Daddy's little girl

Here's one kinky lifestyle innovation for which the Mandarin and his fellow boomers can't claim credit: purity balls.


No sex please, we're daddy's little girls

It has all the ingredients of a wedding. The proud tuxedo-clad father, the frosted white cake, the limousines and an exchange of vows.

But there is no groom and the girl in the long gown is no bride. She's daddy's little girl, there to take a vow of chastity.

In what is becoming a trend among conservative Christians in the United States, girls as young as nine are pledging to their fathers to remain virgins until they wed, in elaborate ceremonies dubbed "Purity Balls."

The gala affairs are intended to celebrate the father-daughter relationship.

The highlight is when the fathers and daughters exchange vows, with dad signing a covenant to protect his daughter's chastity by living an unblemished life and the daughter promising not to have sex until marriage.

Many fathers at the ceremonies also slip "purity rings" around the finger of their misty-eyed daughters or offer them "chastity bracelets" and other jewelry that the girls can entrust to their husbands on their wedding night.


Well, as long as Daddy is slipping a ring or a bracelet on his little girl, why not just cut to the main event: the chastity, oops, "purity" belt? She can add the key to the wedding night swag bag she's saving for her future husband.


Oh, it gets better:


Mike Parcha, who recently attended one of these balls with his 11-year-old daughter Lora in the western state of Colorado, said the events reinforce his family's Christian beliefs.

"We realize that purity is a lifestyle, not an event, and this is just a celebration of that lifestyle and of that relationship that I have with my daughters," he said. ...

His two older daughters, aged 11 and 18, have attended the balls while the youngest, aged 4, must wait a few years.


Let's do some purity math. How old will a four-year-old girl be in "a few years?" The Mandarin has to ask his loyal readers, does the mental image of an adult man standing next to his pre-pubescent daughter in a wedding dress, taking a vow together and slipping a ring on her finger give any one else the creeps?


The three girls, along with their three brothers, are all home schooled. Parcha's oldest daughter Christy, who recently graduated from high school, is now working on a fictional book about "the emotional purity of a young girl as she grows up."


[Cue Homer Simpson's voice] "Hmmm... Fictional book...."


UPDATE (24 Mar 07) - The Mandarin was amused to see Bill Maher making the same joke a day later on his show. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Bill....