have until she is “courted” by a man. The roles are clear: Dad is the only man in a girl’s life until her husband arrives, a lifestyle straight out of biblical times. “In patriarchy, a father owns a girl’s sexuality,” notes psychologist and feminist author Carol Gilligan, Ph.D. “And like any other property, he guards it, protects it, even loves it.”*</p>
<p>The emphasis seems to be on the male.
The * father* who has to protect his daughters chastity, the * husband* who will then receive the * gift* of her virginity.</p>
<p>*Although she just graduated from high school, she is not going to college but instead will be teaching ballet classes, continuing with piano lessons and writing a book about “emotional purity,” which Christy thinks is even more important than the physical kind. “I am just trying to reserve all those special feelings for my husband,” she says ardently.</p>
<p>As it turns out, not allowing herself to think sexual thoughts makes her nervous, too, because she wants to experience pleasure with her future husband: “I don’t want to be a burden to him in that I am not enjoying [sex].”*</p>
<p>The biochemistry of bonding is what I refer to as a different “wiring” for boys and girls. In a nutshell: oxytocin is a hormone released during sexual activity; the same one that induces labor & starts the “let down” of breast milk. Neuropsychologists are finding that this hormone causes strong feelings of attachment, to both one’s infant & one’s lover. Attachment/bonding/trust — all seem to be wired into a girl’s brain physiology & strongly associated with sex. Boys don’t have that hormonal chain reaction & can walk away from relationships, and their emotional consequences, much easier than girls. Girls are not just at a greater physical risk for STDs; they are at a much greater emotional risk, too.</p>
<p>So it’s not an unprovable assumption. It’s just a politically incorrect one.</p>
<p>As a liberal feminist- ( although I would consider myself more of a feminist than a liberal) I am curious exactly, how I have advocated for the duty for my daughters to have casual sex?</p>
<p>I apparently am not doing a very good job of it.</p>
<p>Give me a break. The first “girl” featured in the article is 25, and she was pledging her “purity” to her father. Of course, I don’t mind if a 25 year-old decides to save herself for marriage, but I would leave her father out of it.</p>
<p>I actually agree with most of what hereshoping said about premature sex, and it’s pretty much what I tried to teach both my kids, son and daughter. But I also tried to teach them that the issue was keeping faith with themselves, not with me. My love isn’t conditional on the choices they make about sex. I think the article indicates that the fathers of those girls feel the same way – as I would expect them to – and are a little uneasy themselves with the mixed message that the ceremony sends.</p>
<p>As a father I would rather not worry whether my children were hurrying into marriage to legitimize having sex. Premature sex can be harmful, but it’s the kind of harm that seems to heal for most people. The damage from a premature marriage seems to linger a lot longer, especially if there are some kids involved. Sex is a big wild card in a relationship, and I wouldn’t want my kids to bet their lives on a marriage with that card hidden.</p>
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