In middle school, I was a very active member of my church’s youth group. I went on the mission trips, participated in the confirmation program, and even attended my fair share of church camp weekend getaways. I was very lucky that my youth pastor wasn’t the type to bring out the chocolate bars and tell us that if we “break off all our chocolate before marriage we wouldn’t have any left to give to our husbands.” But every so often, the girls and guys would separate into small groups, and this is where our talks about “purity” would occur. The female small group leader, a college intern with no professional experience in ministry, would lead all the middle school girls into a small back room of the youth center and discuss the intersections between femininity and Christianity. Now, if you are familiar with scripture, you’ll know that there isn’t a particularly progressive representation of women in the Bible. In fact, women only speak roughly 1.1% of the book’s entirety, so the sermons we were taught often pertained to how women should interact with men. Enter talks about purity….
Almost without fail, the group leader would begin these lessons with, “I have made mistakes with my relationships in the past. I gave in to the temptations, but you shouldn’t make the same mistakes.” They were vague blanketed statements that never explicitly stated what was and wasn’t giving into “lust.” I’ll always remember the day one girl asked, what many were thinking, “Does God think it’s wrong if I kiss someone?” Her face was slightly pink as if she had kissed her middle school boyfriend the weekend before and felt as though one small peck on the lips would send her straight to the fiery pits of damnation. Instead of laughing the question off or giving the poor girl some reassurance that “no, kissing is not against God’s will,” the group leader soberly replied, “You need to be careful because with the wrong intention, even kissing can be sinful.” Looking back, this answer was absolutely absurd. Are we really expecting girls to wait until their wedding night to have a first kiss? Yet, for many Christian women, especially in the South, sexual purity plays a large role in how you prove your devotion to God.
Say it with me gals: My virginity does not equal my worth.
“It’s a precious gift, and it can only be given once.” “Don’t ruin yourself before marriage.” “She’s damaged goods.” Let me make this very clear. There is nothing wrong with saving yourself for marriage. Just as you can choose to be sexually active, you can also choose to abstain. Individual choice is not toxic; shaming women into purity is. So, let’s talk about Purity Culture. In the 1990s, an abstinence movement emerged from the fringes of evangelical culture because of the writings of 21-year-old pastor Joshua Harris. His book entitled I Kissed Dating Goodbye became the foundation of youth sermons on dating, sex, and marriage nationwide. It paints the road to a lifelong soulmate as something simple and attainable. The book implies that dating’s only purpose is to find a husband, and if you are not ready for the long-term commitment, you should avoid it to focus on your walk with God. This mindset doesn’t account for the fact that love and sex aren’t “a one size fits all narrative.” Women who have grown up with this ideology are often not taught about their own sexual autonomy. As a result, they can possibly run into traumatic experiences when they finally do explore the more intimate parts of a relationship. Without being taught proper consent, women are more likely to suffer from guilt regarding sexual assault rather than recognizing that they are the victim.
Perhaps if the rhetoric about sex in this country shifted to a more open dialogue, women would feel more comfortable with their own sexuality. The issue, however, is that there is profit in the cult of virginity. Purity rings, guides to the “perfect Christian relationship,” father-daughter purity balls, and Christian content creators all benefit from this toxic shaming of sexual expression. While one might argue that this ideology is only reflected in evangelical circles, abstinence-only education has become commonplace for many sex education curriculums across the nation. In the United States, only 29 states mandate sex education, with just 15 of the 29 requiring the information to be medically accurate. On top of this, only 9 states include an LGBTQ+ inclusive curriculum. There is no doubt that students, even at the secondary education level, will be having sex, and it is a failure on our country’s part for not properly preparing them for a completely healthy and natural experience.