"Dear God, please don't let him touch me again."
"We discussed what it means to be a teenager in today's world," she says. They gave her a charm for her bracelet--a lock in the shape of a heart. Her father has the key. "On my wedding day, he'll give it to my husband," she explains. "It's a symbol of my father giving up the covering of my heart, protecting me, since it means my husband is now the protector. He becomes like the shield to my heart, to love me as I'm supposed to be loved."
::Whispers on the right:: "I'm going to love you like you're supposed to be loved..."
...they wrote a vow for fathers to recite, a promise "before God to cover my daughter as her authority and protection in the areas of purity,
"Mmm, pure flesh."
The events have been called odd, creepy, oppressive of a girl's "sexual self-agency," as one USA Today columnist put it. Father-daughter bonding is great, the critics agree--but wouldn't a cooking class or a soccer game be emotionally healthier than a ceremony freighted with rings and roses and vows? Some academic skeptics make a practical objection: The majority of kids who make a virginity pledge, they argue, will still have sex before marriage but are less likely than other kids to use contraception, since that would involve planning ahead for something they have promised not to do. This puts them at risk for sexually transmitted diseases.
What's she so excited about, STD's?
Good thing they keep kids ignorant and ashamed of sex or they'd run out of abortion clinics to protest. -Nate Trip
"Twins!"
-TM