I don’t know why this phenomenon squicks me out so much: the father-daughter "purity ball." In which girls as young as elementary age and as old as college age spend a night getting dressed up and going dancing with their dads.
Dads, on the other hand, take a pledge to, as this NYT article puts it, "cover my daughter as her authority and protection in the area of purity."
Okay, I think I have figured out the squickitude: Why are these men taking ownership of their daughters' sexuality in such a way? If delaying sexual activity were the goal, why aren't these fathers as concerned with their son's virginity as well? Why is that the avenue through which they choose to get personally invested in their daughter's success or failure?
Have they heard of maybe coaching soccer?
What makes it difficult for me to completely condemn this is the stated motivations of many of the men who brought their daughters to the ball. Being a good example themselves, for one. Showing their daughter they cherish her. Being an involved father.
These are all things I can get behind, and I believe the studies that say having a close relationship with their fathers can keep girls away from too-early sexual activity and teen pregnancy. I have always been close with my own dad, and I know that helped me make some smarter choices than I would have otherwise.
But the "daughter's sexuality as father's commodity" troubles me. I'd think the last thing a young girl struggling with issues of sexual maturity would need is the idea that she loses her father's esteem along with her virginity. Or that her main value to her father is remaining "sexually pure."
