The Purity Myth

The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity Is Hurting Young Women (2009) is a work by feminist writer Jessica Valenti. Published in hardcover on March 24, 2009, by Seal Press, Valenti challenges the American cultural belief that a woman's value is determined by her sexual history, highlighting the often negative perception of losing virginity. In 2011, a DVD companion titled The Purity Myth: The Virginity Movement's War Against Women was released.

Summary

Valenti explores the societal pressures that encourage chastity and discourage premarital sexual activity among women and adolescent girls. She critiques many U.S. sex education programs for their emphasis on abstinence-only approaches, which she believes contribute to harmful views about sexuality and female identity. According to Valenti, virginity functions as a simplistic moral guideline suggesting that a woman's worth is connected to her sexual behavior rather than her principles or deeds. While not opposing chastity itself, she disapproves of virginity pledge campaigns such as purity balls and the Silver Ring Thing for these reasons.

She also argues that elevating virginity perpetuates the Madonna–whore complex, leading to many women and teenage girls being hypersexualized and struggling to fulfill unrealistic standards. Valenti maintains that virginity is a social construct due to its ambiguous and diverse interpretations across individuals, religions, and cultural settings. She points out the lack of an exact medical definition in the Harvard Medical School library and emphasizes how this concept is unevenly applied between genders.

In other media

Observers have connected Valenti's perspectives on virginity to broader conversations regarding sexual assault survivors and controversies surrounding the rape and pregnancy statement controversies in the 2012 United States elections.