The Purity Myth (Avalon, 2009) was written by Jessica Valenti of the feminist blog Feministing. It seeks to explore the issue of virginity as obsession and comment on how said obsession is ultimately harmful to young women.
The American conservative movement, as deconstructed by Valenti, has particularly latched on to the purity myth to roll back the rights of girls and women. However, chastity is not a new model for girls and women, and many cultures construct the value of a woman as based solely on her sexual behaviour.
This book is limited to discussing this phenomenon from an American perspective. A wider critique would have allowed a discussion on how patriarchy is a global force and the broader understanding that though there are no sexual taboos that are universal, women’s sexuality is regulated for the purposes of maintaining male hegemony.
We have a tendency to view the world from a uniquely Western perspective due to privilege and this in turn limits who is able to represent the category of ‘woman’. However, the over-valuation of virginity is not suddenly a more important issue when it is attached to a white, middle to upper-class, heterosexual, woman.
Valenti’s discussion of what is and is not considered sexual behaviour leads to the erasure and/or trivialization of certain people. For example, bisexual and lesbian women are often the focus of violence simply because they have rejected the heterosexual model of sexuality. In fact, counter to the purity myth as projected by Valenti, there is the supposition that these women simply need to experience sex with a “real man” to change their so-called proclivities.
Women of color receive similarly anecdotal treatment. When they are mentioned it is only in reference to the ways that black female sexuality is understood by whiteness. Valenti does make excellent points in reference to the idea that the white virginity movement does not concern itself with black women because our bodies are considered to exist for the purposes of violation. However, this view ignores the policing of sexuality that occurs within the religious black community. While whiteness may have long decided that black women are wanton Jezebels, the black community specifically pushes the counter message by encouraging black women to remain chaste as a method of fighting racism that is aimed at us.
The “good” black girl goes to church, sings in the choir, and gets good grades and is thus considered a credit to her race. Once again, we see that one can find salvation of sorts in the bodies of women. This is not a sacrifice that is aimed at black men.
If woman were to be understood as mostly white, Western, and middle-class The Purity Myth could be considered a compelling critique. The issues that it raises are extremely important to the narrow group of women that it addresses. Being forced to conform to social stereotypes in order to be understood as ‘woman’, means that you are forever performing a regressive form of female sexuality. When this is compounded with the fact that education is purposefully misleading or simply outright false, it is dangerous to women. Valenti is right to sound the alarm, as young women must be given the correct information in order to make educated decisions.
In her conclusion, Valenti does a tremendous job of encouraging young women to seek out resources to broaden their education and spread the word through activism. Valenti specifically suggests that they begin by posting blog entries at Feministing; while this could be understood as completely self-serving by some, we must remember that if knowledge is not shared it becomes lost.
The major issue with the book is that the narrow understanding of ‘woman’ means that those that do not see themselves reflect in this instance may fail to see the ways in which they too are disciplined by the purity myth. If we are going to talk about women, it is essential that we change the understanding that a certain race or class background can accurately reflect us all.
This is a very good review, I have little faith in Jessica Valenti, but I am wondering do you know of any good resources which do a better job, that do not focus the needs and situations of rich white cis ab women when it comes to sexuality?
How disappointing, I was hoping she’d have learned by now on this score.
I’ll be very interested to hear what she says on the show.
I’m sorry, I read her first book only because someone gave it to me, and I can’t seem to care too much about this one. It’s not as if most educated women don’t already know what she is saying so I assume, maybe incorrectly, she doesn’t say much. She knows where her money comes from, the white upper middle class, of which I am a part, but sadly as I see it, and I don’t deal in feminism only public and international policy, not to be disrespectful to feminists, but this is exactly why this is useless, the world is so much larger than this. If some actually read this and learn something so much the better, but there are some very good books out there people might want to read instead starting with a decent freshman public policy and international policy textbook.
Hey Renee, thanks for the thoughtful review. I agree that a global perspective would be great on issues of virginity and “purity,” but for the purposes of scope I made the decision to stick with the U.S. If anyone has any ideas for texts that do look at this globally, I’d love to hear about them.
I’ve got The Purity Myth on order, so I’ve yet to read it. I thought Jessica’s appearance on the Today Show (hard to watch, yes) was great, and that she’s bringing to light how crazy the virginity-craze is. I am wondering if she addresses the problems you raise (narrow audience) in the introduction. She usually seems upfront about the perspective she is writing from.
Hi!
I think your critique is really interesting, but as a feminist scholar it poses some questions for me. Questions I don’t have answers to, I should point out up front.
If Jessica had written about women’s lives globally, wouldn’t she have run the risk of not knowing enough about the culture? And yes, she could certainly study another culture, but multiple cultures? Within the time frame of publishing a trade press book?
I ask this because I’m not a popular feminist in the way Ms. Vallenti is, and I am also trained in a specific non-US culture. However, I would like to write about women’s lives globally.
The impasse is that the level of knowledge required to do so without being racist/making assumptions/reading what already exists on even one specific culture is mindblowing.
Thoughts on how to be a responsible feminist globally in our writing with skimming the surface?
Ok, just started reading TPM. I was wrong about the intro– instead she brings up WOC’s bodies frequently and is quick to point out the absence of them in virginity narratives. I think she’s writing a book about stuff she knows about. As a white, female, cis abled person, these virginity diatribes are directed at people like her. Why can’t she write a book about that? The “narrow understanding of ‘woman'” is discussed throughout the book, as she is dissecting why the white/female/non-poor body is labeled as the only one that fits the narrative.
a large part of the book is dedicated to the fact that the notion of virginity itself is limiting and heteronormative, which as you point out leads to those who don’t fit into the “pure” model as being punished. In fact, it’s the same (punishment) for anyone who doesn’t fall into what I call the “perfect virgin” model – young straight white women who look a certain way, are of a certain class, etc.
You mean like being gang raped when you’re gassing up your car because the guys think they can “fuck you straight”? As very recently happened to a lesbian with a rainbow sticker on her car here in California?
Because I’m fairly certain that’s the kind of punishment Renee is talking about.