Dictionary

purity ball en · NOUN

Meanings

1. (US) A formal dance event attended by fathers and their teenage daughters to promote virginity until marriage; mostly among conservative Christian groups in the United States.
   • Despite all the coverage of the Wilson family and their balls’ dramatic imagery — the girls doing ballet, placing roses before a cross, ballroom-dancing with their dads — there is little hard evidence that purity balls have spread much beyond Colorado Springs. 2012 July 21, Mark Oppenheimer, “‘Purity Balls’ Get Attention, but Might Not Be All They Claim”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 12 Nov 2020:
   • Arguably, the focus on "purity" in evangelical culture arose in response to a secular, sex-obsessed American culture; for example, the first purity ball was hosted in 1998 by a Christian family in Colorado Springs as a celebration of father-daughter relationships and girls' virginity. 2015 March 4, Emma Green, “Yes, It's Possible to Be a Christian and a Feminist”, in The Atlantic, archived from the original on 03 Aug 2020:

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