On and Off Distributed by Art Jewelry Forum ISBN 978-0-9864229-1-1
[email protected] With hymen on True Love Waits Purity Ring sterling silver, $29.95 (was $40) hand: probing the chastity ring Suzanne Ramljak Love Waits Chastity Ring sterling silver, diamonds, $105.80 Unblossomed Rose Chastity Ring One of the oldest and most vital and Britney Spears have sported sterling silver, $24.99 functions of adornment is to signal such rings, boosting the jewelry’s readiness, or unavailability, for popularity albeit tarnishing its record courtship. Within this genre, which for preventing premarital coitus. might be called “mating jewelry,” can be found Claddagh rings, wedding Initially sold at Christian stores, bands, and contemporary abstinence chastity rings are now offered by ornament. Although chastity is major American retailers such as certainly not new, nor is the desire Target, Walmart, and Sears. Sterling to preserve it, donning a ring to silver is the metal of choice, and the Crucifix Chastity Ring avow sexual abstention is a rather iconography of purity includes hearts, sterling silver, $42 recent, and fraught, endeavor. flowers, crosses, crowns, angels, and keys. Many abstinence rings feature Chastity rings, also known as phrases that declare one’s non- Dove and Heart Purity Ring purity rings, symbolize a wearer’s promiscuous stance, among them: sterling silver, diamonds, $89.95 commitment to refrain from sex “True Love Waits”; “One Life, One until marriage. Emerging in the Love”; “Guard My Heart, Dear Lord”; 1990s as part of the abstinence-only and “Pure Before God.” While worn movement, purity rings were proffered by both genders of varying ages, by religious groups seeking to counter the ring’s primary subscribers are casual sex, teen pregnancy, and female teens and young women.