Jessica Valenti does a great job exposing the purity myth - the idea that women should be judged by their sexuality, and are impure if they rebel against "traditional" gender roles in any way - and its consequences. I really like how she ties together many of the problems that women face - the virgin/whore dichotomy, rape culture, victim blaming - and presents them as all issues that are related to the idea that when women are judged by a standard of purity that relates to sexual activity, it hurts everyone. ( )

Imagine if you will that you are a young, white woman applying for a job. Now, imagine that the person interviewing you asks if you are married. You, as a young, pretty, white woman answers no. The interviewer then mumbles and writes a notation on his paper and asks, to your astonishment, if whether or not you're still a virgin, and that you must answer honestly. So, you as this young, pretty, white woman answers back to him that you have had in your lifetime two men that you had had sex with. The man mumble some more and tsks slightly louder than a normal person would (or should) and makes more notations. He then tells you that you can have the job. However, you must tell everyone else that you are "a slut" and rather "dirty" and that, unless you reclaim your virginity, you cannot succeed as other young, pretty, white women have in your position.

Of course, the preceding paragraph is an exaggeration. Nevertheless, the evidence (along with the massive amounts of endnotes) would suggest that there is a virginity movement propagated within these here United States that suggest a woman's true worth is within her chastity and her eventual role when married early. Based on the literature that Ms. Valenti has extrapolated from, it seems that this governmentally funded (billions of dollars worth) would be very happy with the above scenario between the young woman and her potential employer. And the author proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that what goes on within these movements for chastity is very Caucasian-centric while other races are believed to be "hyper-sexed" and beyond saving. The virginity movement is also faith-based and tax-free. The virginity movement has influenced states to continue with disingenuous, fear-tactic education about sex. Abstinence-only education is not allowed to mention any form of alternative, safe sex approach a young person can make for him or herself (funny that the people who promote abstinence-only sex are the ones who desire that Intelligent Design be taught as an alternative to Darwinism—talk about freedom of choice!).

Much more is within this truly powerful book. It goes into the details how men make laws for women simply because they, in whole, cannot make correct choices for themselves. Ho even when abortion is legal, a woman must jump through one humiliating hoop after humiliating hoop just to get a pregnancy terminated (and this doesn't matter if the situation is due to rape and/or incest). The book goes into the porn culture and how it is very similar to the virginity culture by making virginity into a fetish (t-shirts proclaiming "I'm tight like Spandex!" being sold on virginity movement websites). It even delves into the sad expectations of machismo that all boys are expected to have (and one, seemingly, can never have enough machismo) by other males.

Overall, The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity Is Hurting Young Women, is an excellent book. But, aside from the information that the author gives and references, in the appendixes are lists of resources and websites and magazines that the reader can explore to fight the virginity movement, to feel good about themselves, and most importantly, to know that they should have the freedom to make their own choices and how to obtain such rights. ( )

Jessica Valenti's The Purity Myth examines America's Puritanical views on female purity in an attempt to reveal the negative consequences of an unbalanced and unrealistic sexual culture. Valenti draws on policy, popular culture, and the materials presented by the Conservative movement for virginity in order to demonstrate the extent to which young people (and the public at large) are outright lied to under the guise of abstinence-only sex education, and presents compelling evidence as to how the push for female virginity and "purity" actually undermines the rights and liberties of young women.

As a whole I found Valenti's book to be enlightening and informative - and sometimes terrifying. While her propensity for snarky footnotes ultimately keeps the text from being what I would consider "academic", The Purity Myth is intended for a large public audience, and Valenti's style of writing adds entertainment value to the information she presents. Given my own negative experiences with self-labeled feminists in academia (for example, a graduate professor recoiling in horror when she discovered I was expecting my first child) I am often hesitant to read "feminist" material. However, I found Valenti to be fairly even-keel, and many of her ideals match my own (equality of the sexes vs. "men are evil"). As with any politically involved author, it is obvious that Valenti has a specific agenda and that she is writing to that agenda, but I do not believe her conviction works to the detriment of the text. I cannot remember which of my fellow LibraryThingers recommended the book, but I am grateful that it was brought to my attention and would certainly recommend it. ( )

Though you might not know it judging from the tenor of “post-feminist” discourse, young women’s positive conceptions of themselves and their futures are the result of the first- to third-wave feminist movements. Such is the blessing and curse of many a successful campaign — gains are so positive, people can take them and the organizing, fearlessness and sacrifice that got us here for granted.

Conservative religious and political forces were handed defeats during this period, as modern capital adjusted to economic demands brought on by globalization, not to mention internal and external labor shifts. However, such defeats have not meant these factions have changed their message. The gloss may be different. The phrasing may be retouched. Women’s place in such a lexicon stays the same.

In The Purity Myth: How America’s Obsession With Virginity is Hurting Young Women, author Jessica Valenti explores an ideology punishing women for sex.

Control of women through gendered forms of victimization is well documented. Susan Faludi’s 1992 book, Backlash, is perhaps the best known contemporary text addressing many of these topics. Blaming women for social ills because of their perceived violations of traditional social mores is nothing new, but connotations of such in the Internet age, where messages about young women’s corruptibility spread quickly, have the power to be tremendously damaging. Such victimization, in the end, is often intended to reshape women’s vision of themselves as fully informed and functioning participants in civil society.

The Purity Myth painfully illustrates how the dirty wars against women are robustly fought around matters of female sexuality. Women’s activism in reclaiming their humanity, and efforts by other women to derail feminist actions rather the actions of a sexist society, are also on display here. Valenti’s contributions in deconstructing the advent of online media are also noteworthy; though there is a good criticism online of “men’s” websites (including at Valenti’s own Feministing blog), seeing it in print is valuable. Readers of works like Germaine Greer’s The Female Eunuch or Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique will find Valenti’s findings to be tragically familiar, though incredibly relevant for new generations to comprehend.

Many sexist posits, as Faludi noted in her book, have acutely racist or white supremacist undertones. Guarding young (white) women from the savage (Third) world is intimated at many turns. The racialized nature of such arguments needs to be more comprehensively investigated, as many women of color have pointed out of works by white feminists, which will get read far more than writings of women of color. Still, there are many valuable insights on race and gender’s intersectionality to take away from The Purity Myth. Just not enough.

No stranger to pseudoscience, the Right has made a cottage industry out of abstinence-only culture. The purveyors of chastity seem not above making a buck off absurd and frankly creepy schemes, from attempted debunking of condom reliability to hymen reconstruction plastic surgeries to purity merchandise and balls, the latter being prom-style events in which young women promise in the presence of their fathers to hold their virginity until marriage. Female sexuality is commoditized to a variety of purposes, from political to financial, and Valenti writes passionately not only about the surreal nature of these issues, but also how profoundly young women are impacted by such cynical ploys.

Blaming women for what befalls them, as many feminist scholars and Valenti write, is much simpler to do than to hold men, society and patriarchy accountable. Thus, it is far simpler to pin a woman’s worth on her sexuality than it is to see women as fully realized human beings with complex needs and agendas that are outside the bounds of some individuals’ range of acceptability. At points, The Purity Myth only further muddles complex topics, such as pornography, but at different moments, cognizance of the most difficult cases herein could be no more poignant.

Reviewed by Ernesto Aguilar ( )

I think that this book can be...largely...summed up with the following quote:

It's time to teach our daughters that their ability to be good people depends upon their being good people, not on whether or not they're sexually active.

In other words, it attacks the notion that females should be defined by their sexual status and that the only theater where they can operate morally is in the decision about whether or not to have sex outside of marriage.

Regardless of what you may have been told about this book, it is not a polemic in favor of promiscuity...the central issue isn't whether a woman decides to have pre-marital sex or not, it's how society views that decision. A footnote she wrote expresses it best:

For the record, 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.

The book's topics range from the "the desirable women are young girls" message of our mass media (think Britney Spears or the fastest growing type of plastic surgery...vaginal rejuvenation), through the fetishization of virginity (think Purity Balls), to an examination of the problems with Abstinence Only Education (it's not working). Along the way, it touches soundly on rape, the impossible standard of "manliness" our society endorses, abortion, and the legal situation of women in our country today. In other words, this book is going to push a lot of buttons for some people.

I think that's OK. I think it's fine to challenge people's opinions, to make them step up and understand why they think the way they do. If they can do it...even if only to their own satisfaction...at least people are thinking about things rather than just engaging in some patellar reflex. If they can go a step farther and articulate and defend, we move on to honest discussion and maybe doing something about problems.

I'll be forthright: I agree with much of what was said in this book. If that means you want to stop reading this review right now, I'm OK with that. I am concerned about this virgin/whore thing we've got going in this society—that a woman is either one or the other. Yes, I have opinions about sexuality in young girls, but I also believe that they are much more complex creatures than a hymen—I want my daughters to place serious value on "compassion, kindness, courage, or integrity".

The book is not perfect, in my opinion. It is a little strident and reiterative. Perhaps this is necessary to drive the message home against the societal pressures arrayed against it; I don't know. However, that aspect did feel a bit abrasive at time, like I was being shouted at. And, I think it teeters on the edge a few times: not in intent, but in articulation. For example, I would certainly agree with her position that it would be good if a woman did not have to be cautious if she's had a couple drinks and decides to walk home at night from a bar. However, it think it is naïve to endorse that a woman shouldn't be cautious...it is not a perfect world and there are men out there who rape women. I want to be clear: I don't think she actually takes this position, or others like it, but it did read that way to me at times.

This book would make a phenomenal Book Club read...assuming the members could behave like adults and discuss the issues. It homes in on one of the the most central elements of our culture and asks us to take a clear look at it. That would be much more fun than reading a book where everyone agrees!

Read it; think about it; argue about it, if you wish! ( )