Many viewers has some strong feelings about the now-private account, with one saying: “20?!?!?! Purity ring?!?!?! Dad?!?!?!”
And another said: “So this is actually wild. There’s no way to spin this to be a cute thing.”
But others saw the good in the gesture, with one saying: “This broken generation will not understand the purpose of this … comments did not pass the vibe check . Guarding her heart is important.”
The debate about teaching young girls’ abstinence has been long associated with increased statistics on s3xually transmitted diseases, teen pregnancies and damaging thoughts about their bodies and s3xualities.
In fact, a 2017 review in the Journal of Adolescent Health found that abstinence education policies found that girls who pledged to abstinence had higher chances of all of the above things compared to girls who didn’t pledge to be ‘pure’.
In an interview with Verywell Mind, Hannah Mayderry (LMHC), a licensed mental health counselor who grew up in a fundamentalist Christian family, agrees.
She explained that those who subscribe to purity culture are affected in most areas of their lives.
She said: “Women are often taught their s3xuality is something that should be bottled up and shoved down.
“That encompasses everything from the way that they dress, the way that they interact with men, the way that they speak, the way that they view their own bodies and their own s3x drive.”
Mayderry continued: “I think that we need to shift away from that and realize that our kids are going to do what they’re going to do because of how we parent them, because of their exposures in society, not because we had a talk with them.”
If anyone really thinks that the purity ring thing truly works, take a peek at the Jonas Brothers… Those boys did not last long.
