1399 Followers
70 Following
KB

The Ninja Reader

High-brow or downright pretentious, good PNR or sparkly vampires, I don't care about the premise so long as it entertains me.

Currently reading

Bullying: The Social Destruction of Self
Laura Martocci
The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women - Jessica Valenti Some quick observations:The virginity movement seems to be a problem, but it's a problem focused solely on white middle and upper-middle class women.Purity balls really are messed-up.Money are squandered on useless things (surprise, surprise).Valenti gets that changing attitudes is necessary for a brighter future but her suggestions don't really engage with me.So what is the purity myth? According to this book, it's the belief that a (white, straight) woman is not worth more than her hymen. But while abstinence-only educators may focus on the psychological and health risks to premarital sex, the whole point of the myth is to restore old gender roles and basically revert us back to where we were before anyone even breathed the word 'feminism'.You gotta hand it to Valenti - she sure can drive a point across. Throughout her book, she looks at every tactic of the virginity movement, discovers its argument and debunks it. The main points of this book are:- Sex can be good.- Sex will not always be good, but we have to accept this as a fact of life.- Our value as people does not depend on whether or not we have had intercourse.- Instead of telling people contraception does not work, we should educate them so that they can make good, informed decisions when they choose to have sex.Also, can I just point out that maybe we wouldn't have this economic crisis if the government wasn't paying for girls getting dolled up for some creepy incest pledge purity balls. One might think that those funds would be more helpful in, oh, I don't know, making new jobs? Or getting the industry off the ground? Or maybe that's too left out of field.Here's the thing though: The purity myth concerns white women. Valenti says so herself. It concerns white women who are upper middle class. Anyone else is considered free game because they can't possibly be pure *bleh*. Valenti addresses this briefly, pointing out that women of colour and lesbians are just as entitled to basic human rights as any other person in the world, but in her solutions section, she doesn't really focus on that. Yeah, yeah, I realize it's a book on the Virginity Myth, but shouldn't we focus on things that would improve the lives of all women, and not just the straight white ones? And what about breaking the machismo myth for men? Doesn't the virginity myth somehow affect men as well?Related: For my thoughts on whether Diversity in YA is a feminist issue, you may find them on my blog.