It’s been a few months since I last covered a topic under Feminism 101. It’s been even longer since my post explaining rape culture. If you need a reminder, I recommend you reread that post before continuing with Purity Culture.
Purity Culture is a religious subset of rape culture. While Purity Culture is not limited to just Christianity, that is my experience. I’m not familiar enough with other religions to speak about how they interact with Purity Culture. I also would never feel comfortable speaking for another religious group.
As a Christian feminist, however, I feel called to critique certain practices and attitudes within Christianity. Specifically, I highlight problems that disproportionately harm women. Purity Culture is one of these problems.
Before I explain what Purity Culture is, and why Christian feminists oppose it, I want to say very clearly what I am NOT critiquing.
I am NOT critiquing:
- an individual’s choice to abstain from sexual activity
- parents setting rules about dating
- anyone’s decision to get married
For a refresher, this is how I defined Purity Culture in my list of feminism vocabulary.
the view of any discussion of things of a sexual nature outside of the context of heterosexual marriage as taboo; adherence to a strict heteronormative lifestyle that forbids most physical contact with significant others, as well as engaging in self pleasure, or holding lustful thoughts about another person that is not a spouse; includes an insistence on female modesty and responsibility to shield boys and men from sexual temptation
Purity Culture stems from the belief that premarital sex is a sin. From my own study of both the Bible, biblical scholars, and history, I do not believe that premarital sex is a sin. (I still saved coitus for marriage, for non-religious reasons). However, this post is not arguing whether or not premarital sex is a sin. Feel free to read the following resources, not all of which agree on the topic.
Premarital Sex: Is It A Sin Or Not?
Entire books have been written about purity culture, including Damaged Goods by Dianna E. Anderson and The Purity Myth by Jessica Valenti. As with all of my Feminism 101 posts, I hope to cover all the main points of Purity Culture, but for brevity’s sake, I cannot go into too much detail.
5 Key Characteristics of Purity Culture
1) A shame-based environment
Purity Culture relies on making young people feel so terrified of sex that they won’t ever want to have it.
Purity Culture doesn’t differentiate between sexual, biological reactions and dehumanizing/objectifying another person (aka lusting). An erection is not a sin. An orgasm is not a sin. But you wouldn’t know that from Purity Culture.
Furthermore, premarital sex is apparently the one unforgivable sin. No one talks about greed, or materialism, or gluttony, or even sexual assault (I’m looking at you, Josh Duggar) quite the way they talk about premarital sex.
Stop me if any of these metaphors seem familiar. Having premarital sex is like being a:
- chewed-up piece of gum
- used, dirty toothbrush
- glass of water with lots of spit in it
- smelly, dirty shoe
- rose with broken petals
- piece of tape with dust and hair stuck to it
Even if we accept the premise that premarital sex is a sin, what message does this send to survivors of sexual assault? What message does this send to new believers with a sexual past? On the surface, these metaphors already create shame and guilt. Dig deeper into the metaphors, and (not) shockingly, they reveal a double standard.
2) Double standards
Supposedly, these metaphors apply equally to both men and women. (Transgender people, or genderqueer people, or intersex people, or anyone else who doesn’t identify as male or female don’t exist in Purity Culture). But none of the metaphors involve two pieces of gum chewing each other or two roses poking thorns at each other. In each metaphor, there is an object that is acted on. If one person having premarital sex is completely ruined for life, what about the other person?
Like Sarah Moon wrote on her blog:
Sex, growing up, was often described in these violent, one-sided metaphors that objectified at least one sex partner (usually these analogies were subtly or not-so-subtly aimed at women–have you ever heard a man talked about as a precious flower/rose?) and left that objectified partner a hopelessly destroyed mess that no one would ever want to be with.
Intentional or not, these metaphors support the sexual double standard. If a man has a lot of sex, he’s a player. If a woman has a lot of sex, she’s a slut.
The rhetoric too many Christians use to describe women having premarital sex is completely different than what they use to describe men.
Women are ruined. They’re damaged goods. They lost their purity.
Men stumbled in their walk. They messed up. They made a mistake.
Consider the words of Dianna E. Anderson, author of Damaged Goods:
Purity culture’s targets are young women. Young men are simultaneously a focus and an afterthought. Every motivation behind staying pure is focused on being received well by a future husband, but those same future husbands are more easily forgiven for transgressions, written off with “boys will be boys.”
This isn’t the only double standard.
3) Men as sex maniacs, and women as sexless gatekeepers
“Teenage boys only want one thing.”
How many times have you heard that? So all teenage boys want sex, all the time.
Again, an erection is a biological response to stimuli. While teenage boys might have frequent erections (often in completely innocent and awkward situations, or so I’ve been told), that doesn’t mean they actually want to have sex every single time they get an erection.
Teenage boys deal with a lot of the same problems teenage girls have. Doing well in school, trying to fit in, pleasing their parents, hanging out with their friends, wanting to be cool. Honestly, guys should be offended at their sex-crazed caricatures within Purity Culture.
Rarely do teenage girls receive warnings about the dangers of pornography or the sin of masturbation. (I also don’t think masturbation is a sin, but that’s a discussion for another day). They’re much more likely to receive lectures about their “distracting clothing” and warnings not to “cause a Christian brother to stumble in his walk.”
Yeah, that latter statement is almost a direct quote of advice I heard as a late teenager.
Teenage girls have sex drives too. Pretending otherwise can lead them to feel confused, alone, or ashamed of their sexuality.
Female-centric conversations about sex are all about saying, “No.” But what if they want to say, “Yes”?
4) Consent is absent from the conversation
It is absolutely important to empower young people to say, “No” when they feel uncomfortable about a situation. But that shouldn’t be a gendered conversation. Teenage boys need to learn they can turn down sex as well. All young people need to know both how to ask for and how to give consent for when they DO want to engage in sexual activity.
Consent doesn’t enter conversations about sex within Purity Culture. You can only say, “No,” before you’re married… But you have to say, “Yes,” once you are married.
Sarah Moon has written a great review of Christian dating books. In one blog post, analyzing Real Marriage, she writes (emphasis hers):
The book equates not-having-sex-with-your-husband, even while healing from trauma, with disobeying God. To say no to your husband is to be selfish and sinful.
In fact, the book lists “Ways We Are Selfish Lovers.” One of these ways is to “Only have sex when we both feel like it at the same time.”
Purity Culture is a subset of rape culture. Basically, Purity Culture is like Christianity’s very own special rape culture.
One unique Christian twist on rape culture is not differentiating between consensual premarital sex and rape. Dianna E. Anderson writes this:
As I read numerous dating guides for research for my forthcoming book, I noticed a pattern with the stories of virginity loss and ruined purity – a significant number of them were stories of rape. In the Abstinence Clearinghouse’s pro-abstinence only education book, Abstinence 101, many of the stories cited are fairly clear cut stories of rape. Even further, in that same text, rape is cited as a direct consequence of divorcing love and commitment from sex – which is their phrasing for premarital sex of any kind.
Rape is simultaneously unrecognizable and a constant threat in purity culture. The simple truth of it is that, without consent education, the purity movement makes it impossible for people to recognize rape as such. Many conservative evangelical will adamantly declare that they are against rape, they think it’s a horrific crime, in the same breath as saying that a wife who denies her husband sex is failing to do her duty. Purity proponents end up promoting rape because they don’t know what consent and healthy sexuality actually look like.
With the high standards women must meet in both clothing and behavior, if they do experience sexual assault, victim-blaming ensues. After all, if dressing and acting a certain way keep men under control, then if a man lost control, it’s clearly the woman’s fault.
While reviewing the book Dateable, Sarah Moon reveals (emphasis hers):
Dateable contains the most blatant animalization of men. They compare men to Pavlov’s dogs, horses, cavemen, and multiple times refer to the “male species,” as if males are somehow a species other than human. This is done, not to degrade men necessarily (although such words certainly might have that effect) but to excuse any inappropriate behavior they show toward women. Young women are told, concerning men:
“Don’t tease the animals…Please, PLEASE don’t tease us [men]. To show us your hot little body and then tell us we can’t touch it is being a tease. You can’t look that sexy and then tell us to be on our best behavior.” (p. 117)
Standards for women are simultaneously so high and so complicated that it’s almost impossible for us to follow them.
5) Strict, heteronormative gender roles
LGBTQ+ people do not exist within Purity Culture. Everything I’ve summarized so far has been the different messages men and women receive about women and men. Purity Culture assumes everyone is straight and cisgender.
Dianna E. Anderson came out in 2014 as a bisexual woman. This led her to question Purity Culture in new ways.
In seeking to preserve the “covenant of marriage” by encouraging purity, the purity movement also implies that marriage is not for people outside the cisgender, heterosexual norm. Healthy sexual ethics don’t apply if you’re not straight and cisgender – LGBT people don’t exist in the world of purity culture.
This then begs the question: if your gospel-based sexual ethics only apply to a specific subset of the population, what does that say about the love of God which is said to be for all peoples? If your Gospel is only applicable to white, middle-class, American, straight, cisgender Christians, it’s not much of a gospel.
Even for cisgender women who are heterosexual, following Purity Cultures guidelines for biblical womanhood are next-to-impossible. Consider these common quotes.
- Modest is hottest!
- Your dresses should be tight enough to show you’re a woman and loose enough to show you’re a lady. (attributed to Edith Head, but I can’t find a reliable source)
- Dressing modestly reveals your dignity.
- Classy is when a woman has everything to flaunt, but chooses not to show it.
Will someone please tell me what these vague guidelines mean for my wardrobe?
My boobs are pretty much impossible to hide, so does that mean I should live in baggy t-shirts and sweaters? Except, wait, then how do you know I’m a classy woman?
While the strict heteronormativity is harsher for women, it still hurts men. There’s so much talk about being “real men” and remembering when “men were men.” Men always pursue women. They’re natural-born leaders. They must be the breadwinner.
God created each of us to be unique. If no two people are exactly the same, then no two men are exactly the same either. Contrary to Purity Culture’s teachings, there are multiple ways to be a man.
Additional Reading on Purity Culture
You Are Not Your Own (link to full blog series by Sarah Moon)
My book review of Damaged Goods
Future Husbands: Your Future Wife Does Not Belong to You
Why Purity Culture Doesn’t Teach Consent
Coming in at over 2000 words, this might be my longest post thus far.
I don’t want to hear your arguments about why premarital sex is totally a sin. It’s a moot point to this discussion. Read the resources linked in the beginning and argue with them.
If you have any comments or questions regarding Purity Culture, I’d love to hear them!
If you have a question regarding something specific I wrote, and there’s a link in that paragraph, please read that link first. It probably answers your question! If you disagree with any of my points, I’d also appreciate if you read any links in that section before leaving your comment. Don’t forget to go over my comment policy!
For some reason I thought purity culture is the act of shame and judgment on someone’s life choices. Like telling a women she is damaged because she has sex before marriage or telling her that her body belongs to her husband would be purify culture. I don’t think teaching that sex is a sin, if it is part of your religion is a bad thing. Teaching the shame and expecting everyone to adhere to your choices is what I thought was wrong– further explaining?
For the most part, Purity Culture wouldn’t exist if most Christians didn’t think premarital sex is a sin. I do think it’s possible to teach premarital sex is a sin within being complicit in Purity Culture, mainly because that’s what my parents did.
Unfortunately, most abstinence-only educational programs and most Christian books/sermons/devotionals/etc. that discuss premarital sex ONLY do so with tons of shaming and judgment.
That’s why I didn’t make this post about whether or not premarital sex is a sin. I think that discussion is irrelevant to stopping Purity Culture. I also think that arguing about whether or not it’s a sin detracts from the problems of Purity Culture.
I think the biggest thing that bothers me about purity culture is that it removes (male) personal culpability. Yes they lusted but it was because x,y,z, female tempted them by x,y,z (usually just by existing and having a body) x
Yup. It’s so disturbing. And it’s so insulting to men! Of course, there are some men who don’t mind this characterization because then they can do whatever the hell they want.
Read a book (Headscarves and Hymens) recently that talks about purity culture as being the same as conservative Muslim attitudes towards women.
That sounds like an interesting read! I know that Purity Culture is probably within some Jewish and Muslim communities, but since I’m not part of those religious traditions, I don’t feel qualified to critique them.
I have so much love for this post! I visited a friend of mine’s church while I was looking for a church a few years ago and their pastor was genuinely terrifying, I’m a 30 year old woman with very strong opinions on various subjects and clearly a mind of my own and this man stood in front of me telling me that if I wanted to be loved and accepted by God and to have Jesus as my lord and saviour I would need to repent for my sins of premarital sex and take a vow of purity. Oh I’m sorry there was me thinking that Jesus died on the cross for me, loved me and wanted a relationship with me, clearly I was reading the wrong bible the whole time. He asked me how many sexual partners I have had in my life and wanted to know if I was in a relationship now and if he was Christian and if not why not?
He also told me that I should be wearing more modest clothing because it could cause men around me to have lustful thoughts which were sinful! I would like to point out that like you mentioned I also have boobs that are pretty hard to hide but my top wasn’t low cut at all, it was long tshirt length and I was wearing jeans and sandals! Not sure how it would be my dress sense that caused them to sin instead of their own inability to control themselves and I did question this. I also asked him if he thought so little of his fellow men that he thought them incapable of self control around any woman. I’m pretty sure I would not have been welcome back to that church – thankfully I didn’t wish to attend anyway!
It terrifies me that that sort of behaviour is ok, it’s awful to tell women that they will not be loved if they have sex before marriage and to teach men that they will at some point in their lives be tempted to sin by women! Please let these people who teach purity read a bible, or at least see some of the damage that this can do to both men and women alike.
Sorry for my uber long post!!
x
Wow. I was basically shaking my head in awe of this man’s audacity the whole time I was reading your comment.
Holy shit those questions are so invasive! Even assuming premarital sex is a sin, that’s between you and God. There’s a reason Protestants don’t do Confession. And it’s just like I said, this idea that premarital sex is somehow the worst of the sins. I feel like the only reason some Christians harp on and on about is because too many of their big donors don’t want to be lectured on greed or gluttony or charitable works or tithing.
I love the last part of this post (let’s be real: I love all parts of this post) where you talked about dress. In my family, if you wear anything form-fitting, you’re promiscuous. It was super loose or you weren’t leaving the house. You weren’t leaving your ROOM. We wore those really old fashioned gauchos, hand made of course, if we were going to ride horses or do something active. REALLY impractical for riding bikes and doing active things though! I remember distinctly having a conversation with my grandfather once about why I couldn’t just wear a simple one-piece bathing suit. His response was, “Because if I give you an inch, you’ll take a mile and next you’ll be wearing booty shorts.” In addition to the confusion of purity culture, there’s a lot of controlling behavior involved.
The shaming is out of control. I really appreciate this post. I shared it for my family to see on my Facebook, and I expect some pretty controversial comments. At least, I hope for them! Haha Thanks Brita!
I’m very grateful that my parents were never really complicit in Purity Culture. I think I had one shirt that they (correctly) suggested I shouldn’t wear–but they still didn’t ban me from wearing it. (Yeah, naive 15-year-old me didn’t understand why a low-cut tank top with sheer lace except over the boobs was not a good idea).
I hate the way so many people still tie a person’s clothing choices to their sexual choices. I was sexually harassed regularly in high school once my boobs grew in, despite the common knowledge that I hadn’t even kissed a guy yet. Obviously shaming someone for their actual sexual choices is wrong too, but the harassment I endured was proof that it didn’t matter what you actually did as long as your body looked a certain way.
Thanks for sharing my post! I hope you have fun with the comments. 😉
Thank you for sharing this. I grew up in a pretty progressive Christian home and church but I was homeschooled and our homeschool group was mostly a very conservative group, many belonged to the same group (ATI) as the Duggars. While my parents stayed away from ATI and it’s teachings I was exposed to it a lot. It was honestly scary to me even as a kid. I watched a lot of girls that were clueless about sex and even flirting and when they got out of their parent’s bubble it was dangerous for them. And the boys were taught that if they had sexual feelings they were wrong but the girls were doing something to cause them. Once a boy went to the dads and told them girls wearing open-toed shoes and having slits in their skirts (their ankle length skirts mind you and the slits came to their knees at most) was giving him “sinful thoughts.” The girls were then banned from wearing these things, instead of the boy being taught how to deal with this in a healthy way.
I know these parents thought they were doing the right thing to protect their kids. Many of them had really bad childhoods and didn’t want the same for their kids. Sadly they were mislead by ATI and others and went too far the other way.
I read about ATI after the story broke regarding Josh Duggar sexually assaulting five girls. It sounds pretty horrible.
It makes me so sad that anyone could be taught that sexual feelings–which are a biological response–are wrong. Of course, then it makes me MAD that teens also learn to blame girls for “causing” those thoughts!
“You can’t look that sexy and then tell us to be on our best behavior”
This is the cringiest sentence I’ve ever read.
I know, right?!
Interesting post. While I don’t agree with some of it, it is casuing me to think.
What do you not agree with? I don’t see how a shame-based environment that teaches scientifically inaccurate information about sex can be a good thing.
To me being a good person and caring for other human beings is the most important value we can have. Thank you for your thought provoking post and sharing with us at #AnythingGoes
Absolutely! After all, the second greatest commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself.
I’m no fan of purity culture, though I do personally believe that extramarital sex is a sin, like lots of other of sins–it’s not THE sin. I have no idea why it’s gotten the idea of being the one unforgivable sin, as that’s not even close to being Biblically accurate. But like you said, sin or no sin that’s not really the point of your post
I certainly heard plenty of purity culture (and modesty culture) rhetoric in my teens, although the version I heard must not have seemed as one-sided as what you address in #2, because I always viewed it as important for both parties. The problem is, always hearing “Your spouse is worth the wait” in my teens ended up messing with my thinking early in my marriage. I would get despondent because I couldn’t understand why I hadn’t been a wife “worth waiting for” for my husband. In purity culture, you’re taught that “saving yourself for marriage” is an act of love for your future spouse, and then you marry someone who didn’t wait and you find yourself wondering why they didn’t love you enough to wait too–when the reality is that it really has nothing at all to do with you. I know my man is head-over-heels crazy about me even after 5 years of marriage, and I’m sad that I ever let these kinds of teachings whisper doubts into my mind. Thankfully, maturity and logical thinking helped me sort out that issue, because jealousy and unforgiveness could have soured our marriage much more than the lack of pre-marriage ‘purity’ ever could.
I break with other critics of Purity Culture in that I think it’s possible to teach that premarital sex is a sin without doing so in a dangerous or shameful way. When my mom gave my twin brother and me The Talk, she definitely started by sharing what she and Daddy believed about premarital sex. Then she told us about consent and about birth control. Plus she let me wear pretty much whatever I wanted, without criticism. And when I was older, she talked to me about masturbation and orgasms, which was SUPER-awkward but also very cool and feminist.
You and your husband seem absolutely perfect for each other. I’m so sorry that you had to work through the toxic messages from Purity Culture. The rhetoric that premarital sex is a sin against your future spouse–who 1) you don’t even know yet and 2) might not ever actually exist–is so damaging, in several ways. One of the links I shared was from someone who still isn’t having sex, but who has “stopped waiting.” As in, she critiques the idea that young Christians are just supposed to sit around and wait until they find someone to marry, instead of fully living their lives as single people.
there is always a group who take everything to the extreme. Christianity is about love and acceptance and staying true to God’s teachings but not adding a million little extra rules of our own – we become like the Pharisees when we do – and we all know what Jesus thought of them! A really interesting post Brita – thanks ~ Leanne
That’s such a good point about not being like the Pharisees!
This was very interesting for me to read, as a feminist, and also an atheist, but who grew up around Christianity. I think it’s very troubling to make women the gatekeepers of sex, and teach them that sexuality is wrong. Even if they do wait for marriage, I know a few unhappy couples where the switch can’t be flipped and the woman is always uncomfortable with being sexual since she’s always learned that it’s so wrong.
I actually read a blog post from a Christian woman who didn’t realize she was asexual because she was so steeped within Purity Culture. She just assumed that she was super-good about not lusting and that she would develop sexual feelings for her boyfriend/fiancé once they finally got married. And then she didn’t.
That’s an extreme example, but Sarah Moon talks about how emotionally/psychologically, it can be so difficult to spend your whole life shutting down sexual urges and then suddenly need to turn them on. And in Purity Culture rhetoric, a Christian wife never turns down her husband for sex. Which is rape culture.
That is just so disturbing – women should have agency about their sexuality!
Thank you so much for this post <3 it's everything I want to say about why the church and Christian community is increasingly isolating it's youth. So many feel the need to put on a facade in order to be present and treated with respect in Christian circles, and then still others are driven away because they refuse to present a fake self when we are supposed to be working together to pursue truth.
It's ironic – as you point out – that so many other major issues or "sins" are not addressed near to the same degree, nor have such a stigma. Too cheap to tithe? Jealous and envious of others? Yea, I don't think those were ever covered in any groups I attended.
I feel like churches don’t want to address other main sins because they don’t want to alienate their wealthy donors. I mean, I think modesty is about not owning six luxury cars or not living in a mansion or not buying expensive new clothes every single season. But who ever preaches about that? Instead modesty turns into legalism to control uppity women and give men a pass.
Yessssssss. I didn’t wait until marriage, but I waited until I found my husband. This is something that bothers me so much as a Christian-ish woman.