When I was eleven years old, my mom approached me to encourage me to get a purity ring after hearing that some of her friends’ daughters had gotten them. I don’t remember why I disliked the idea at the time, but I immediately rejected her proposal. Years later, the idea of anyone having a purity ring is still extremely disturbing to me. The first and most obvious issue is that I don’t understand why your decision to remain abstinent until marriage is anyone else’s business. Whether you have or haven’t had sex isn’t something to be proud of. By perpetuating the idea that your abstinence is something to be proud of, we are perpetuating the idea that it is shameful to have sex. Having or not having sex, in and of itself, should not be a source of pride. Such a public display of one’s sexual status as a source of pride is infantile and embarrassing. We’re not in the seventh grade anymore, so can we please do away with the sex bracelets?
Additionally, purity rings are a lot more common among young women who are persuaded, early on, to believe that they are more pure and valuable when they retain their chastity. This idea ties into the previous one by presenting the issue with sexual status as a means of measuring one’s self worth. Despite the similarities, this fact is much worse because it’s sends people the message that only women must remain abstinent until marriage. Often times, the young women who get purity rings make the promise to remain abstinent to their fathers. Along with the obvious themes of incest and pedophilia that this promise conveys, it’s extremely problematic in the sense that it communicates the idea that women and their bodies belong to their fathers. Women are made to feel as if they have to keep this promise to their fathers until they get married, presumably to another man. Purity rings send the message that women will never own their bodies; they make promises to their dads to keep their bodies pure until they marry other men, to whom they will give up their bodies for the men’s pleasure.
Purity rings are extremely dated (not that they were ever okay) and it’s time to move on from them. Sexual status, regardless of what that is, is not something to be proud of and through the continued use of purity rings, we are saying that one sexual status is better than another. What women, or anyone for that matter, do with their bodies is their business only. It’s not a father’s job to guard his daughter’s chastity until she is married. She is a human being and her body does not belong to anyone but herself.
