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Access to society journal content varies across our titles. If you have access to a journal via a society or association membership, please browse to your society journal, select an article to view, and follow the instructions in this box. The Purity Myth is something I’ve been thinking about for a long time. When I lost my virginity as a high school freshman, I didn’t understand why I didn’t feel changed somehow. Wasn’t this supposed to be, like, a big deal? Later, in college, as I’d listen to male friends deride their sexual partners as. Dec 10, 2012  Download Citation If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click on download.

1. The Purity Myth

The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity Is Hurting Young Women (2009) is a book about virginity by feminist author Jessica Valenti.^[1] The book was first released onto hardback on March 24, 2009, through Seal Press. Valenti argues that there is a prevalent false notion promoted within the United States that a woman's worth is predicated upon whether or not she is sexually active, implying that the loss of virginity can negatively affect her.^[2] A DVD tie-in titled The Purity Myth: The Virginity Movement's War Against Women was released in 2011.^[3]

Summary[edit]

In the book, Valenti discusses various different elements of society that promote chastity and discourage pre-marital sexual activity in women and teenage girls. She states that many sex education programs in the United States will only promote abstinence-only education, which she feels gives an unhealthy attitude towards sex and women. Valenti also states that the myth uses virginity as an 'easy ethical road map' in order to teach women that, unlike the ability to abstain from having sex, their beliefs and actions hold no bearing to their value as human beings.^[4] Valenti does not discourage chastity but shows disapproval over virginity pledge programs such as purity balls and the Silver Ring Thing for the aforementioned reasons.

Valenti also argues that the over-emphasizing and idealization of virginity promotes the Madonna–whore complex, which would make many women and teen girls choose to be hypersexualized as they cannot live up to the expectations placed upon them.^[5] She also states that she believes that the concept of virginity is a myth, as the actual definition of the term is abstract and differs depending on the person, religion, or situation. Valenti explains that she was unable to find an exact medical definition of virginity in the Harvard Medical School library and that the popular concept of virginity did not fit both genders.^[6]

In other media[edit]

Commentators^[specify] have linked Valenti's views on virginity to discussion of sexual assault victims and the Rape and pregnancy controversies in United States elections, 2012.^[7]

References[edit]

1. ^Harris, Lynn (July 22, 2009). 'The Stork Is Dead; Four recent books pull back the curtain on human sexual relations'. Washington Post. Archived from the original on June 10, 2014. Retrieved 9 January 2014.
2. ^Kaplan, C (2010). 'Book review: Valenti J, The purity myth: how America's obsession with virginity is hurting young women'. Nursing Ethics. 17 (6): 793–794. doi:10.1177/09697330100170061402.
3. ^Riscol, Lara (2013). 'Her Hymen Goes to Washington: Review of The Purity Myth DVD'. American Journal of Sexuality Education. 8 (1–2): 97–103. doi:10.1080/15546128.2012.740968.
4. ^(2009). The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity Is Hurting Young Women, p. 26. Seal Press. ISBN978-1-58005-253-5.
5. ^'No such thing as virginity, author says'. Today. Retrieved 9 January 2014.
6. ^Clark-Flory, Tracy. 'The virginity fetish'. Salon. Retrieved 9 January 2014.
7. ^E.J. Graff (January 4, 2013). 'Purity Culture Is Rape Culture'. Prospect.

Mixmeister crashes on mac. The Purity Myth (Avalon, 2009) was written by Jessica Valenti of the feminist blog Feministing. It seeks to explore the issue of virginity as obsession and comment on how said obsession is ultimately harmful to young women.

The American conservative movement, as deconstructed by Valenti, has particularly latched on to the purity myth to roll back the rights of girls and women. However, chastity is not a new model for girls and women, and many cultures construct the value of a woman as based solely on her sexual behaviour.

This book is limited to discussing this phenomenon from an American perspective. A wider critique would have allowed a discussion on how patriarchy is a global force and the broader understanding that though there are no sexual taboos that are universal, women’s sexuality is regulated for the purposes of maintaining male hegemony.

We have a tendency to view the world from a uniquely Western perspective due to privilege and this in turn limits who is able to represent the category of ‘woman’. However, the over-valuation of virginity is not suddenly a more important issue when it is attached to a white, middle to upper-class, heterosexual, woman.

Valenti’s discussion of what is and is not considered sexual behaviour leads to the erasure and/or trivialization of certain people. For example, bisexual and lesbian women are often the focus of violence simply because they have rejected the heterosexual model of sexuality. In fact, counter to the purity myth as projected by Valenti, there is the supposition that these women simply need to experience sex with a “real man” to change their so-called proclivities.

Women of color receive similarly anecdotal treatment. When they are mentioned it is only in reference to the ways that black female sexuality is understood by whiteness. Valenti does make excellent points in reference to the idea that the white virginity movement does not concern itself with black women because our bodies are considered to exist for the purposes of violation. However, this view ignores the policing of sexuality that occurs within the religious black community. While whiteness may have long decided that black women are wanton Jezebels, the black community specifically pushes the counter message by encouraging black women to remain chaste as a method of fighting racism that is aimed at us.

The “good” black girl goes to church, sings in the choir, and gets good grades and is thus considered a credit to her race. Once again, we see that one can find salvation of sorts in the bodies of women. This is not a sacrifice that is aimed at black men.

If woman were to be understood as mostly white, Western, and middle-class The Purity Myth could be considered a compelling critique. The issues that it raises are extremely important to the narrow group of women that it addresses. Being forced to conform to social stereotypes in order to be understood as ‘woman’, means that you are forever performing a regressive form of female sexuality. Tuxera ntfs 2014. When this is compounded with the fact that education is purposefully misleading or simply outright false, it is dangerous to women. Valenti is right to sound the alarm, as young women must be given the correct information in order to make educated decisions.

In her conclusion, Valenti does a tremendous job of encouraging young women to seek out resources to broaden their education and spread the word through activism. Valenti specifically suggests that they begin by posting blog entries at Feministing; while this could be understood as completely self-serving by some, we must remember that if knowledge is not shared it becomes lost.

The major issue with the book is that the narrow understanding of ‘woman’ means that those that do not see themselves reflect in this instance may fail to see the ways in which they too are disciplined by the purity myth. If we are going to talk about women, it is essential that we change the understanding that a certain race or class background can accurately reflect us all.

The Purity Myth