The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women QUOTES

1 " ..the hope I have for women: that we can start to see ourselves-and encourage men to see us-as more than just the sum of our sexual parts: not as virgins or whores, as mothers or girlfriends, or as existing only in relation to men, but as people with independent desires, hopes and abilities. But I know that this can't happen as long as American culture continues to inundate us with gender-role messages that place everyone-men and women-in an unnatural hierarchical order that's impossible to maintain without strife. For women to move forward, and for men to break free, we need to overcome the masculinity status quo-together. "

― Jessica Valenti , The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women

2 " Trusting women means also trusting them to find their way. This isn’t to say, of course, that I think women’s sexual choices are intrinsically “empowered” or “feminist.” I just believe that in a world that values women so little, and so specifically for their sexuality, we should be giving them the benefit of the doubt. Because in this kind of hostile culture, trusting women
is a radical act. "

― Jessica Valenti , The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women

3 " Trusting women means also trusting them to find their way. This isn’t to say, of course, that I think women’s sexual choices are intrinsically 'empowered' or 'feminist.' I just believe that in a world that values women so little, and so specifically for their sexuality, we should be giving them the benefit of the doubt. Because in this kind of hostile culture, trusting women
is a radical act. "

― Jessica Valenti , The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women

4 " Perhaps it’s true that in our sex-saturated culture it does take a certain amount of self-discipline to resist having sex, but restraint does not equal morality. And let’s be honest: if this were simply about resisting peer pressure and being strong, then the women who have sex because they actively want to — as appalling as that idea might be to those who advocate abstinence — wouldn’t be scorned. Because the “strength” involved in these women’s choice would be about doing what they want despite pressure to the contrary, not about resisting the sex act itself. "

― Jessica Valenti , The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women

5 " As Feministing.com commenter electron-Blue noted in response to the 2008 New York Times Magazine article “Students of Virginity,” on abstinence clubs at Ivy League colleges, “There were a WHOLE LOTTA us not having sex at Harvard . . . but none of us thought that that was special enough to start a club about it, for pete’s sake. "

― Jessica Valenti , The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women

6 " Sex for pleasure, for fun, or even for building relationships is completely absent from our national conversation. Yet taking the joy out of sexuality is a surefire way to ensure not that young women won't have sex, but rather that they'll have it without pleasure. "

― Jessica Valenti , The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women

7 " I think virginity is fine, just as I think having sex is fine. I don't really care what women do sexually, and neither should you. In fact, that's the point. I believe that a young woman's decision to have sex, or not, shouldn't impact how she's seen as a moral actor. "

― Jessica Valenti , The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women

8 " By erasing any nuance and complexity about porn and sexuality, the virginity movement gives young women only two choices of who they can be sexually: sluts or not sluts. While the first choice doesn't seem attractive, I can guarantee you that most young women are going to go with the option that allows them to have sex. And there's no in-between identity for young women who are making smart, healthy choices in their sexual lives. "

― Jessica Valenti , The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women

9 " If you spend any amount of time doing media analysis, it’s clear that the most frenzied moral panic surrounding young women’s sexuality comes from the mainstream media, which loves to report about how promiscuous girls are, whether they’re acting up on spring break, getting caught topless on camera, or catching all kinds of STIs. Unsurprisingly, these types of articles and stories generally fail to mention that women are attending college at the highest rates in history, and that we’re the majority of undergraduate and master’s students. Well-educated and socially engaged women just don’t make for good headlines, it seems. "

― Jessica Valenti , The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women

10 " Idolizing virginity as a stand-in for women's morality means that nothing else matters- not what we accomplish, not what we think, not what we care about and work for. Just if/how/whom we have sex with. That's all. "

― Jessica Valenti , The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women

11 " By fetishizing youth and virginity, we're supporting a disturbing message: that really sexy women aren't women at all- they're girls. "

― Jessica Valenti , The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women

12 " Young women are not putting themselves in danger. The people around them are doing the real damage. Who? you might wonder. The abstinence teacher who tells her students that they'll go to jail if they have premarital sex. The well-founded organization that tells girls on college campuses that they should be looking for a husband, not taking women's studies classes. The judge who rules against a rape survivor because she didn't meet whatever standard for a victim he had in mind. The legislator who pushes a bill to limit young women's access to abortion because he doesn't think they're smart enough to make their own decisions. These are the people who are making the world a worse place, and a more dangerous one, at that, for girls and young women. We're just doing our best to live in it. "

― Jessica Valenti , The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women

13 " Antifeminists are the only ones who benefit from their version of working on women's behalf; in reality, they put other women at risk and fail to solve any larger problems. "

― Jessica Valenti , The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women

14 " What other movement has ensured that young women have the rights that they have today? Feminism is responsable not only for the decline in violence against women over the last decade, but also for equal pay and rights legislation, reproductive justice, and the list goes on. So I'm more than a little suspicious of those who see women's advancement as a bad thing. "

― Jessica Valenti , The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women

15 " Young women are not putting themselves in danger. The people around them are doing the real damage. Who? you might wonder. The abstinence teacher who tells her students that they'll go to jail if they have premarital sex. The well-founded organizarion that tells girls on college campuses that they should be looking for a husband, not taking women's studies classes. The judge who rules against a rape survivor because she didn't meet whatever standard for a victim he had in mind. The legislator who pushes a bill to limit young women's access to abortion because he doesn't think they're smart enough to make their own decisions. These are the people who are making the world a worse place, and a more dangerous one, at that, for girls and young women. We're just doing our best to live in it. "

― Jessica Valenti , The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women

16 " Young women are not putting themselves in danger. The people around them are doing the real damage. Who? you might wonder. The abstinence teacher who tells her students that they'll go to jail if they have premarital sex. The well-founded organizarion that tells girls on college campuses that they should be looking for a husband, not taking women's studies classes. The judge who rules against a rape survivor because she didn't meet whatevel standard for a victim he had in mind. The legislator who pushes a bill to limit young women's access to abortion because he doesn't think they're smart enough to make their own decisions. These are the people who are making the world a worse place, and a more dangerous one, at that, for girls and young women. We're just doing our best to live in it. "

― Jessica Valenti , The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women

17 " Antifeminists are the only ones who benefit from their version of working on women's behalf; in reality, they put other women at risk and fail to solce any larger problems. "

― Jessica Valenti , The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women

18 " While boys are taught that the things that make them men--good men--are universally accepted ethical ideals, women are led to believe that our moral compass lies somewhere between our legs. Literally. "

― Jessica Valenti , The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women

19 " I’ve always found the idea of 'saving' your virginity intriguing: it’s not as if we’re packing our Saran-wrapped hymens away in the freezer, after all, or pasting them in scrapbooks. But packed-away virginities aside, the interesting — and dangerous — idea at play here is that of 'morality.” When young women are taught about morality, there’s not often talk of compassion, kindness, courage, or integrity. There is, however, a lot of talk about hymens (though the preferred words are undoubtedly more refined — think 'virginity' and 'chastity'): if we have them, when we’ll lose them, and under what circumstances we’ll be rid of them. "

― Jessica Valenti , The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women

20 " According to the virginity movement, men have no self-control when it comes to anything sexual. "

― Jessica Valenti , The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women