Probing the Chastity Ring

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. sexually transmitted disease. 1 As a leader in this crusade, the Silver Ring Intended to signify a condition of Thing program has staged hundreds purity, the mixed messages conveyed Crown of Thorns Purity Ring of showy recruitment events urging by chastity rings are far from clear. stainless steel, enamel, $29.95 teens to take a virginity pledge and Foremost is the conflation between wear a ring to affirm their decision. 2 the personal and social spheres. A series of rings culled from online A series of rings culled from as Prices platforms. vending Photos: in January 2016. advertised Purity rings Boutique, Kennebug Purityringsonline.com, catalogue, and Wallmart Jewelers Reeds Celebrities including Miley Cyrus Although the subject of chastity 112 On and Off Distributed by Art Jewelry Forum ISBN 978-0-9864229-1-1 [email protected] ornament is keenly private, i.e. the use upon marriage. The trade-in value oozes blood-like liquid. 8 With a price of one’s genitalia, it is openly flaunted of purity rings, and the virginity they tag of $29.95, this kit costs the same like a badge or announcement. The imply, is blatantly expressed in the as the average silver purity ring. target audience is also uncertain, “No Hymen, No Diamond,” campaign as abstinence jewelry is extolled for launched by a male rights group in Ultimately what is being negotiated its dual ability to remind wearers quest of marriageable virgins. 5 with abstinence ornament, as with of their vow while also educating all jewelry, is the human body itself. viewers who might be swayed to Courtship is notoriously rife with Jewelry is the body’s signage; it maps the same path. At minimum, such deception, and matrimonial buyers our carnal ground. In the case of public displays of one’s pubic must beware. Just as purity rings do chastity rings, at stake is the fate of a persuasion could be judged in bad not always adorn virgins, a woman’s small private chamber, through which taste, as assessed by Miss Manners: hymen cannot be trusted as the test newborns enter the world and in “polite society does not recognize of virginity. Although commonly which others seek re-entry as adults. such a thing as a chastity ring. … thought to be the vagina’s unbroken it presumes that a lady is chaste “freshness seal,” 6 a hymen can be 1 The abstinence-only movement is primarily an American phenomenon. Programs and 3 unless publicly proven otherwise.” compromised by non-sexual causes. organizations that promote abstinence-only sex Nonetheless, within many cultures a education to youth have continued to receive millions of dollars in federal support under the Within the abstinence movement woman’s hymen is her destiny and Adolescent Family Life Act, established in 1981. itself, there remains confusion about a determinant for marriage. Which 2 According to the Silver Ring Thing website: what constitutes “chasteness.” raises the issue of cultural relativity in “The SRT defies the meet-up, hook-up, break- Whereas the Silver Ring Thing holds the conspicuous display of chastity. up mindset of today and inspires students that “Your private areas are not to be While in the U.S. abstinence has to a pure life centered in Jesus Christ.” used or touched by a member of the become a lifestyle choice, replete with 3 Miss Manners advice column, 2007. opposite sex,” 4 others only exclude fashion accessories, throughout much 4 Stephanie Rosenbloom, “A Ring that intercourse from their definition of of the world purity rings are either Says No, Not Yet,” The New York a chaste life. Furthermore, virginity redundant or unthinkable. Instead Times, December 8, 2005. is not seen as a formal requirement of vowing to be “secondary virgins,” 5 www.facebook.com/No-Hymen-No-Diamond. for wearing purity ornament. Even women in the Middle East, Asia, 6 From the satirical “Iron Hymen Abstinence- the sexually seasoned can be born and other regions are compelled to Only Pledge,” at http://georgewbush. again into chastity’s kingdom as become “surgical virgins” to conceal org/georgewbush/ironhymen. so-called “secondary virgins”; they former intercourse or ensure that their 7 Lynn Sherr, “Women Have Surgery to ‘Restore’ simply don a Second Time Virginity membranes meet tightness standards. Virginity,” ABC News, June 20, 2015. Ring and pledge to renounce These hymen repair operations are 8 Artificial Hymen Repair Kit available further sex until wedlock. secretly endured by thousands of at www.hymenshop.com. women who fear losing potential Among those chastely adorned, purity husbands, or worse, losing their lives and its namesake ring are not ends in in honor killings. 7 Catering to this themselves, but rather means to an mired demographic, the Artificial end: another ring. For most wearers, Hymen Repair Kit offers a “cheaper chastity rings serve as placeholders and more convenient way to become Further reading while they await the ultimate prize of a virgin again,” by prosthetically Dagmar Herzog, Sex in Crisis: The New Sexual Revolution and the Future of American Politics a wedding band, which gets swapped simulating an intact hymen that even “No Hymen, No Diamond” campaign ad, posted May 5, May “No Hymen, No Diamond” campaign ad, posted on www.facebook.com/No-Hymen-No-Diamond 2015, (New York: Basic Books, 2008).

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