Background Information about the Purity Movement
Virginity is a cultural construct that has been purposefully applied in order to control and regulate what people think, feel, how they behave and sometimes even if they live or die. Even today. But those who think only of honor killings in radical Islamist states or ultra-orthodox Jews and their matchmakers are wrong. In so-called advanced, western nations in particular, the virginity cult is experiencing an outright boom in popularity.
Like a lot of trends, this one is also from the United States. Every eighth girl in the United States makes a vow to remain chaste until marriage. Notable politicians support this attitude to counteract today’s supposed moral decay. Instead of sex education, schools are placing more emphasis on abstinence education. Evangelists that form the core of this movement already make up a quarter of the U.S. population and are strongly represented in the government thus significantly influencing world politics.
In Europe, their influence is not to be underestimated either: there are approximately 400,000 evangelists in France, one and a half million in Germany, and even five million in Great Britain.
The Wilsons – The First Family of Purity
Our protagonists, the Wilson Family, founders of the Purity Balls, could be called the “First Family of Purity”. At this annual event that is awaited with as much anticipation as the prom, girls as young as four dressed in ballroom dresses come on their fathers’ arm and pledge to remain chaste until marriage. In the United States around 5,000 of these Purity Balls are held in Colorado and 47 other states. And Europeans are increasingly succumbing to the fervour. People from 17 countries, including Great Britain, France, Finland and Germany, have approached the Wilsons’ to organize such events in their countries.
Randy Wilson, head of the Wilson clan, is the key to this global purity movement. The press presents the Wilsons as the picture perfect family of the new purity movement. The five Wilson daughters are exemplars of virginity in the United States: young, pretty, charming and vowing to not even exchange the shyest of kisses before marriage. Even the eldest of the two brothers had his first kiss at the altar.
At the Wilsons’, a man who would like to meet one of the daughters must first meet with Randy the way he might ask for her hand in marriage. It is also Randy who first “dates” the admirer: At the local Starbucks the two meet as often as necessary for Randy to make a decision. Once the young man comes into question as a son-in-law then he is allowed to meet the daughter – even if at the first “real date” the entire family is present. And if he also suits the daughter then wedding bells start ringing.
The two eldest daughters Lauren and Khrystian already found, married, and kissed their fairytale princes. Next in line is 20-year-old Jordyn who is desperate for a husband at her side and – like her own father, brothers or brothers-in-law: family-friendly, God-fearing, and good looking (“he has to be easy on the eyes”).