On Tuesday, Donald Trump told the Associated Press that he doesn’t plan to release his tax returns before the presidential election in November. “There’s nothing to learn from them,” he said. Then, on Wednesday, he said he would release them. “I’ll release. Hopefully before the election I’ll release,” he told Fox News…
Currently being shopped around to various TV networks: an adaptation of Jonathan Franzen’s Purity, starring none other than James Bond himself.
When she was 13, Brelyn Bowman made a commitment to her father to remain “pure” until her wedding day. That day arrived on October 10th, and in order to celebrate her wedding and prove to her father that she stayed true to her promise, Brelyn presented him with a certificate from her doctor, one that proves she’s…
Purity starts out, as Jonathan Franzen’s books do, with a word used unusually well, a little signal that the author is in control. In The Corrections, it was “the berserk wind.” In Freedom it was “conniving with the coal industry.” In Purity, it was “without undue weirdness transpiring,” where “transpiring” has the…
Hold onto your little clitorises of discernment, you stuffy literary cunts: the bad boy of books (and bird watching!) Jonathan Franzen is BACK, having begun his press tour for his new novel Purity, and GUESS WHAT? He doesn’t give a FUCK what you think about him. (But please buy his new book! Pleeeeeeease!)
Early Wednesday, n+1, beloved magazine of the internet intelligentsia, published novelist Nell Zink’s mocking and joyful review of Jonathan Franzen’s upcoming novel, Purity. By mid-afternoon, the contents of the article were replaced by this note: “This page is temporarily unavailable. Return to the n+1 homepage or…
A Chinese court has awarded a woman $5,000 after she claims she lost her virginity to a man who promised to marry her only to find that the man was already married.
Photographer David Magnusson is not American, nor is he Christian, nor does he have a daughter who has pledged her virginity to him in one fringe tradition that nearly unanimously squicks mainstream America out. But that didn't stop him from traveling cross country to assemble images of fathers and daughters who have…
Want your daughter to learn all about camping, sewing and car repair, but with a heaping helping of Jesus? You could try to find a local Girl Scout troop with an especially Bible-thumping troop leader. Or you could just skip straight to the American Heritage Girls, conservative Christianity's very own copycat.
Remember Kimberly Hall, the Christian mommy blogger who told teenage girls to stop taking selfies so as not to tempt her saintly, shirtless teenage sons into sin? In a now-deleted post, she divulged that she first spotted her husband when he was a topless 19-year-old — and that his abs really turned her on.
Kimberly Hall, Director of Women’s Ministry at a Presbyterian Church in Texas, has a message for teenage girls who take bedtime selfies in their pajamas: stop luring her teenage sons into sin. Why would you devil harlots want to control the Hall boys' minds? Are you whores and witches? She outlines her urgent plea in…
Everyone else on earth is as annoyed with "purity" as I am, right? The idea that there are two kinds of women—"good girls" and everyone else, and one of them is good for fucking and the other one is good for marriage and never the twain shall meet and zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz? How is this fulfilling for anyone? Enough.
Meet Pam Stenzel. Pam Stenzel is a highly-paid* lecturer who speaks about the virtues of abstinence. Stenzel spoke on Monday at George Washington High School in Charleston, WV and created quite a stir when she allegedly made comments like, "If you take birth control, your mother probably hates you," and "I could look…
"Is This Modest" is a website that claims to promote an open and practical dialog about modesty, but it's actually a male-gazey compendium of creepshots of high schoolers and misogynist rants about too-tight t-shirts. Is it possible to have a sane discussion about modesty? Not if modesty means, as it does on this…
When I said it, I didn't mean it. I just wanted to go home after another long day in the ICU. But then, I didn't know it was really the end this time. "Promise me something," my mom said, her voice cracking, a whisper over the hum of machines that latched onto her body. Sometimes I thought those cords and tubes and…
This Valentine's Day, the hymen enthusiasts behind Day of Purity want to remind you that if you have premarital sex, you will get diseases, get depressed, and most importantly of all, seriously disappoint a talking plush bear that for some reason cannot move its mouth when it talks.
Hey guys, have you met The Purity Bear? He's a plush toy who appears to tempted teens and warns them without moving his mouth that going inside a girl's house will inevitably lead to sex having, and sex having before marriage is literally the worst decision you could possibly make.
Fans of the bestselling book The Purity Myth, rejoice. The film version is now available for your viewing pleasure on DVD, and, from the looks of the trailer, its per-minute truth bomb concentration is unprecedented. Finally, a cinematic alternative to the unstoppable, metastasized Fast & Furious franchise.
Jessica Valenti's newest book, The Purity Myth, was released last month. Unfortunately, it took us until this week to get around to giving it the attention it deserves.
