By Esther Taylor (she/her)
Content warning: mention of sexual assault
Parting with purity culture is a tough break up to go through. Like an abusive ex that has left scars and wounds, which at times still hurt, resurface, or bleed if they get knocked. For many, "purity culture" wasn't and isn't just something you stumbled upon or dabbled in. It was an all-encompassing worldview, saturated in patriarchal religious ideology. This piece will explore the context, the impacts and the implications that purity culture has had on the many other young people globally who have survived this movement, myself included.
For those who didn’t grow up within the evangelical church, here is a brief summary of the purity movement. This movement started in the 1990s, through to the early 2000s, where the American Evangelical church adopted what we now call ‘purity culture’. This was held to strict rules and codes around how to remain physically, emotionally and spiritually ‘pure’, which placed much of the onus on women (Pikel, 2018). It is important to note here is that this standard only applied to white, heterosexual, middle-class people.
Jessica Valenti described it best in her book, Pure, "The desirable virgin is sexy but not sexual. She's young, white, and skinny. She's a cheerleader, a babysitter; she's accessible and eager to please (remember those ethics of passivity!). She's never a woman of colour. She's never a low-income girl or a fat girl. She's never disabled" (Valenti, 2009).
The purity culture movement was developed out of patriarchal, ableist, heteronormative, homophobic and transphobic ideologies, making it exclusive and portraying the ideal as white, straight, cis and middle class.
The movement quickly picked up speed and velocity when Joshua Harris released his best-selling book in 1997, I Kissed Dating Goodbye, which was widely adopted as "best practice" for dating as Christians. It outlined practical yet unachievable standards for living a ‘pure’ life. This included not holding hands, refraining from kissing, abstinence from all sexual conduct and avoiding developing feelings for the opposite sex, unless there was an intent of marriage. Both America and Australia started to adopt traditions and ‘celebrations’ of their girls’ virginity, and the promise of saving their virginity until marriage. These ‘celebrations’ included purity balls where girls would promise their purity to their fathers until they were to marry. Purity rings acted as reminders of the vow one has made to God and their future husbands.
Along with these ‘celebrations’, written pledges and commitments to God were created, promising obedience to remaining pure till their wedding night (Paul, 2014). The main expectation for women is that they stay under the authority of their father until they trade it for the authority of their husband (Ingersoll, 2019). For many of us, growing up within this movement meant that we believed that consequences of disobedience and committing sexual sin meant that we would be unable to form strong and stable bonds within heterosexual marriage. It reinforced that we would ultimately end up unhappily married and divorced. It also put us at a more dire risk of further sinning, and separation from family, church and God.
I was born in 1992 into an evangelical Baptist family. My dad, a Baptist pastor, and my mother, a pretty typical pastor’s wife. I was submerged into purity culture from the day I was born. As early as grade two or three, I could be heard singing the well-known DC Talk lyrics on my way to school, belting out.
"Yo, S-E-X is a test when I'm pressed
So back off with less of that zest
Impress this brother with a life of virtue (life of virtue)
The innocence that's spent is gonna hurt you (gonna hurt you)
Safe is the way they say to play (safe to play)
But then again, safe ain't safe at all today (all today)
So just wait for the mate that's straight from God (straight from God)
Don't give it up 'til you tie the knot
Wait for me."
Purity culture was in every part of my upbringing and was exacerbated once we started homeschooling, and my entire world was within the evangelical church. I had no way of comparing my world to that of others. I went on youth camps where we regularly committed/recommitted ourselves to a life of purity. I received my purity ring on my 13th birthday and worked hard to protect my heart by only engaging with Christian music, literature, movies and friends. I remember being at a friend’s place and watching My Big Fat Greek wedding. I knew this movie was my parent’s favourite and I knew that I couldn't watch it. Once my parents found I had watched the movie, they explained that it wasn't normal or okay to have sex outside of marriage (as the main characters did within the film). Comments like these solidified the idea that my purity was of the utmost importance. That without it, I would have nothing to offer my potential partner. My parent's church planted (started their own church) where a community was everything. They strived to create the perfect environment, which was a reflection of their values and beliefs. While their intent was nothing but good, the ramifications for growing up in a strictly curated reality meant that meeting the secular world as an adult threw me into a spin.
As someone who survived the purity culture movement, it has become apparent that the impacts are far and wide. Many other survivors have reported the psychological, physical, emotional and spiritual damage that occurred due to the teachings of shame around sex and sexuality (Ingersoll, 2019). Purity culture encourages and promotes binary and unattainable gender roles and purity requirements, extending further than abstaining from sex but that the very thoughts of sex risks eternal damnation (Ingersoll, 2019). The fear of hell has created deep wounds of shame and fear in many survivors. Linda Kay Klein, a survivor and author on the purity movement, reported the following:
"The first stumbling block for those raised as girls in the purity movement must overcome the message that if you are suffering, it's your fault: It may be your sin; it may be your psychosis, but it is certainly not the shaming system you find yourself in. When taken to heart, this message can make us miss—or, when we do see it, dismiss—our suffering, until one day, it's too late" (2018).
This messaging goes deeper than sex and sexuality, but attacks the very definition of how people raised girls, and how girls see and value themselves, defining and setting unrealistic expectations. Purity culture did more than damage my relationship with sex and sexuality. It eroded and attempted to recreate a narrative about myself that has taken years to deconstruct and reconstruct. Researcher Elizabeth Gish reports:
"For adolescent girls, failure to 'succeed' at sexual purity is constructed as a failure of obedience and submission. Then the ideal girl is under the rule of father, church, and nation-state, actively preparing for heterosexual marriage. This profoundly affects how adolescent girls are understood and the possibilities available to teenage girls for subject formation and self-understanding” (2018).
Klein goes so far as to say that purity culture for her was never about sex, but rather about women, "who we are, who we are expected to be, and who we will become if we fail to meet those expectations" (2018).
At 28, I am still unpacking deep-seated beliefs about myself concerning sex and sexuality. This is a painful journey, one where I have cried many tears from feeling broken and damaged. I remember apologising to my now husband about my sexual assault and me not being pure anymore, internally hoping I wasn't innately too broken for him.
The implications of purity culture have several adverse outcomes, particularly for women. These include people believing that they are fallen, broken and sinful for experiencing typical sexual desires. I still struggle with thoughts about my body and have to challenge ideas that it has only two purposes: that it can be used as a weapon against men, or it can be a stumbling block for men. I found that years of hating my breasts and trying to make myself smaller made me feel dissociated from my body.
Other implications of the purity culture movement included the total lack of sexual education around safe sex. Within purity culture, there is a lack of accessibility to contraception. The often crippling fear and shame prevent young people from using contraception (as it could be seen as premeditation to sinning in the future). Research has shown that women are more likely to experience negative physical symptoms (anxiety, depression) from the manifestation of shame and fear experienced and more likely to expect that sex will leave them feeling guilty.
While the evangelical church exacerbates messages of purity and the importance of virginity, it is merely a mirror to the rest of society. Women have been taught two competing messages about getting love and being a desirable life partner. One being the promise of happiness and a fulfilling marriage if you stay pure until your wedding day, and the other promising love if a man finds you sexy enough, sexual enough, willing to put out enough. Both are toxic, both grounded in patriarchal ideologies and both causing damage to women. Let's stop telling women who they should be, or how to behave, or what they should wear to be desired by men. Instead, let's promote self-confidence, self-belief and an ability to advocate for themselves. Let us teach our girls that they are perfect just the way they are, and there is no pressure to have sex or abstain from sex. Let's teach them the joys and wonder of female sexuality and female pleasure. Let us remind them that who they are is more than enough for this world, and they require respect, love and sexual satisfaction.
SOURCES:
Gish, E. (2018). ARE YOU A ‘TRASHABLE’ STYROFOAM CUP?”Harm and Damage Rhetoric in the Contemporary American . Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, 5-22.
Hong, A. (2021, March 28). The Flaw at the Center of Purity Culture The rules don’t apply equally to everyone. Retrieved from The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/03/purity-culture-evangelical-church-harms-women/618438/
Ingersoll, J. (2019, December 11). How the ‘extreme abstinence’ of the purity movement created a sense of shame in evangelical women. Retrieved from The conversation : https://theconversation.com/how-the-extreme-abstinence-of-the-purity-movement-created-a-sense-of-shame-in-evangelical-women-127589
Klein, L. K. (2018). Pure: Inside the Evangelical Movement That Shamed a Generation of Young Women and How I Broke Free . Atria Books.
Paul, A. (2014). The Negative Implications of the Purity Movement on Young Women. The Review: A Journal of Undergraduate Student Research, 9-18.
Pikel, A. (2018). Framed by Sexuality: An Examination of Identity-Messages in “Purity Culture” Reflections . Electronic Theses and Dissertations.
Valenti, J. (2009). The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women. CA: Seal Press.