“I had never been to the US before I did this – it’s an interesting way to start getting a picture of a country,” laughs Magnusson. “In Europe, there are many small countries each united by a language but America is a vast country with so many different cultures and strong cultural expressions that still manage to coexist, more or less.” He is keen to point out that all the people he photographed have their own views on Purity Balls. “I made sure that the portraits were all accompanied by interviews – I wanted to give them a voice of their own, to emphasise that they’re all individuals as part of this group.” Gary Kruse – pictured here with his daughter Grace – has a feminist take on purity. “Decades ago, if a woman wanted to be an engineer, or a president of a company, it was frowned upon and she was asked to conform to be something else, and I think that was a distortion of her purity. She wasn’t able to become who she was meant to be and use all her talents, and I don’t want that to happen to any of my nine children,” he told Magnusson. “I would rather call the Purity Ball a father-daughter ball because it seems that according to our mainstream society the purity aspect is instantly associated with the girl’s sexuality. And while that is an important part of their femininity and who they are, it just isn’t everything… Purity is a way to let my children flourish in the way that they were meant to be, not getting them to conform to somebody else’s image.” (Credit: David Magnusson)