“In The Purity Myth, Jessica Valenti provides an important, critical examination of how abstinence-only education and 'the virginity movement' impact young people, particularly girls and women. Valenti eloquently portrays the impossible dichotomy in which today’s girls and women find themselves stuck: the social expectation to be both 'pure' and, simultaneously, objectively 'sexy.' This film is a powerful challenge to look at these conservative movements as not just about denying access to accurate sex education, but as fundamentally working to maintain traditional, sexist gender norms that are based on white, cisgender, gender conforming, heterosexual ideals of femininity and masculinity.”
– Steph Gauchel
University Women’s Center Director
“The Purity Myth takes a thought-provoking look at our culture’s obsession with women’s bodies, deftly deconstructing the double standards to which women are so often held when it comes to sex. The film serves as a valuable conversation-starter for audiences of all ages, but particularly for young people, who are the main target of these harmful messages.”
– Gina Helfrich, Ph.D.
Director of Harvard College Women’s Center
“An excellent tool for generating discussion. [Offers] insight into how sexist cultural messages are harming young women.”
– Political Flavors blog
“The Purity Myth provides a crucial analysis of the sexualization of adolescent women in American culture. This film will be an excellent addition to gender and women’s studies courses.”
– Jean Calterone Williams
Author of The Politics of Virginity: Abstinence in Sex Education
Professor of Political Science at California Polytechnic State University
“A thought-provoking presentation on a many-faceted subject. Recommended.”
– Video Librarian
“The Purity Myth is a must have for every college campus! Anyone who deals with these issues on a college campus should avail themselves of this film for the classroom as well as workshop settings. Given the current political climate and war on women, this film is incredibly timely. Although the students who viewed the film felt outraged and angry, they were also left with a sense of urgency to raise awareness on campus and work towards combatting this myth.”
– Toby Simon
Director of Bryant University Women’s Center
“The Purity Myth is a must-watch for anyone who cares about girls, women or the American education system. Jessica Valenti connects the dots between long-standing ideas about female virtue, conservative groups and politicians who benefit from marginalizing women, and the very real consequences that women and girls face when their social worth is tied to whether or not they’ve had sex. The film is complex and incisive, and Valenti’s narration brings her signature thoughtfulness and humor to the topic. It should be required viewing for parents, educators and politicians — and for girls and boys as well.”
– Jill Filipovic
Feministe.us
“Because it argues that “virginity worship” embodies a number of ideologies aimed at containing the advances that feminists have made in the last few decades, The Purity Myth would be very suitable for a unit on the feminist backlash. Earp compiles video footage that gives a sense of the discourse that has emerged around issues of contraception, rape, and vaccination against the human papillomavirus (which is associated with the development of cervical cancer), in addition to abstinence itself. The video clips highlight the continuity between the discourse emerging from religious organizations and that of elected officials who seek to justify policy decisions that are hostile to women. This strategy works well to articulate the main theme of the film, which is that opposition to women’s control over their own sexuality is an attempt to contain women’s social advancement as a result of feminist activism.”
– Films for the Feminist Classroom
Beauty Bragg, Georgia College & State University
“The Purity Myth is a timely look at a disturbing phenomenon — the 'purity' movement that perpetuates the sexual double standard by prescribing a return to traditional gender roles and circumscribing young women’s sexuality but not young men’s. The film provides an important perspective on this current reactionary trend: the paradox that the dehumanization of young women that is facilitated through their hypersexualization in consumer culture is being reacted to not by changing that culture but rather depriving them of their right to healthy sexuality.”
– Leslie Heywood
Editor of The Women’s Movement Today: An Encyclopedia of Third-Wave Feminism
“Slam on point, The Purity Myth cuts through the family-values smokescreens around “abstinence only” and “purity” agendas, vividly demonstrating not only that virginity is an abstract and moving target but that America’s current obsession with it is a straw man, merely a front for attempts at deep, insidious control over women and their bodies.”
– Hanne Blank
Author of Virgin: The Untouched History and Straight: The Surprisingly Short History of Heterosexuality
“The Purity Myth is a smart documentary that reveals the complex and incremental path orchestrated by the conservative right that has led to the latest political attacks on women and girls in American society. A must-see primer for students, young people, and citizens who are puzzled, and troubled, by the political and cultural currents that aim to strip females of their bodily autonomy and their rights to be recognized as individuals who are much more than the virgin/whore construction that is desperately ascribed to by the conservative right.”
– Alesha E. Doan
Associate Professor of Political Science
University of Kansas
Author of The Politics of Virginity: Abstinence in Sex Education
“Valenti makes a very clear case connecting the purity/virginity movement to efforts to limit and even turn the clock back on women’s rights and freedoms. I look forward to using the film in my introductory women’s and gender studies class to consider such issues as sexuality, reproductive rights, and understandings of feminism as a theory of power and its distribution based on gender.”
– Jayne Schuiteman, Ph.D.
Interim Director, Women’s Resource Center
Associate Professor, Center for Gender in Global Context
Michigan State University
“A smart, surprising, and lively expose of conservatives’ use of the concept of virtuous virginity to disempower women and girls.”
– Judith Levine
Author of Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children From Sex
“Eye-opening. This film brings Valenti’s groundbreaking book to life in an engaging and enlightening way. I only wish that every young woman who has ever felt shamed or alienated because of her sexuality could watch this film and know she’s not alone and that it’s not her fault.”
– Julie Zeilinger
Author of A Little F’d Up: Why Feminism Is Not a Dirty Word
Founder and Editor of TheFBomb.org
“The Purity Myth kicks misconceptions, contradictions and inequality out of the water. With the intensity of a graduate course in Human Sexuality, … debunks false ideas about values in our culture and how pushing them on young women is detrimental.”
– Fatal Femmes blog
“Virginity becomes a highly political issue in this video adaptation of feminist blogger Jessica Valenti’s controversial book (2009). Narrated by Valenti, the documentary crusades against the pro-purity movement, taking a critical look at women’s sexuality and the push by anti-feminist Evangelical Christians and right-wing politicians to resurrect traditional gender roles and attitudes. Interviews with educators, journalists, clergy, politicians, and other pro-purity movement advocates combine with footage of teenage girls pledging to remain celibate until marriage, pop-artist performances, and vintage movie clips depicting women in traditional roles. Valenti persuasively argues that asking young women to remain abstinent until marriage holds them to a different moral standard than young men. The film leads viewers to conclude that the pro-purity movement claims limit the legal definition of rape, circumscribe health-care options, and abrogate women’s reproductive rights. A surefire discussion starter for women’s studies groups and classes.”
– Booklist
“This film makes excellent use of clips from current feature films, music videos, reality shows, conservative commentary, historical social hygiene films and purity balls to illustrate the image of the virginal ideal. Valenti is both passionate and extremely familiar with her subject… [The Purity Myth] is highly recommended for media studies and gender and women studies courses for the quality and uniqueness of its content. It also has potential as an addition to select high school health classes for mature students — though the topic has potential to lend itself to controversy, the discussion of gender roles, ethics and abstinence-only education would be particularly relevant and thought provoking in the high school environment. Highly recommended.”
– Educational Media Reviews Online
Gisele Tanasse, University of California Berkeley
“In The Purity Myth, Jessica Valenti wields her laser sharp critique to call out the very political nature of America’s obsession with women’s virginity. This documentary is a dive into the pop culture and punditry that continues to equate women’s worth with what’s happening between their legs rather than what’s in their hearts and minds. What makes this film a stand-out is Valenti’s succinct and convincing evidence of this ideology’s growth into an industry with the political capital to influence public policy on education, contraception, and more. I highly recommend this film as a touchstone for real discussion about women, sex and politics.”
– Ada Gregory
Director of Duke University Women’s Center
