Feministe has a downright frightening post about the girls of puritygirls.com, a fundamentalist Christian website that encourages young women to completely repress their sexuality until marriage - no kisses, no touching, period. Jill quotes multiple forum posts where girls are told to blame themselves when boys lust after them, as they “bear part of the sin” for having dared to look attractive. It’s not difficult to see the harm this indoctrination has had on these kids; one regretful girl tells of the ’scars’ she still has because she ‘messed up.’ Her story:

I agree totally!!!!! God is gonna write my love story!! The thing is, that when you do mess up, it’s hard to forgive yourself! I have never had sex outside of marriage,(Thank goodness!), but when I was younger, 5,6,7, I kissed a guy. Not on the lips, but it still leaves a scar. I knew better than that then too! I didn’t know how it would effect me in the future obviously, and I didn’t totally know all about purity, but I knew not to go around kissing boys! I feel soooo bad now, and it is soo hard sometimes to forgive myself for it! Purity is sooo important, and whether you can see it now or not, even something as small as a kiss can effect you!

STAY STRONG IN PURITY!!!!

Young women also discuss feminism, which is apparently bringing about the family apocalypse. Many of the girls agree that women should not be permitted to teach men, hold any level of leadership (”Exception: If there is no male person available to do the job needed, then a woman could step up to the job needing to be filled, and fill it until a man is available to do the job”), or ‘feminize’ men by having a career that supports the family. Talk about taking a step backwards.

Jill makes a good point: many of these girls are intelligent and thoughtful young women. Hopefully they’ll grow to respect themselves enough to realize that they don’t deserve to be treated as second-class citizens just because they happen to be female.