I’ve mentioned the ongoing expropriation of the word ‘purity’, and here’s the latest manifestation:
Apparently Christian kids who promise not to have sex get to wear ‘purity rings‘. (Oops, my mistake. It’s just the girls. It doesn’t seem to matter if guys have purity. Wonder how that works.)
Obviously, as a linguist I realise that semantic shift happens. And if the meaning of ‘purity’ narrows down to only a sexual meaning, then my job is to describe, not prescribe.
And yet — I’m not content to leave the word-manglers to it. This shift is motivated by the hatred of sex evidenced by so much of authoritarian Christianity. They want to talk about sex, but they don’t want to say the words!
Just imagine the father-daughter chat: “Princess, I’d like to talk to you about fucking. Please don’t bang anyone until you’re married. The Lord has promised blessings for those who only root their marriage partner.”
So they talk about it using any other terms they can (morality! virtue!) and as a result, a lot of fine words become useless for anything else. The words become — how to say — slutty.
It’s easy to decry this tendency at the hands of the word sluttifiers. But I have a way to take back the word ‘purity’. The first thing is to get the word out of the clutches of the Evangelical Right. And to do that, we have to redefine the word so they’ll drop it like a rock. So hear me out:
These virginity pledges have dismal success rates, right?
[R]esearch by Columbia and Yale Universities found while those who pledge chastity may delay first sex, 88 per cent of them eventually break the promise, and are then less likely than non-pledgers to use contraception.
So, Stage 1: everyone start using the word ‘purity’ as a euphemism for sex. As in:
– I was wondering if you might like to get together and promote ‘purity’ tonight.
– I’ve never had ‘purity’, but I’m curious.
– That girl is what we call ‘pure’.
People already think of sex when they hear ‘purity’, so it’ll be easy to nudge it over to prurience.
After the abstinence crew stop using the word in disgust, we can talk Stage 2: Rehabilitation.
Who’s with me?
Final observation from the article:
A MORI poll for The Observer found a fifth of British teenagers had had underage sex. The average age of losing virginity was 17. Almost a third of women questioned wished they had waited longer.
What they mean, of course, is that a whopping two-thirds of women polled thought they’d waited just about long enough.
20 June 2006 at 9:53 pm
And do men ever get asked if they wish they’d waited longer? Or is that just such a stupid question that it isn’t worth asking? Interesting that it always seems to be more about controlling women’s sexual activity. As you said, Daniel, how does that work?
Personally I can’t wait till the weekend when MrP turns up – that’s Mr Purity to you.
21 June 2006 at 4:53 am
Phwoar! Purity Central over there, I’ll bet.
I think the deal is that they’re secretly glad when boys mess around because
1) Dad was sexually active as a teenager, and this allows him to relive it vicariously, and
2) They’re relieved their son isn’t a homo.
No offense to homos.
21 June 2006 at 9:45 pm
I suspect no. 2 is the all important one. I found an excellent site for you that fitted in with the *you’re* the victim???? post It was a tirade against the ‘homosexualisation of society’. Not satisfied that heterosexuals form 90% ..etc etc.