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Purity balls... no, it's not one of Christian Grey's gadgets in 50 Shades of Grey. The opposite, in fact - it's a special ceremony where a girl pledges to remain 'pure' until her wedding day. In doing so, she 'gifts her virginity' to her father until marriage (luckily, ours prefer socks or a Top Gear box set).
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These balls originated in the US (where else?) and can now be found in 17 countries. They bear a slightly squicky resemblance to wedding ceremonies, with the girls - who are all around the age of 12 but can be as young as seven - usually wearing white gowns for the event.

To add an extra 'ick' factor, official guidelines advise that the ceremony take place when the girls are 'just old enough to have started menstruating'. If there's anything more embarrassing that your dad knowing about your period, it's then having to take a virginity pledge in front of him...

At the ball, the fathers - known as 'protectors' - present their daughters with purity rings representing their commitment to virginity. And finally, the ball ends with a father-daughter dance. Which is probably as much contact with the opposite sex these girls are going to get until they walk down the aisle.
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According to the ceremony, purity means the daughter will have no sexual contact of any kinduntil after marriage. And dating and kissing aren't allowed until they are ready for marriage, which we imagine leads to a wedding night with all kinds of surprises.

One of the largest purity balls in the US has been held for 14 consecutive years at the Broadmoor Hotel (no known relation to the mental hospital) in Colorado Springs.

There, more than 60 fathers pledge 'to protect their daughter's choices for purity'. There are no details on what this entails, but we imagine it involves a lot of sitting on the front porch with a blunderbuss on your lap.
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A recent documentary explores the idea behind these ceremonies, following two families: the Johnsons and the Wilsons, whose father Randy is one of the founders of purity balls.

The families are very different. The Johnsons attend regular high school, whereas the Wilsons are home schooled and mainly socialise with members of their church community.

"Your father is your boyfriend." It sounds like a Freudian nightmare, but it's actually a pastor explaining the purity ring to one of the daughters. "This is just a reminder that keeping yourself pure is important," he says.
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​"So you keep this [ring] on your finger and from this point you are married to the Lord and your father is your boyfriend."
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The ring is then placed on the girl's wedding finger. It might be more comfortable than medieval chastity belt, but it's intended to perform much the same function.
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The 'purity movement' began in the US in the 1980s, when adolescent members of church communities began taking vows of abstinence in response to the sexual liberation of the time.

While wearing rings to symbolise their commitment to purity began in the 1980s, the idea of purity balls and of girls giving their virginity to their fathers to protect developed much later - Randy Wilson and his wife organised the first one in 1998.

The purity movement has been criticised for promoting the notion that the daughter is a possession to be protected by her father until she is 'given' to her husband.

Some ceremonies even involve the daughter being given a bracelet with a heart-shaped lock, to which her father holds the key until her wedding day, when he hands it over to her husband.