Those "Creepy" Dads

by Dave Boehi

The New York Times recently ran an excellent article on a "purity ball" in Colorado Springs. This is a growing movement encouraging where fathers and daughters enjoy a formal evening of dinner and dancing, with daughters pledging to remain pure until marriage and fathers pledging to do what they can to protect them.

And once again we observe how many people have little understanding of evangelical culture. I'm not talking about the Times reporter here; I thought she did a pretty good job of describing the event even-handedly. What I'm talking about is the online opinions of the article and the purity movement.

It's not just that many people disagree the idea of fathers taking responsibility to preserve the purity of their daughters; what intrigues me is the number who consider it strange or "creepy." Typical were comments from two people responding to an "On Faith" column criticizing the event:

"No matter the goodness of any underlying motivation, a father-daughter purity ball is just plain creepy in a way that only Christians can be creepy."

"You'd have to have your head in the sand not to find this downright creepy. It almost has undertones of incest."

"On Faith" columnist Claire Hoffman writes:

Sure, I'm sympathetic to these fathers who feel themselves battling an ever more hyper-sexual youth culture (I wrote about Girls Gone Wild a few years ago, so I'm well aware of just how wild wild can be.) But a big dance focused solely on the holiness of your daughter's virginity seems as misleading as a giving her a super-snug rhinestone covered, cheetah-print baby-tee that says DADDY'S LITTLE ANGEL.

By making their virginity, and the holiness that emanates from it, so daddy-derived they are rendered co-dependent both in their faith and in their sexuality.

The problem is that we live in a media-saturated culture that not only celebrates premarital sex, but is swiftly losing its bearings about the role of a father. What creeps me out is the thought that people would label fathers as incestuous and creepy just because they are courageous enough to reject passivity and get involved in shaping the character of their daughters.