The first ever official Purity Ball was in the late 1990′s out of Colorado Springs. Before that, there have been beautiful ceremonies from aristocratic traditions presenting debutant daughters to “society.” Freemasons have a charity and community service focused club and event/ball for it’s International Order of the Rainbow for girls. And I suppose there are always Bat Mitzvahs, celebrating the transition of girls into womanhood with bad DJ’s and enough teenage drama to make Romeo and Juliet want to kill themselves … again.
But unlike all of these coming of age traditions, a Purity Ball is the only one that attempts to repress girls by taking all of those padded bras, the red lipstick and lady-part desires and shoving them deep down where they belong. All of this, an effort to remind girls that until Daddy gives you away, you’re owned by him. Daddy symbolizes this with a ring for his little girl wear to show her purity for him. His little girl pledges that she’ll never go on a date, kiss a boy, or hold his dirty, sweaty awkward hand. Oh and his little girl gets a pretty frilly white dress to dance in with Daddy.
All of those ceremonies were a way to "present" girls to society much like a for sale sign. Debutante balls and beauty pagents have much in common, a way of upping the sale price. In fact the marriage ceremony still has the father give the girl in white away to her future husband, implying that he is handing over his unspoiled property to another man (and paying the groom off with a dowry) and that he has safeguarded her virginity.
Yes, purity balls are creepy to infinite degree and I would suspect most if not all of those parents guilty of some impure thoughts. But let's not confuse history here. ALL of these ceremonies treat girls as commodities.
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