The second of two documentaries posted today on purity balls, this one from the CBC (link to the full documentary at the bottom of this post):
There is a second sexual revolution growing in the heart of the American Evangelical Christian community. Young girls are promising to remain virgins in lavish ceremonies led by their fathers. So called “Purity balls” were created by the Wilson family, led by father Randy a deeply conservative Christian who works for the politically powerful Family Research Council. Randy and his wife Lisa homeschooled their 7 children and raised them to believe men are warriors and women are wives. Filmmaker Mirjam von Arx followed the family for 2 years and produced a fascinating portrait of how the religious right is grooming a young generation of Virgins to embody an Evangelically-grounded Utopia in America. Today one in eight girls in the United States vows to remain “unsoiled.”
In western nations in particular, the virginity movement is experiencing an outright boom in popularity, with an estimated 5,000 of these balls held in 48 states across the U.S. Evangelists who form the core of this movement already make up a quarter of the U.S. population and are a powerful constituency within the Republican Party, whether they vote or instead, sit at home, could decide who wins the U.S. Presidency in November. The Wilsons believe their duties include getting a Republican into the white House and ensuring their daughters remain virgins until marriage to a young man of their choosing.
Virgin Tales is a deeply engaging film that illuminates the complicated intersection of personal and political power in modern day America.
Directed and produced by Mirjam von Arx, written by Mirjam von Arx and Michele Wannaz for Ican Films. Read more on the official film website.
You can watch the full documentary here (it's excellent!).