Critiquing the Purity Culture

Last updated on: August 10, 2012 at 12:26 am by Libby Anne

Critiquing the Purity Culture 2012-08-10T00:26:18-04:00 Libby Anne

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

When I wrote about the purity culture and sexual dysfunction last week, I had no idea how many chords that simple post would touch. I had no idea how much attention it would get. Only fifteen hours after I posted it, it had more page views than any other post I have ever posted. Not more than any other post had after fifteen hours, more than any other post had total. Today, it has more than twice as many page views than any other post. To be perfectly honest, this attention surprised me. Perhaps it is simply because so few people in my position are willing to be so vulnerably honest about how the Purity Culture affected them.

I’ve thought more since about what I wrote, and I’ve had some additional thoughts. Have you ever heard the phrase “don’t waken love”?
That’s a phrase used in the purity culture, and the idea is that you shouldn’t awaken sexual feelings or desires until you are at the point of marriage. Killing your sexual impulses and thoughts they way I did, becoming essentially asexual, is the goal of the purity culture, and in that sense my story is a purity culture success story, not a cautionary tale. For the purity culture, the only problem with my story was the trouble I had shifting from being asexual to becoming an actual sexual agent. In fact, I read a post by another blogger saying just this – that my post reveals that more attention needs to be paid in the transition from saying “no, no, no” to saying “yes, yes, yes.” I do think that this is absolutely part of the problem, and is absolutely something that should be addressed. That transition is hard for a lot of young adults raised in the purity culture, and it is absolutely something the purity culture needs to find a way to better deal with. But. This really isn’t the core of my critique.

The transition from asexual to active sexual agent was extremely difficult, but in my opinion the main problem was not this transition but rather the way I was taught to approach my sexuality in the first place. I was taught to strangle it. Many of my readers said they weren’t as good at stifling their sexual desires and thoughts as I was, and as a result rather than dealing with a complete dearth of sexual impulses they dealt with a great load of guilt as they matured. This really is just the other side of the coin – you either smother your sexuality or you suffer endless guilt. Why? Because you’re taught that any sexual thought, fantasy, or action before marriage, regardless how small, is sin.

I don’t have any problem with people waiting to have sex until marriage. I don’t have any problem with people having sex before marriage. Honestly, I don’t care when people do or don’t have sex. But when young people are taught that their blooming sexuality is somehow sinful, and as a result either smother their sexuality or grow up under loads of guilt, that I do have a problem with. I also have a problem with young people having information about sex withheld from them, or being lied to about birth control or STDs.

The reality is that humans become sexually mature in their mid teens, long before the average age of marriage in the United States. “Not wakening love” does not take this into account. In order to “not waken love” in a teenager going through puberty and achieving sexual maturity, that teen has to smother his or her developing sexuality. I’m not saying that sexual maturity means that someone must have sex, but rather that at sexual maturity your sexuality becomes a natural part of you as an individual. You can suppress it, you can feel guilty because of it, but that doesn’t change the biological reality.

The purity culture is therefore working against a biological reality. One solution for the purity culture is the one it’s following now: urging its young people to either suppress their sexuality or suffer loads of guilt. I don’t like this solution. Another solution for the purity culture might be to move the age of marriage up to fifteen or seventeen, but given the way our society is set up, that makes little sense. I don’t like this solution either. A final solution for the purity culture is to change the way sexuality before marriage is approached. Understanding sexuality as a natural part of being a sexually mature human being does not necessarily mean having sex in one’s teens or having sex before marriage.

I have a daughter. For me, this discussion is not theoretical. I don’t have any interest in when my daughter starts having sex: if she wants to wait until marriage, fine; if she wants to have sex when she’s in high school, fine. My interest is different: I want my daughter (a) to embrace her sexuality as a natural part of herself, (b) to make her own choices without pressure or expectation, and (c) to have the information she needs to make informed and responsible choices.

(a) I don’t want my daughter to feel shame over her developing sexuality, and I will do my best to help her see the changes she goes through, and the new desires she experiences, as natural. At the same time, I will teach her that her sexuality is only one part of her, and that her value lies within herself, in her talents, interests, and desires, not in her sexuality. I intend to teach her that embracing her sexuality is not synonymous with having sex. In sum, I hope to teach my daughter that her developing sexual desires, feelings, and thoughts are natural and okay, but also that her sexuality does not define her.

(b) I don’t want my daughter to decide to have sex or to not have sex based on what some man, whether pastor, father, or boyfriend, tells her. I want her to make her own choices. I want her to wait until she’s ready for sex, and not give in to pressure to have sex before she feels she’s ready. At the same time, when she decides she’s ready I don’t want anyone to stand in her way. I want her to make her own decisions, not to simply acquiesce to other people making decisions about her life and her sexuality.

(c) But of course, my daughter won’t be able to make responsible and informed decisions unless she has access to information about sex, health, and birth control. I will make sure that she has access to that information. I didn’t know what sexual parts I had until I was twenty (I’m not kidding), and I don’t want her to be in the same situation. I want her to understand her body, understand the risks of sex, and understand the various forms of birth control and protection. I want her to understand the arguments of free love advocates and the arguments of those who advocate waiting until marriage. And with that information, I hope to enable her to make informed and responsible decisions for herself.

My point here is that I really don’t care when people start having sex. If someone decides it means something to them to wait until marriage, fine. Honestly, when people start having sex is not anyone’s business but theirs. What I care about is that young people approach their sexuality with understanding rather than guilt, that young people are allowed to make their own choices, and that young people have access to the information needed to make responsible decisions.

The thing is, I didn’t have any of this. None. I was taught to see any sexual thought in my teens as sin and perverted, I was told what my decision would be rather than allowed to really honestly decide things for myself, and I was not given accurate information, or really information at all, about sex, health, or birth control. It is this, not the difficulty of the transition from being essentially asexual to being an active sexual agent, that I see as the main problem with the purity culture.

So I’m glad that some in the purity culture have seen merit to my point about the difficulty of the transition from saying “no” to saying “yes,” but I think there’s a lot more that they need to think about and address than just that. You see, if the only issue were going from saying “no, I don’t want to have sex today” to “yes, I want to have sex today,” that wouldn’t be a problem, because everyone who ever has sex has to make that transition. While I think it’s good for the Purity Culture to address the transition from no to yes, when it does so it’s only dealing with a symptom of the problem, not the problem itself.

You see, the reason this transition was so difficult for me was because of the points outlined above: How was I to go from seeing my sexuality as sinful and something to be avoided to seeing it as a beautiful and natural part of my life? How was I to go from passively accepting what I was told about sex to being an active sexual being? How was I to have sex at all given that I’d been kept so ignorant that I didn’t even understand the basic mechanics of sex, let alone issues of sexual health? The problem isn’t moving from saying “no” to saying “yes” and it isn’t deciding to wait until marriage to have sex. The problem is being taught to see your adolescent sexuality as sinful, never being allowed to make your own decisions or be an active agent, and having only misinformation and ignorance about sex. And so you see, when you get down to it, the problem is really honestly truly not about wanting to wait until marriage. It’s all the baggage that the Purity Culture strings along with that.

Previous Post

November 8, 2011

Michael Pearl Gets More Attention

Next Post

November 10, 2011 Christianity, Sin, and Thought Crime

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Atheism Evangelicalism/Fundamentalism Family Feminism Homeschool Meta Parenting Patriarchy Politics Purity Quiverfull Social Justice Uncategorized Worthwhile reads

Select a Month February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What does "Melchizedek" mean in Hebrew?

Select your answer to see how you score.

God's Anointed King of Righteousness Servant of the Most High Priest of the Lord