What exactly does “purity culture” refer to?
Our recent book She Deserves Better spends about half of its pages addressing many aspects of purity culture, that was so common in youth groups between 1995-2015, and shows how it deviated from the gospel and from what we know is healthy advice.
It hurt people.
The pushback that we get, though, often goes: “But God does want us to wait for marriage for sex!”
This shows a lack of understanding of what purity culture was. The Christian church, in its modern iteration, has always stressed sex saved for marriage (and really has throughout history, though the definition of when someone is actually married may change over time).
There are a number of ways, though, that one can talk about saving sex for marriage. You can tell people that sex is sacred and God wants it for marriage. You can tell people that saving sex for marriage is the safest for one’s heart and one’s body. That is what was done in my generation (Gen X).
Purity culture took it up exponentially, and ended up creating a whole new gospel around sex.
When we critique purity culture, we’re critiquing these trappings, and asking people to go back to talking about sex in a healthy way.
So let’s look at the 10 components of purity culture:
1. Purity culture redefined purity to mean virginity
Let’s be clear–biblically, our purity is not based on what we have done with our bodies, but on what Jesus has done with His. Our purity is about the state of hearts and whether or not we are following wholeheartedly after Jesus. Someone can be a virgin and not be pure (because of their heart), and someone can have a sexual past and be very pure (because of their faith).
Purity culture taught against that. In the books to girls that we reviewed for She Deserves Better, over and over again purity was made synonymous with virginity.
This changes the very nature of the gospel. If your purity, or your spiritual state, is based on something that you did in the past or, even worse, something that was done to you (since virginity can be taken by force), then it’s no longer about your belief in Jesus. You can believe in Jesus all you want, and still not be pure, because you made a mistake in the past (or worse). This has nothing to do with 2 Corinthians 5:17–“if anyone is in Christ, she is a new creation”, or 1 John 1:9–“if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins.”
This emphasis created all or nothing thinking–if you had had sex, you were “damaged goods.” We taught girls to protect their purity, but we didn’t teach them how to protect themselves.
2. Purity culture reduced one’s faith to one’s sexual back story
While waiting for marriage for sex had always been a part of the western evangelical church (and other iterations of the church), under purity culture it became really the only thing that mattered. If you peruse materials written to teens in the heyday of purity culture, they say remarkably little about prayer; discipleship; seeking God’s will; evangelism; loving one’s neighbour; learning to be generous; being kind to those around you.
They almost entirely revolve around sex and “staying pure.” One’s prayer life was all about purity. One’s focus was all about purity. Other aspects of the Christian life seemed to evaporate into thin air, as if they had never existed. Our faith became very small. For all the emphasis on not having sex, they sure did talk about sex and marriage a lot!
In Chapter 2 of She Deserves Better, we show two word clouds of the frequency of some key words used in the New Testament versus books written for girls at the height of purity culture. You can see what the emphasis was:
Words used in the New Testament
Words used in Purity Culture books for girls:
3. Purity culture made dating into a sin
Purity culture largely revolved around control rather than discipleship. The goal was to keep kids from having sex before marriage, but instead of teaching kids to learn self-control and wisdom and make good decisions, purity culture just tried to eliminate the possibility of sex altogether by calling dating a sin.
No longer was it just a sin to have sex; it was now a sin to date until one was ready to get married.
I don’t think people who grew up in purity culture realize how radical this was. Most Boomer and Gen X women were allowed to date as teens. When millennials came along, though, suddenly that changed in the evangelical world. Not dating as a teen was unheard of for most growing up before the 90s; by the 2000s, in many churches it was dating that was seen as strange.
(We have some fascinating charts in She Deserves Better about the differences in how various generations experienced dating as teens to see what an anomaly purity culture was.)
4. Purity culture taught that teens were not capable of making decisions, and thus needed others to do so
Purity culture was largely built around fear: fear that teens would have sex; fear that they couldn’t help themselves; fear that they may make bad decisions.
And so as much as possible the opportunity to make those bad decisions was eliminated. Dating was made into something bad. But also teens were told that they couldn’t trust their judgment, and should rely on the judgment of their parents. While arranged marriages never really made major inroads, a form of courtship where the father, especially of the girl, looked around for a good match and encouraged his daughter in that direction became much more normal.
Parents were supposed to give the final okay for a marriage, and parents were supposed to supervise the courting couple to be sure they wouldn’t go too far. In effect, single adults were not really treated as adults.
5. Purity culture made any physical contact a sin–not just sex.
Purity culture saw slippery slopes everywhere. It was as if teens were living out “if you give a mouse a cookie” in real life, but it started with, “If you let a couple hold hands…”
Everything, it seems, could lead to sex.
Everything.
Because kissing leads to making out and making out can lead to sex, we need to stop kissing.
But holding hands leads to kissing, and so maybe we shouldn’t even hold hands either!
Again, this is a major historical anomaly. The idea of waiting until marriage to kiss has simply never been part of Christian practice. Yet among millennials we suddenly see this strange blip where there is a minority that didn’t kiss until the wedding. This had never really been done before.
In our focus groups, we talked to so many women who were petrified about kissing because they were sure that once you started kissing, something happened where you would automatically have sex. People couldn’t explain to us what exactly it was that WOULD happen, but they were sure that it was basically inevitable, and assumed that anyone who was kissing must also be having sex.
6. Purity culture taught that self-control wasn’t possible–especially for boys
The reason that kissing was made forbidden was because it could lead to sex. Previous generations, though, had simply taught self-control. Did it work perfectly? No. (Although, to be fair, purity culture didn’t do that much better!). But it was assumed that kids could practice self-control. If teens went too far, the question would have been, “Why did you let it get that far?” During purity culture, though, the question would have been, “why did you start in the first place?”
Starting would have been seen as almost as bad a sin as going too far, because it was assumed that once you started you couldn’t stop. That’s why all of these rules were put in place that hadn’t been there before. Self-control wasn’t possible, so we’re just going to eliminate all temptation and all opportunity for sin instead.
This idea that people can’t help it once they start was doubly true for boys, though. In our survey of 7000 women for our book She Deserves Better, almost 70% of women said that they believed as teens that “boys can’t stop in a makeout situation, so it’s a girl’s responsibility to stop the sexual progression.”
Boys had no self-control, and so girls had to have enough for both of them.
She Deserves Better!
Because we all deserve a big faith.
Your daughter deserves better than what you likely grew up with in church.
What would it look like to prepare the next generation without toxic teachings about modesty, sex, or consent, and instead set her up for a big faith?
7. Purity culture put the responsibility for boys’ bad behaviour on girls.
Indeed, purity culture tended to paint boys as helpless, and so girls had to have enough control for everyone. We were responsible to stop in a makeout situation, but we were also responsible not to get guys going in the first place by dressing modestly and never, ever flirting. It was vitally important for girls to never give boys any ideas, because boys were super sensitive to thinking about sex.
It was thus a girl’s responsibility to never make a boy think in that direction by making sure she never showed any of her body, and making sure she never did anything that may make him think of her in that way. (The book And The Bride Wore White warned girls not to mention their periods because it would create sexual familiarity; a huge modesty survey told girls not to ever go outside with wet hair, because it would remind boys that they had recently been naked in the shower).
8. Purity culture saw girls’ bodies as inherently dangerous
Because boys and men were basically at the mercy of their sex drives, girls’ bodies had to be controlled. Boys’ sex drives can’t be controlled, so the next best thing is to try to control the bodies of the girls around them. This made girls’ bodies into a weapon against men, rather than seeing that if a boy or a man is lusting after a girl, she is actually the real victim because she is being objectified.
Purity culture objectified all girls and called it holy.
It told girls as young as eight that their bellies were intoxicating and caused grown men to get out of control. It told girls that all men will always see you as a sexual object, and declared that God made it this way, so it wasn’t okay to complain if boys or men were creepy. If they were, it was on you because of what you wore.
Focus on the Family’s Brio magazine called girls “walking temptations to be used by Satan.” Think of the long-term effects of that! (We studied them!)
9. Purity culture used fear tactics and bribes rather than information
When purity culture talked about why you should wait for marriage for sex, it used fear-based messages. It warned against pregnancy, STDs, and death, sharing stats that were simply untrue (while condoms aren’t 100% effective, they are very, very effective, yet purity culture materials told kids that condoms wouldn’t work).
It told kids that if they had sex before marriage, they would never experience real intimacy in marriage. They would ruin their chances for it.
It told kids that they created soul ties with everyone they had sex with (or with everyone who had abused them), and these ties would remain and would make it harder to bond with the person you marry.
We talked with many women who married their rapists because they thought they were bonded to them anyway and didn’t have a choice.
The problem with fear tactics? If your main reason for saving sex for marriage is that all of these bad things will happen, and then you have friends having sex without these bad things seeming to happen, people will no longer believe you.
But it wasn’t just fear tactics. It was also bribes: If you wait for marriage for sex, you’ll have the best sex ever! But sex isn’t necessarily that great for women right off of the bat, especially if you haven’t been taught properly about sex. Many new brides found sex bewildering and disappointing, and never recovered from that.
10. Purity culture treated information as dangerous
In our survey, it was astounding the lack of sex ed knowledge that millennial women had compared with previous generations. On graduating high school, they were less likely to know:
- The names for girls’ body parts
- The definitions of consent and date rape
- The mechanics of how sex worked
- that female orgasms existed
Purity culture stopped teaching sex ed and replaced it with fear based messages about “don’t do it.” This set women up for bad sex in the future, and made all the bribes meaningless.
Purity culture was so much more than just saying “wait for marriage.”
It was a fear-based system of control and rules rather than teaching discipleship and self-control.
Instead of giving teens information and teaching them to cling to Jesus, so that waiting for marriage was a natural expression of their love for God, their relationship with God, and the way they saw themselves, waiting for marriage became the way of showing your faith.
We got everything backwards.
Our hope with She Deserves Better is that we can reclaim faith.
Let’s point our girls to an actual living faith with Christ, rather than a rules-based, shame-based life.
Too much damage has been done. It’s time to do this right, because we all deserved better than this!
What do you think? Is there a #11 that I missed? Let’s talk in the comments!
All About She Deserves Better!
Podcasts about She Deserves Better:
- Do Girls Talk Too Much?
- Should We Kiss Dating Goodbye? What Dating Rules Work Best
- How Did Modesty Messages Affect Teen Girls Long Term?
- Why Are Women Supporting the Modesty Messages? Plus How Youth Groups Handle Date Rape
- Trauma, EMDR, and "Himpathy" (and why we sympathize with abusers)
- "Nice Guy Syndrome" and Boundaries
- What We're Fighting For: A Glimpse 20 Years Down the Road
- Pink and Blue Faith: Plus We Take a Submission Quiz!
Posts about She Deserves Better:
- 10 Defining Features of Purity Culture We Need to Eliminate
- How did we think calling 8-year-old girls' bellies "intoxicating" was okay?
- The data on why we need to stop calling girls "stumbling blocks"
- Feeling responsible for her own Sexual Assault: A Youth Group Case Study
- What do the toxic teachings have in common?
- Are we giving our daughters only half the gospel?
- 32 Things Your Daughter Deserves to Know
- 3 Things That Make it More Likely Your Daughter Will Marry an Abuser
Get She Deserves Better in paperback or ebook, or listen on audio!
Will you be doing any books for boys that are similar to this latest book? I need material as my boys get older.
We may. We’d love to, but we’re just under contract for a bunch of other things first!
So what is next?
I’m desperately hoping honestly, health, and wholeness! I hope people pursue that, and seek after Jesus first and foremost, even if that means they have to leave toxic churches behind.
Check out Non-Toxic Masculinity: Recovering Heathy Male Sexuality by Zachary Wagner. https://www.ivpress.com/non-toxic-masculinity
Wow. What’s interesting is that I am at the tail end of gen x. (I wave the xennial flag lol)… But all the things applied and I am still learning so much of what I was taught isn’t necessarily true. Literally this week my husband and I were having a conversation and he was like, “no, i don’t picture women naked. I’m not undressing them in my mind.” Based on the conversations we’ve been having, I’ve realized how much purity culture has influenced the way I see him and even expect bad things of him. It’s SO TWISTED and makes me so mad. It’s like I’m realizing for the first time (22 years married) what an awesome guy my husband actually is; he’s not the picture they painted of men. (And I grew up without a dad, so the picture they painted was all I had to go on). It’s like living with a life sucking alien on your back your whole life, whispering in your ear and covering your eyes with its hands, blech, I just want to shake it all off and wash off all the slime and ick it left behind, but now I’m still left with learning how to hear truth and follow a path I’ve never seen with my own eyes before, the path of freedom.
Yes, Gen X got it too, it just wasn’t as mainstream. It’s always existed in pockets of Christianity, but it became mainstream in the mid 90s!
I’m glad you’re seeing your husband for who he actually is now! 🙂
Ah yea. Boomer here and Bill Gothard was a thing back then. Much -most?- of the worst concepts inPurity culture are a direct result of those teachings. Blech.
I agree!
What is stated here and other articles by Sheila and company reminds me of 2 huge concerns infecting certain circles of the “Evangelical” church:
1.
the legalisc battles that Jesus dealt with from the religious “authorities” of his time.
2. a profound misogynistic mindset that may mimic other beliefs and faith cultures around the world.
It is only a question of degrees. It is roaring into the church and the west. Be it extremes of purity culture or issues of male headship and women’s submission. These churches refuse and fail to recognize this, that these are demonic principalities and are in the church now.
I totally resonate with this! I’m a tail end gen x as well.
So many good things in here! I grew up on the tail-end of purity culture in a very conservative family. I had SO MUCH FEAR when it came to dating and marriage because of all the things you mentioned.
In the last year, I have come to identify myself as asexual — I do not feel sexual attraction toward men (or women, for the record). In talking with other Christian friends who are also ace, we’re discovering an odd pattern… we all grew up in very strict purity culture, where this fear-based reasoning and a general “sex is bad and should disgust you” attitude permeated everything we learned around romantic relationships. Several of my ace friends have even gotten married and had children, not realizing that the distaste and lack of interest they felt toward their partners wasn’t just how EVERY woman feels — because what we were taught definitely suggested it was!
And I honestly find myself wondering: nature or nurture? If I had grown up with healthier ideas of sex and relationships, would I still be ace? How much has that fear- and disgust-based education formed (or malformed?) my sexual identity?
I don’t regret or dislike labeling myself as ace. I think it’s where God wants me to be — Matthew 19:11a is a very reassuring and comforting verse. But knowing how damaging purity culture was to so many of my sisters (and brothers too, in different ways), I think I’ll always wonder, just a little, how related those things are.
I can understand that, Elyn. I think if you have peace being single and you’re happy, that’s great.
But, yes, I do think there’s an uptick in the number of people identifying themselves that way or describing themselves that way, and it likely is related ot purity culture.
I wonder if it is also at least partially responsible for some cases of gender dysphoria in females. Even secular sources have been noting that there are more female-to-male transitions than male-to-female to some degree. Quite frankly, if most of the descriptions of women I was surrounded by came from some of these sources, I’d want out of the female category too. I don’t want to be male, but I still hold the adjective “womanly” very loosely. I’d much rather be “respected” or “effective” than “womanly” (which I guess says something about how some people separate those words).
I think you are right – I’m thankful I grew up before people were so enthusiastic to ‘help’ children change gender, as I’m sure I’d have been encouraged toward gender reassignment for my repeated claims that I didn’t want to be a girl. What I meant was that I didn’t want to be a girl who had to live under the kind of restrictions and expectations my society was heaping onto me – but I had no idea it was possible to be a girl and NOT experience these limitations. It just felt like being a boy was the only way to escape the grim future facing me as a woman!
I would have been in a similar boat when I was younger. I was not to the point of saying I hated being female. But, I was (and still am) a fantasy genre lover who very much more admired the full body armor and long coat looks than the “pretty” or “sexy” lady looks. I have never even really worn makeup. Plus, the majority of my favorite characters were (and still are) male. I can only imagine the “but you don’t like most of these female things, you clearly must be male” comments teenage me would have received. The irony, given our faith includes the likes of Jael, Joan of Arc, and Hildegard of Bingen.
Oh my goodness, YES! I was going to write this out, and I could have written this almost verbatim. You would think that “purity culture” wouldn’t “damage” someone who is ace (I believe I’m fully aroace), but it can! I had no problem with the teaching when I was a teen, because I just sat there thinking, “Why is this even an issue? I don’t get this whole “sex” thing in the first place.” and purity culture, looking back, made me feel both broken and “righteous” at the same time. Because, I mean… obviously I’m supposed to WANT all this right? I’m supposed to suppress all these feelings. But… I have no feelings. And then it went straight from “sex is evil” (because, let’s be honest, that’s what it felt like, even with the “unless it’s after marriage”) to get married! Serve the church as a couple! Have kids! Have lots of kids! Don’t let “the world” tell you how many kids to have! And now, yes, the doubts that I really am aroace. Because… how do I KNOW if I’ve never tried. And I can’t help but wonder if that lack of desire to try is based on teaching or who I am. I feel like, even though I’m basically the definition of aroace, since with purity culture you weren’t even supposed to date unless you were considering marriage. Thankfully, my church has NOT pushed marriage, but there’s still the “left out” feeling. Since I feel supported, I feel no need to “come out.” But… at the same time, I’m afraid to “come out” because it’s still different. And different of any sort was wrong in purity culture.
Wow I’m really happy to see this comment, because I am also asexual, and used to believe in purity culture. (I have written about this on my blog a lot.) When I was questioning, I went through a phase of asking “am I asexual, or just really repressed?” In my case, I eventually concluded that I would be ace even without the influence of purity culture- because I have A LOT of romantic attraction, and back then I was always “struggling” with my romantic feelings, trying to “guard my heart” and protect my “emotional purity”, and I had to work so hard to repress all those romantic feelings and was never really successful- but, I didn’t have any sexual feelings to repress at all. Didn’t have to do any work for that.
But even for asexuals whose asexuality might have been “caused” by purity culture, their asexual identity is still valid, and I hope that the ace community gives them the support they need. <3
Another ace purity culture millennial here. And yeah, it was an interesting experience. I only learned the terminology for being ace (and also demiromantic) in the last few years, so I had no way of describing it when I was a teen and in youth group, but it would have been massively helpful. It was great then; everyone thought it was terrific that I was ‘so focused on Jesus instead of dating,’ but then when I became an adult it’s suddenly, what’s wrong with you? Why aren’t you dating? Why aren’t you getting married and having kids? and all of a sudden you’re broken in evangelicalism’s eyes.
Now that I know what I am, it’s better, and I love being ace, but yeah. Purity culture affects everything it touches, and rarely is it in a good way. And especially in spaces that are not quite as LGBT+-friendly, and where it’s expected that everyone will get married/have kids…it just gets worse and more harmful
One of the most tragic effects of this whole thing is the idea that losing your virginity (even by rape) is even worse than sin. If you do something wrong, you can repent and ask for forgiveness, and then move on. But in this case, a person (especially a girl) who has sex outside of marriage (even involuntarily) is forever “tainted” and can NEVER get back to good graces.
That’s not the only problem, of course, but it’s a big one
Yes it is! And responsible for a lot of grief experienced by young brides who thought that the reason they didn’t enjoy sex with their husbands was because they had “thrown it away” before marriage, as opposed to a more realistic understanding that the husband needed to slow down and they both needed better knowledge. Purity culture just led to NOTHING good. !!
This is a HUGE thing. People didn’t recognize that they just needed to get better at sex. They thought it was a punishment and nothing could be done.
This really should be #11, maybe even #1. Purity is preached as a scare tactic, 100% ignoring one of the most important messages of the Gospel, that of redemption and forgiveness. It’s a “scared straight” type of messaging that ignores the reality that 80% of young Christian women will “fail.”
Think how much better off we would be if we focused on the 80%? Those in need of redemption and forgiveness which is their’s for the asking. Not denied by men with an agenda.
Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water! The heart motivations of those involved with the purity culture were pure! Only God is perfect! There was much good about it, and it brot crucial attention to a pertinent topic! Don’t forget the sexual revolution that got out of control in the 1960s, which led to the necessity of the purity movement in the midst of our hedonistic, nihilistic society! You have the tendency to project a false dichotomy thruout your writings.
Actually, the teachings of purity culture did harm. The idea of waiting for sex until marriage was there before purity culture, and teaching kids, “sex was meant to be sacred in marriage has no bad effects.” Teaching kids that they will have soul ties if they have sex before marriage; that sex before marriage will ruin their chance of intimacy; that girls must be modest because they are a stumbling block to boys; that boys can’t help but lust; that boys can’t stop in a makeout situation–all of these have bad outcomes.
Not giving proper sex education has bad outcomes, and kids are more likely to have multiple sex partners and marry abusers.
The reason I am diametrically opposed to all these things that I listed here is that they all have been shown to have bad outcomes, and they have nothing to do with the gospel.
There is no reason to hold on to them–and in fact, it is wrong to do so because we know they bear bad fruit.
The sexual revolution did not create a need for bad teachings about sex.
You can think about this in relation to a non-sexual topic, like some diet and fitness fads.
Some were started in response to concerns about things like obesity and heart disease, and people at the time didn’t realize that some of the advice was harmful. That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t share the research that we have NOW, that corrects harmful advice of the past. You wouldn’t expect a cardiologist today to say that switching to margarine with trans fats is a good idea, or that we should switch to low-fat foods where the fat has been replaced with sugar, or that eating as little as 600 calories a day is a good idea for weight loss. We now know that some of these things are ineffective or even harmful. The fact that some doctors may have meant well at the time doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t correct the information now.
Sheila isn’t throwing the baby out with the bathwater. She’s rescuing the baby from the toxic mud pit.
Yes, there were some good intentions behind purity culture. But good intentions without discernment can cause considerable damage.
“Good intentions” cannot be used as a shield against responsibility. We need to have stronger character than that.
Exactly. Remember the tried and true saying, “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
In many cases, Purity Culture didn’t cure hedonism–it enflamed a type of hedonism. That boys and men would undress girls and women with their eyes. That boys and men had sexual urges that they had limited control over. And that God made them that way, so it wasn’t their fault, so they didn’t have to seriously take responsibility. And the whole thing was covered in Bible verses and Christian-ish sounding words.
Sadly, Purity Culture isn’t actually pure: it’s hedonism in a straight jacket.
They could have just taught that sex should be saved for marriage. The idea that female bodies are evil is a separate issue from that.
Exactly!
Yes, exactly. It’s something you can never fix. As the books I read said, “you have lost your most precious treasure.” I always thought Jesus was my most precious treasure, not my virginity!
It’s interesting that you keep mentioning the mid-90’s as when purity culture really took off. I don’t know if I’m an anomaly or what, but the circles I ran in were operating with those rules as early as 1987. (Definitely when I started to get in there.) Bill Gothard was becoming really big by then, and I definitely had the purity culture mentality, via some friends and the IBYC. No books out yet, though; those started coming out in the 90’s. (Except for Elisabeth Elliot’s Passion and Purity, which just made me feel ruined.) Anyway, I guess the seeds were sprouting; maybe I was a little ahead of my time as far as reverting to the pre-medieval sexual ethic!
I was in my mid teens around 1990, and I got a whole load of purity garbage in the UK – it was ‘shipped in’ by American and Australian families who had come over to the UK to ‘evangelise’ us and who decided they needed to start with the church! Purity rings, purity pledges, the ‘6 inch rule’ (you should never be nearer than 6 inches to someone of the opposite sex), modesty pledges (girls had to vow never to wear short hair or trousers or short skirts or ‘revealing clothing’, boys had to vow never to wear long hair), courtship not dating, ‘holy’ girls marrying the first guy they ‘courted’, not kissing or holding hands before you were married…
I think it became mainstream in the 90s, but it really wasn’t as mainstream in the 80s. There were always pockets, though, but you don’t see these ideas coming into popular Christian books as much until the 90s.
I started youth group in 1989 at age 13 and remember everyone having t-shirts that literally said “I’m not doing it” Ironically, a few of my friends from that group became pregnant before graduating from high school.
Gothard was becoming a thing in the late 60s. He was running his seminars etc back then. One of the married couples who taught my Sunday School were big into his teachings. Some of the others saw it for what it was and called it out as crazy. Basically pretty confusing.
“ We got everything backwards.”
Boy; if that doesn’t sum up almost every problem I’m facing in life right now. My husband recently had to face some issues that have been very very heavy for us both. We grew up in good churches in the late 90s; but bad teaching comes from lots of directions. So does emotional damage. I’m seeing where he absorbed bits of these teachings. It sneaks in and tricks the ones who sincerely want to honor God. I used math as an example; if you have the right numbers in the wrong order, you’ll still get the wrong answer.
He has been suffering in silent bondage relying on his own works (and failing!) instead of coming to Jesus. Instead of self-control as a fruit of or an expression of faith in what Jesus has done and relying on Him to help us; its been struggling to control to be Holy for Jesus. And THAT has kept him condemned and bound. He hasn’t been able to see things like the emotional damage his father created. He was just taught to honor him without question. I can see it because of so many years between him and his siblings talking to me about their childhoods. And getting to know his father (who isn’t all bad!) too. It’s heartbreaking. Sincerity led to bondage. I bet the devil is quite pleased. But it stops here for us.
I can also see it from my own mistakes and really being set free from all that. It feels completely different. His counselor told him that I am “a remarkable woman” because my response was not more condemnation. What good does that do a repentant person? God doesn’t respond to us that way. Even though there is hurt; there is DEEP compassion for him being stuck in the bondage of this bad teaching. We can have hard conversations straightening things out and putting them in the proper order. Other issues are being slowly addressed. I am so proud of him for taking the hard steps out. He deserved better too.
Now we get to raise our kids differently. And I really pray that if you don’t write something for boys; someone else will because we really appreciate the sound guidance!
I find that fear tactics and withholding useful information are common in conservative American politics and other areas of Christianity like end times prophecies. For many years, Christians have been taught to read the Bible only one way not even being told that we have to consider the time, culture, context, and genres of the books of the Bible. In women’s Bible studies, we had been taught to model ourselves after a fictional Bible character, the proverbs 31 woman who was not the only example of women in the Bible. So much American Christianity seems to be about fear mongering and the spreading of misinformation.
The funny thing about the Proverbs 31 woman is that she was very empowered and made many business decisions independently.
You’re right, Marisa!
However, I felt that this woman was supposed to be our only ideal to emulate and she was perfect, an image I could never live up to no matter how hard I tried.
Thanks for defining this.
As someone who isn’t Christian, I’m realizing that this might have explained stuff that happened with a few of my family law clients. I had one that mentioned being sexually assaulted by the husband before marriage but who went on to get married and was upset when the husband filed for divorce. There were a number of other issues going on, but that part made no sense to me at the time – why would someone want to get married and stay married to their rapist? Looking back, it’s quite possible that she was influenced by these teachings.
I’m also looking at my own religious background (Jewish) and seeing SO MANY parallels. The specific terms used are different, but a much stronger emphasis on modesty with stricter rules, discouraging casual dating and putting the emphasis on arranged introductions which proceeded quickly to marriage, teaching no touching before marriage, discouraging mixed gender activities – these things all became far more emphasized. The weird thing is that it was taught as a something that was a part of traditional Judaism, but in many cases, they were following rules that were never followed by their mothers or grandmothers. I remember having a discussion with someone around 10 years younger than me, who simply couldn’t believe that my father had worked at a dance hall on his grandfather’s farm, which also had shacks rented out for the summer to Jewish families, a building used as a synagogue and kosher food. This person wanted to know what rabbi had approved the mixed dancing, and I was trying to explain that nobody had thought that this was something that required approval.
To me, it’s really showing that these rules weren’t “traditional” or a distinct part of the religion at all. Rather, they were a reactionary trend in response to society growing more liberal, and in some cases, also a reaction against feminism.
Isn’t that interesting that it was a similar trend in Judaism? That’s fascinating!
There’s a new Netflix show “Jewish Matchmaking”, and they mention the idea of being “shomer negiah”, which means not touching until the wedding. You can also see the different levels of modesty.
I grew up Hindu in the 90s as a teen and the same rules applied. No dating unless you are looking for a husband, no sleeveless tops unless you want to attract attention, boys are dangerous and want you for one thing only, etc. It was a way to express your belief in God. I’m not sure if it was ever different before that generation because I had never heard of any Indian people having children out of wedlock (girls were always strictly supervised).
Despite it being a way of life for generations it still had the same negative effects.
I think a good #11 would be “purity culture taught that women who experienced domestic violence as children are unmarriageable.” The notion that the girl’s father has to accept a marriage proposal before she can even go on a date takes every girl with an abusive father out of the courtship pool.
Wow! And that also makes you wonder what if the father had Alzheimer’s and couldn’t grant permission? !
Tim simply put I would say one does not really need the book to get the message. The point of number 2 is the fact that purity culture created a message for girls that was based on their virginity aka in case of point 2 “sexual back story” instead of a focus on Jesus. If you have read other posts around here or listened to the podcasts as they read from these harmful teachings in the books you are asking about the focus is on how girls dress and how they are the problem. When you read She Deserves Better it says Be Like Jesus LIKE EVERYWHERE. Again, dont need the book because they have layed it all out in the posts and read to you from said harmful books and writings to teens and even little 8 year old girls in the podcasts. However one should get their hands on She Deserves Better book because the data is in there and they even teach you how to read the data.
These people would probably regard such a girl as bad marriage material anyway – I read a ‘Christian’ article not long before I got engaged that said a Christian guy shouldn’t marry a partner who came from a ‘dysfunctional’ family because he would end up with a whole load of problems if his partner hadn’t been raised the ‘right’ way. Having a fairly ‘dysfunctional’ mother myself – and an abusive grandfather – I found that incredibly hurtful, like I was tainted by association and had no right to get married because of who my ancestors were! It also made me wonder…did the author not believe in the transforming power of the Holy Spirit? It’s just so weird the way many Christian writers claim that Jesus came for anyone who would accept Him, yet at the same time make it obvious that they think you can only be a ‘good’ Christian if you have been raised by Christian parents and grandparents in a ‘good’ home.
That was totally my experience. My father was abusive, and I knew that if he had any say in my love life, I’d end up alone forever (or pushed toward someone just as bad as him!).
Right? And then if someone brings this up they’re told those girls will learn to trust God!
I think that a large part of this fear tactic taught us that if you have sex, you will get pregnant. So, imagine my surprise when I (finally) got married and (finally) had sex and then I couldn’t get pregnant! We tried and tried and tried, and it seemed so CRAZY that this simply thing (sex = pregnancy) wasn’t panning out the way I had been taught my whole life! I think it added another dimension to the already difficult time of infertility.
So true, I found infertility in the extremely family centered evangelical church hard enough, but the assumption that sex (almost) always results in pregnancy added to the burden of feeling broken and othered.
Flip side of that teaching meant I felt that my infertility was a punishment for having had premarital sex. I felt God wanted to withhold good things from me forever. Bad stuff all around.
I was infertile through my entire 20s, and so many times it was just assumed that I had past sexual sin causing my infertility. I was once asked in front of a room.full of middle school kids if I didn’t have children because of how many abortions I had as teen.
Oh my word! That’s awful!
And here’s a thing: I once heard an Orthodox priest who had read a story about how a Muslim family was handling the daughter’s meeting of an eligible young man, say how impressed he was, and “I don’t care who this man is, [if he can raise his daughter like this] he is my brother.” Which just shows you how exceedingly warped this whole thing got. He didn’t even think about the blood of Jesus. Just the control of the daughter.
That is terrible!
Purity culture told us that marriage was our ‘reward’ for being ‘good’. Marriage (and sex within marriage) was not only The Goal, it was everything. Virginity was really only sexy and hot if you were under 24. If you were over 30, it was a completely different story. Did any authors who were so keen to extol the virtues of not dating discuss how depressing it was when you had reached your early 30s and had never kissed anyone? Or never been asked out on a date? Well, no; because all those authors got married in their early 20s and didn’t know how it felt. People either don’t have much empathy, and tell you that all you need is Jesus; assume that you’re hiding some big sin and God is punishing you by keeping you single; or mouth platitudes at you.
I would have loved a boyfriend back when I was a student, but absolutely no-one was interested in me. I tried to get on board with what the biggest selling books on Christian relationships were teaching. I tried to read ‘I Kissed Dating Goodbye’ I didn’t really know why, when I wasn’t dating anyone anyway, and ‘Boy Meets Girl: Say Hello To Courtship’ by Joshua Harris. Everyone seemed to rave about these books and love them. I wanted to love them too, but I had a lot of issues with what they taught. However, if you tried to question anything these books said, you were immediately attacked by supporters of JH, and told that because you were ‘rejecting Godly principles’ then you would never experience the kind of relationship and marriage you longed for. For a long time, I thought the problem was me. It didn’t matter that I had never dated anyone or kissed a guy; I just wasn’t good enough to experience any kind of relationship. (The fact that I hardly knew any Christian guys at all didn’t help my situation).
Ultimately, I have only kissed 2 men in my whole life, both of whom I met outside the church. I’ve no doubt that if it hadn’t been for them, I would have reached the age of 40, very single, very dateless, I would never have kissed anyone, and I would be extremely depressed right now and feel like something was very wrong with me. I have had on-line conversations with other Christian women in their 30s who have also never dated or kissed anyone, and they are deeply unhappy. Purity culture told us that if we rejected dating and everything that went with it, we would get our ‘reward’ which was true love and a happy marriage, and that marriage would just magically ‘happen’ for us. Did they think guys would be queuing round the block to ask us out, and we would have to fend them off with a stick?? Whatever they thought, it just isn’t true. By idolizing marriage and putting married couples on a pedestal, it gave no thought to the people who, through no fault of their own, DIDN’T get married. It helped to stigmatize those who remained single and made them feel ashamed of it. By turning dating into the enemy, it gave no thought to how some Christian women who had shunned dating in order to do the right thing, would feel 10, 20 years down the line, when the prince they were told would be waiting for them never appeared.
Lucie,
I had been single since I got divorced over 20 years ago when I was 26. I fell into purity culture when I didn’t know it was that. Since I wanted to do things “God’s way”, I read these “Christian” books on dating and marriage like IKDG and WBMG by Joshua Harris along with other purity culture books that were mostly geared toward teenagers and younger twentysomethings who hadn’t married and were still under their parents’ rules. I could not apply those courtship principles to my dating life (which I lacked until I was 41) because I had been married, was living on my own, and my parents lived in another state. Why would I need their “permission” to go on a date? They would tell me they trust me enough to make my own decisions. Unfortunately, purity culture taught young women that they are not capable of deciding who they want to date or marry. Yet, the guys can choose anyone; they just need the woman’s parents’ (mostly father’s) blessing.
I also fell for the lies that if I did everything right by not dating anyone unless I thought they were marriage material, that God would bless me with a wonderful godly man and an awesome sex life. When I was married to my ex, he was a Christian (in name only) and he was sexually abusive. I did not want to make that mistake again, so I took zero risks because I thought the “Christian” way to date was to let the man initiate interest in me and make the first move. If I made the first move then things would go wrong because according to these “Christian” books, a woman is not allowed to make the first move unless it was Ruth from the Bible because that was a different situation.
When I was in my 30’s I had a male, Christian counselor who told me to stop thinking of every man I met as a potential spouse. I wished I had listened to him a lot sooner and before I hit 41, I decided to ditch those purity culture mentalities from those awful books I read over the years. If I felt led to go up to a man and talk to him, I did. That’s how things got started with my ex-fiance who I already knew a bit before our chance encounter. And now, I have done this with another man recently who is my friend, and maybe more in the future. I decided to ditch the idea of marriage because, after my broken engagement, I realized I had made marriage into an idol which I learned from Christian books and sermons.
I believe that ons of the main root teachings of purity culture is that men are horny animals who live for sex and lust while women are asexual and much more “holistic” in their approach to sex. This notion is the basis for every other false/harmful belief that purity culture propagates.
Very true. Emerson Eggerichs says that sex is a man’s need that a woman does not have. The authors of Every Man’s Battle say that God did not give men that “Christian” view of sex.
Some of this article is really just downright swaying people away from the truth. There’s nothing wrong with parents being involved with the person their child wants to date especially if that’s a teenager. Even as a young adult, parents want to know who is this person my child is dating? Their opinion should matter. According to the Bible, parents should be honored, to say otherwise is to encourage young people to rebel, the Bible says many times that in a multitude of counselors there is safety. If a persons parents are Christians, they should talk to the parents about who they are dating, young people do need that wisdom and counsel to help with decision making. When we have a know it all attitude it leads to pride and also not seeing red flags when dating someone. Even grown adults need the advice of others who are in the faith when dating, there’s nothing wrong with that. So why can’t parents be trusted? I don’t like your tone or messaging in this article. Also you mentioned soul ties. Do you think they’re not real? They absolutely are a real part of sex and a huge reason why people who have sex before marriage can’t let go of people from the past and have such a hard time moving on. I and many of my friends experienced the pain and regrets that come from soul ties. I fear your teachings are well intentioned but not based on the truth. You’re misconstruing so much here. That will only hurt more of the young people that you think you’re actually helping.
Can you please point me to a bible passage that tells about soul ties that need an exorcism later? This is actually a pagan belief that isn’t in the Bible. I talked about it in a series here.
When girls grow up believing in soul ties, they have lower marital and sexual satisfaction later and lower orgasm rates, as well as a higher likelihood of marrying an abuser.
Saying that people should get counsel from others is a great thing. Telling girls that fathers should make the decision about who they should marry, or that a father can veto a girl’s decision, is not. You can listen to my podcast with Alyssa Wakefield, who basically had an arranged marriage, to talk about this.
There’s also a subtle aspect of the parents in the high control environments that espouse this stuff actually believing they are God’s voice/ the Holy Spirit in their children’s lives. It would be awesome if, life you said, parents were involved and it was an ongoing conversation with kids, etc. Please give consideration to the fact that for many teenagers/young adults in this environment, the conversation is one sided. The parent’s opinion = God’s opinion and there is no room for anything else or the teenager is “rebelling” or “not walking in wisdom.” Personally, I would trust parents who teach this stuff to make the wrong judgement call 100% of the time.
Yeah. And it’s a bit icky for parents to think their children are old enough to date but not old enough to discern, in my opinion.
Lori, you are assuming that every unmarried Christian has parents who are wise Christians. That is not true for many people. I have friends whose fathers were church leaders, but who were also abusive towards their daughters – do you imagine that these men would have made decisions in their daughters’ best interests? Of course not! They didn’t want their daughters to date or marry at all, because that would have meant losing control of them.
And parents are not the only people who can provide wise counsel. My father had died by the time I met my now-husband, and my mother is not someone whose opinion I would ever consider – she is very volatile and makes judgements based on superficial things such as looks, worldly position and whether the person concerned shares her taste in trivial matters such as home decor. But my husband and I have a number of wise, older Christian friends whose judgement we trusted – if any of them proffered advice, we took it very seriously.
Also, there is a difference between parents giving advice and guidance to young people and parents choosing their child’s partner, which is what happened in many families that were deeply influenced by purity culture. Far too many young girls were coerced into abusive, controlling marriages through this kind of teaching.
Love your work, ma’am! I’m waiting on my e-Book copy of yours, et al.’s latest to be ready for reading. If I may ask a question,
“Focus on the Family’s Brio magazine called girls “walking temptations to be used by Satan.””
I wouldn’t at all put it past any number of sources to say things like this, but I was wondering if you had a specific citation for which issue of this magazine made this statement. I tried finding a quote (which issue, which article, which author, though I’m guessing Jim Daly would have had to sign off on it on principle) but was unable to locate one. I hope it’s not too much trouble to ask. Thank you for your time!
Here is the citation: Gabrielle Pickle, “Fall Fashion 101,” Brio, 2007, and it can be seen on the Wayback Machine here.
I went and read that, and it’s disgusting even without the “walking temptation” comment. If I had been reading Brio in my teens, I’d have been afraid to get out of bed in the morning! Guys EVERYWHERE! Aaaahh!
Here’s the exact quote from that link to the Brio magazine article “These short dresses make a guy want to see more of a girl’s body, so Satan can use you as a walking temptation to make guys sin. As Christian girls, our goal should be to prevent sin, not encourage it!”
What misogyny! Imagine telling teenage boys that, “These tight-fitting Wrangler jeans (those were popular in the 1990s when I was a teenager living in rural southeast NM) make a girl want to see more of a guy’s “package”, so Satan can use you (young men) as a walking temptation to make girls sin. As Christian boys, our goal should be to prevent sin, not encourage it!”
Oh, and what about the guys on the swim team who wore Speedos? Any time I saw them at the pool, let’s just say that my teenage girl hormones went into overdrive.
Oh, and I had enough self-control not to do anything stupid. I wasn’t a Christian yet and I knew how to practice self-control.
Thank you so much!
#11 Purity culture is the sexual prosperity gospel. Stay sexually pure before marriage, and then God will give you great sex with your spouse.
#12 Thou shalt not question our teachings because that is DISRESPECTFUL and UNSUBMISSIVE. And honestly some patches of the bible are just people asking God questions… God loves questions, I have learnt. Not being able to question and test something is BAD. And unscientific.
If purity culture is the sexual prosperity gospel, then wifely submission is the marriage prosperity gospel.
“wifely submission is the marriage prosperity gospel”
Well put, but totally false. I tried to be a good, submissive wife to my ex but that didn’t work. He continued to sexually assault me while I was asleep. No matter how hard I tried to make him happy, it was never enough. That’s why he became an ex 21 years ago.
Can you expand on point 2 for people who haven’t managed to get their hands on the book yet? What type of resources are you talking about – books etc specifically about dating/relationships or just general ‘how to follow Jesus’ devotionals etc for teens?
Tim simply put I would say one does not really need the book to get the message. The point of number 2 is the fact that purity culture created a message for girls that was based on their virginity aka in case of point 2 “sexual back story” instead of a focus on Jesus. If you have read other posts around here or listened to the podcasts as they read from these harmful teachings in the books you are asking about the focus is on how girls dress and how they are the problem. When you read She Deserves Better it says Be Like Jesus LIKE EVERYWHERE. Again, dont need the book because they have layed it all out in the posts and read to you from said harmful books and writings to teens and even little 8 year old girls in the podcasts. However one should get their hands on She Deserves Better book because the data is in there and they even teach you how to read the data.
Thanks Phil. I don’t disagree with any of that but it doesn’t answer my question either. And I may be misreading your tone (text only communication with strangers is a minefield), but it struck me as a slightly aggressive response to what was essentially a request for references on a data-driven forum.
All that aside, excited about getting the book when it’s available in my country (could obviously order online but prefer to support local retailers when I can).
Tim, I have worked with guys who have done entire divorces via text. Pretty crazy. That being said I agree that text conversation can be rough without tone of voice. I will tell you this: I do tend to be a bit standoffish with the men around here because often they are trolling to inflict harm. So you may have gotten the tone thing correct…I tend to write to the men around here in a manner to keep em guessing in order to keep em honest. Then I flush em out. Literally. lol. Anyway all that said, A couple of resources that come to mind off the top of my head that come to mind is Josh Harris I kissed Dating Goodbye. However I understand he rebuked that book so you may have to look for that one used. Brio Magazine is another referenced writing periodical which was under the name Secret Keeper Girl but now goes by True Girl. Written by Dana Gresh. Those are the ones that come to mind quickly. A quick search of purity culture should certainly provide for more resources. You could also investigate purity ring which I am sure will lead you down a path. As far as comparison without She Deserves Better? Not being sarcastic here – Free resource for sure. The Bible. Sheila referenced the New Testament. I would suggest the NIV with a KJV back up for best interpretation. I admit I have never read the entire Bible but I have studied many parts of it and some quite intense. Never found a reference to where God or Jesus says your virginity matters more than your heart. Hope that helps.
I see Nessie’s already answered my original question below, so set that aside.
Re “i do tend to be a bit standoffish with the men around here” etc – none of my business really, but seeing it was addressed to me: I’m obviously not hostile to the mission of this site, but if I was then I definitely don’t think your response would have moved me to reconsider. Obviously your call how you want to engage though (and don’t feel you have to respond to this if you don’t want to).
Tim,
I’m very slowly working my way through the book (busy time of year) and the books/resources I’ve seen mentioned so far are:
I Kissed Dating Goodbye
Brio magazine
Lies Young Women Believe
Every Young Woman’s Battle
And the Bride Wore WHite
Passion and Purity
When GOd Writes Your Love Story
(The word clouds are shared right after listing these sources in the book SDB.)
Check out Secret Keeper Girl, too. I think it was twitter -honestly can’t recall where I saw it now- that had a link to an archived(?) portion which I will attempt to link in this comment.)
https://web.archive.org/web/20210126223814/https://mytruegirl.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/8GreatDates-Girl_Gab_Pullouts.pdf?utm_source=To+Love%2C+Honor+and+Vacuum&utm_campaign=04d45762d9-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_9_28_2018_10_30_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_5b44e4e8aa-04d45762d9-27349916&goal=0_5b44e4e8aa-04d45762d9-27349916&mc_cid=04d45762d9&mc_eid=ea4119462a
Speaking for myself, I don’t recall reading any of the materials while a teen in the early 90s. But I remember youth leaders and youth retreats emphasizing virginity as extremely important. It felt like that was the main objective, and any mention of prayer life, being discipled, etc. was an aside at best. Maybe it was in there more but the takeaways I had were stay pure so you don’t fail God and your parents. I didn’t grow up Fundamentalist or Baptist either.
I wonder if people were tying to find tangible, concrete ways of “proving” you were “all in” for Jesus or not because they couldn’t handle the hard questions that come with doubt and working out one’s own faith.
Thanks Nessie. I think your last paragraph might have hit the nail on the head. I had a conversation with my former pastor this week about attendance as a measure of church health. He said it was “not the best KPI but it is a KPI” – i.e. something that you may as well keep track of because it’s easy to, but a bad idea to make it the central focus.
The obsession with virginity and sexual purity generally seems a little similar to me in a funny way. You can’t easily measure or keep track of spiritual maturity, the fruit of the spirit etc, but if you make all of that subservient to one thing you can measure (i.e. not having sex) then you’ll know exactly where you stand. (All that said with heavy irony and acknowledgment that there were a whole bunch more factors at play).
As I said, I haven’t read the book yet but have heard enough of the podcast etc recently to know at least generally what the fruit of all that has been.
Re the link, it took me to the home page of Gresh’s podcast for tween girls – is that where you meant to send us?
And re the word clouds, I’m actually not that surprised by the outcome if it’s based on the books you listed there. I haven’t read any of them, but they seem to be disproportionately books focused on marriage, sex and dating so having those themes come through strongly is what you’d expect. Of course, it’s possible that most popular Christian books for girls at the time over-emphasised that theme, which is perhaps the point.
Thanks for your response anyway!
Hmm, not sure about the link…? For me, it goes to pages from “Secret Keeper Girl” which includes pgs 162-192. It looks like a devotional to me. I certainly hope it isn’t meant to be about dating as it is recommended for 8-12 year olds!
The only resources I can remotely speak to based on the list I wrote out are LYWB [I read “Lies Women Believe” and it wasn’t strictly about dating, more of a daily life discussion with a different focus per chapter, but so much was heavily focused on how my choices reflected on my (assumed) husband…] If I recall rightly- some details may be from the “bible study” discussion centered around this book- it told me that if I wasn’t dressed nicely with hair and make-up done, then I was a bad reflection on my husband and I could hinder his job, etc., if his boss saw me out in a disorderly fashion. Things of that nature. My husband would have been upset if I had spent money on make-up for daily use at that time so I would have been disresepcting his wishes had I obeyed the book instead of him, but I digress.
Enough of the parts I read felt centered around the husband I had (or apparently desperately wanted/needed) and how I appeared for his sake that I gave up on it. It wasn’t written as dating advice per se, but so many devotionals I have encountered (can’t recall specific titles) framed the life I was living for God as being mostly about being a wife and mom. I can only imagine how awful it was for single gals to read so many things geared to that end! Most female-focused resources I’ve seen *become* about dating or how we treat our husbands and kids AS our life for Jesus that it can be a difficult distinction to make.
I agree that virginity, etc., are not great KPIs but are heavily relied upon and emphasized incredibly disproportionately.
Wish I could have provided a more direct answer to your question.
Thanks for sharing that. That’s a pretty messed up perspective (‘how will this reflect on my husband?’ as a primary filter for behaviour).
My comment earlier was mostly just going off the titles you listed. Anyway, it’s been an interesting chat but I reckon we’re about at the bottom of the rabbit hole. Thanks again!
I wonder, since I believe you’ve mentioned you are outside the USA, if some websites redirect? Or can’t process it having pdf’s? I really don’t know enough about computers to say, but that idea came to mind since you said the link went to a podcast for you.
Sounds plausible at least. But I don’t know how the internet works either!
Tim, they took the pdf down. I’ll be putting up a statement on it soon.
You can find it in the wayback machine here.
Thanks Sheila. I’ll take a look later. Is this the same one you’ve talked about on the podcast that refers to ‘intoxicating bellies ‘ etc?
yes, it is!
Hello Nessie,
With regards to Every Woman’s Battle, I wrote a review of the book on Reddit, detailing all of the sick and twisted things that it teaches and why they are harmful. I thought you’d be interested in reading it. Here it is:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Exvangelical/comments/13fpmjz/is_anyone_here_familiar_with_the_book_every/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
I wonder how much of purity culture came out of a fear of parents losing face. Like, how much of this that’s been pushed as “protecting young people” was covertly coming from a fear of how people would view the parents and family if their teens got pregnant.
I grew up steeped in purity culture. Another poster called it the “sexual prosperity gospel” – if you do it this way, everything will be perfect. It has been incredibly damaging toxic teaching. For years the teaching was that feelings were evil and useless (the heart is desperately wicked above all things, your feelings are like telling time with a sundial and flashlight, etc), and I absolutely needed to erase and silence my emotions.
Of course, physical contact with the opposite sex was forbidden – I could count on a bad carpenter’s hand the number of times I had accidentally bumped into my female best friends over 11 years. I went to the movies with a group of friends and I accidentally brushed the elbow of the woman who would later become my wife. I spent the rest of the night at church crying for being a spiritual failure.
That’s so sad!! ☹️❤️☹️, and a good reminder that some of the messages aimed at girls can be absorbed by guys. Usually, less responsibility was put on the guys, but not in your case!!
Lori, your post above had some interesting points, but it also shows how something can have an OFFICIAL description that is very, very different from the REALITY of what it is.
Your basic points are good. Yes, sex is a wonderful gift from God that should have saved for marriage only. Yes, parents ought to be involved in the dating life of their underage children.
Purity Culture, however, begins with those ideas and takes them to dangerous places. We aren’t saying that the basic ideas are bad. What we ARE saying is bad and toxic are the other parts of purity culture.
That virginity is the ONLY thing of value a girl has, and if she loses it, she’s damaged goods and broken FOREVER, with no hope of healing. She can be forgiven, but the taint remains for the rest of her life.
While having sex can, and does, generate an emotional bond, the concept of soul-ties is that it’s a permanent spiritual bond that can never be broken. That is, once a girl has sex with somebody, she can never be truly happy with anybody else, ever, no matter what.
Our bodies (especially women’s and girl’s) are evil and dangerous, simply because they’re female.
Physical contact, affection and touching are always wrong and sinful, with the possible exception of inside marriage.
All sexual thoughts and feelings are sinful. If you have sexual desires, especially as a girl, you’re wickedly sinful.
Finally, while children should listen to their parents, the fact is that some are abusive and have bizarre priorities. You should not be expected to marry somebody only because your father wants you to.
There’s more, but I’m finished for now.
The comment about “ they were only taught to protect their virginity, not themselves” really hit home for me. I grew up in a Christian home. My parents have always been together, and both sets of grandparents made it to their 50th wedding anniversary. I believed God hated divorce. I married my first husband when I was almost 22. We waited to have sex, but the marriage had problems from the start, and he refused counseling. We were divorced just after our 3rd anniversary. I was now 25, divorced, no longer a virgin, and believed that God could no longer use me. I was deeply depressed. When I started dating someone seriously again, I saw no reason to wait to have sex since I was no longer a virgin and God probably didn’t care what I did anymore anyway. Thankfully, God saw me through that time. Even though I left Him, He didn’t leave me. The boyfriend I was sleeping with is now my husband. We both came back to God, we have a wonderful marriage, and we are raising our children in church, but with a different understanding than I had growing up. I am living proof that virginity does not create a good marriage, and “non-virginity” does not hinder a great marriage, either. It truly is all about what Jesus did on the cross.
A corollary to #5 is “You can’t just flip on a switch that’s been jammed into the ‘off’ position for years”. Between high school youth groups and four years at a Christian college, I believed firmly in no sex whatsoever before marriage (at least I didn’t buy into the notion that my first kiss should be at the altar), and was a virgin when I married. And no matter how much I desired my husband, my brain and body were still locked firmly into “no, I don’t do this, it’s Bad”. It took literal years, a diagnosis of vaginismus, and a very understanding husband to work past so much internalized fear and repression. Teaching adolescents, especially young women, that their feelings and desires are wrong and need to be ignored and suppressed until this one thing (marriage) happens, at which time they can and should just flip their thinking around entirely, isn’t healthy.
☹️❤️☹️!!
I hear you on vaginismus. 100% sure mine was caused by shame around sex. It’s bad! It’s wrong! Don’t do it! Well, only if you want to get pregnant! That’s all I heard growing up. How could I enjoy it without having heard even one positive thing about it before marriage?
Several things came to me while reading this post. One was a memory of how my former pastor, back in the ’80s (someone very famous, and controversial as well), said, dramatically, in a sermon one Sunday, “Kissing … will lead you … to bed.” And he had “never touched a women until he married his wife.” Well, I guess he wasn’t capable of doing so without sinning.
Second: I haven’t read all of Dannah Gresh’s “And the Bride Wore White,” but as I recall, while her husband was a virgin on their wedding night, she was not, leading me to wonder about the emphasis she places on that white dress and what it supposedly represents (not anymore, however!).
Another Lucie (I’m not the one who commented on May 8) said, “Did any authors who were so keen to extol the virtues of not dating discuss how depressing it was when you had reached your early 30s and had never kissed anyone? Or never been asked out on a date? Well, no; because all those authors got married in their early 20s and didn’t know how it felt.” I’ve seen at least one blogger (the blog has long been defunct) address this at length in thought-provoking multiple posts. It also reminded me of another online writer (possibly Anna Broadway) who noted that revealing her virgin status after “a certain age” was not only much less likely to be respected by fellow Christians, but quite likely to attract some real weirdos. I had no trouble believing her. I strongly suspect that even Christian men who what I call “toe the party line when it comes to sex” wouldn’t/don’t necessarily want a middle-aged virgin bride. I could be wronging many men there, however.
I don’t know if ‘many’ Christian men would be interested in marrying a middle-aged virgin bride but I’m not sure that really matters any more than whether or not men really prefer ‘debt free virgins without tattoos’ as the Transformed Wife’s infamous blog post argued.
As believers, we are called to live lives that are pleasing to God, not ones that increase our chances of getting a ‘good catch’ in the marriage market. Purity culture turns this on its head by making the focus on staying ‘pure’ for one’s future spouse, not for God and behaving in ways that make one more ‘marriageable’ rather than in ways that make one more like Jesus.
(And single Christian men who are walking closely with Jesus are never going to reject a woman simply for being a virgin – they will be more interested in her character and how Christlike it is. I was a middle aged virgin on my wedding night, but when we were dating, my husband was far more interested in my spiritual life in the present than my sexual past)
As someone who was a virgin into their 30’s I can confirm that I was very careful about when I disclosed this in a relationship- even with Christian men. Fetishizing virginity is creepy and I had to be careful about this.
Purity culture does not prepare women for dating in the real world and especially dating past 23.
My OH and I didn’t discuss our sexual experience (or lack of it!) until we reached the point of getting engaged. I would have felt quite uncomfortable discussing it earlier – for one thing, it’s a very intimate topic to be sharing with someone that you are NOT going to end up married to, and for another, I think that when considering marriage, your focus should be on who the potential partner is NOW, not on what they may have done in the past, which may bear no similarity at all to their current life.
This has got to be a lot healthier than announcing your sexual status to someone you barely know, so that they can check you tick the ‘virgin’ box before they start to date you. I also found the whole obsession with virginity was very one sided. When I was in my late teens and 20s, it was common for a guy to ask a girl he was interested in if she was a virgin on a first date. Yet I know female friends who asked the same question of the guys were regarded as being ‘immodest’ for asking!!!
It also seems to be super weird to put so much emphasis on something which does not really indicate spiritual quality of life at all – one girl might have lost her virginity through assault or through momentarily giving in to temptation on a single occasion in the past and now be living a very Christlike life, while another might be a virgin yet guilty of malice, spiteful gossip, lying, anger, selfishness…
Once, I knew a mom who wouldn’t come to her daughter’s wedding if she thought the couple had premarital sex. Even though I believed that premarital sex was bad, the mom’s response felt worse because it encouraged lying and didn’t honor the “making it right” that marriage would do (according to her beliefs). Now, I can add the fact that her beliefs increase the likelihood of her daughter marrying an abuser!!
I also knew a dad who wouldn’t let his daughter have even a tiny spot of non-white color on her wedding dress because others would think she wasn’t a virgin. I was mad at all the people who might think that because it wasn’t logical!!
Then, I chose a not-all-white wedding dress, even though I was a virgin, and was happy to punch stupid ideas in the face. That even helped someone with a different ethnicity realize she could wear her culture’s colors and wasn’t “required” to wear white due to being in the U.S. I win!!
The limit of premarital sex is what you wouldn’t do with a woman other than your wife even after marriage. So kissing is definitely beyond this limit. I feel that working from morning to night with the technical part of sex is a useful job for our family, but a dangerous job for you, and it comes with a lot of responsibility. It is worth paying attention, because you are touching on areas for which you may not have a mandate.
Hi Gabor. I’m interested in your first sentence. What’s your basis for that?
Sheila and gang, your books keep getting better and better! Your hearts for wisdom and truth, healing and wholeness, Jesus and His love overflow with each book you write. Thank you for paving a path toward freedom in Christ.
I grew up in the purity culture and was so afraid to even look at a boy, as I’d be sinning. College was a world of confusion because I didn’t know how to be genuine friends with the opposite gender. It wasn’t until I graduated with my master’s and God brought me a godly mentor that I learned what Jesus’ love really looked like. (I was a believer, but just completely scared and confused about life and faith.)
That freed me to walk in God’s grace and with the Holy Spirit, having a foundation of courage, love, and boundaries to guide me through life. I didn’t know this peaceful world existed before meeting my mentor.
When I started dating a guy I’d met in college and our relationship turned into commitment, I realized what I’d been taught about purity and relationships was diametrically opposed to what Jesus had created it to be. I educated myself through your books and unpacked all the fluff and fear and lies from my upbringing about what I’d been taught about romantic relationships, including sex.
My boyfriend is one of the most gentle, thoughtful, respectful, and kindest men I know. He is the opposite of what I thought being in a relationship would be like. We’ve learned and grown a lot together in our faith, beliefs, and as individuals. A pure relationship focused on Christ IS possible. It’s a challenging and beautiful journey.
Had I listened to the people in my life from the purity culture days, I would still be living in my parents’ basement bedroom, single, deathly afraid of being in a relationship, and wondering what my life was all about.
It’s been 6 years since I started that journey, and I am quite glad and thankful I’m on this side of truth and love and understanding. Ladies (and fellas), walking with God and in the light of His Spirit is a beautiful way to lead to the spouse God delights and designed for you to be with.
“But sex isn’t necessarily that great for women right off of the bat, especially if you haven’t been taught properly about sex. Many new brides found sex bewildering and disappointing, and never recovered from that.“
A man’s first intercourse with a woman, especially if he’s a virgin well into his 20s or beyond, also may not be all that great. It takes time for men to learn how to master their sexuality, especially in response to another person’s body or touch.
Purity culture fails to see sex as a mutual journey that gets better over time with mutual effort, and that harms both women and men.