Trigger warning: This article discusses purity culture and mentions both domestic violence myths and rape myths.
As a millennial who grew up in small-town East Tennessee, I know a thing or two about purity culture. Let’s just say Silver Ring Thing came to my public – yes, public– high school to lead abstinence-only sex ed seminars and encourage us to sign pledge cards.
On its surface, the motivation of purity culture isn’t terrible. Reduce the number of divorces and prevent teenage pregnancies- what could be so bad about that?
Yet all you have to do is Google “long-lasting effects of purity culture” to see an endless stream of stories and articles from trauma-recovery therapists highlighting the damage this ideology has wrought.
As someone who lived through it during the 2000s, I agree with their assessments of the damages caused by purity culture. My senior pastor may have taught that the only unforgivable sin was not accepting Jesus as Lord. Still, my youth pastor and the team of volunteer youth group leaders drilled into us that premarital sex was the most unforgivable social sin.
They taught that constantly dating and breaking up was practicing for divorce. They told us that if we had premarital sex, we were cheating on our future spouses.
Just like any conservative youth pastor worth their salt, my youth pastor had an arsenal of metaphors that described just how terrible a sin premarital sex was. His most memorable was, “Premarital sex is like mixing ice cream with manure. It won’t mess up the manure, but it sure messes up the ice cream.”
I think the “manure” was sex, and the “ice cream” was our soul, or maybe our virginity. In purity culture, though, is there a difference between your soul and your virginity?
Like other youth pastors, mine taught many other things that helped nurture me as a teen. I remember those lessons fondly. Unfortunately, the good is overshadowed by the lingering damage of purity culture teachings.
As I hear stories from other millennials about how purity culture still affects them, many say the shame it drenched them in has led to their present-day anxiety. They still feel shame about engaging in physical intimacy with their partner, even if they are married.
Constantly hearing during their teen years that they would be damned to hell for engaging in sexual activity has left them with feelings of worthlessness and self-hate and struggling to engage in healthy intimacy.
But for me, that wasn’t the worst part. As someone who was so deeply closeted, I was unaware of my own queerness, and I didn’t lust after the (grand total of 4) boys I dated from middle school through college. I dated them because we had similar hobbies, and they expressed interest in me. I reciprocated because I thought that was what was expected of me. Because I didn’t experience physical attraction for them, I just assumed I was great at Christian dating.
No, the worst part for me has been sitting with how deeply I bought into it– and how severely I judged my friends as a result.
We were taught that if we loved our friends, we should hold them accountable to purity culture teachings. Wanting desperately to be a good Christian, I obliged with fervor.
I chastised my friends for jumping from relationship to relationship, reminding them that they were “practicing” for divorce. I judged my female classmates severely if I knew they had done anything beyond kissing their boyfriends. When I discovered one of my friends was having premarital sex, I sobbed uncontrollably, begging her to stop so she wouldn’t go to hell.
My commitment to the ideology strained all my relationships, romantic and otherwise. I’m not sure I will ever be able to repent enough for how cruelly I treated some of my classmates.
Purity culture is dangerous because it doesn’t only teach us that we are broken, sinful creatures, but it also weaponizes us against our peers. I say “weaponizes” instead of “weaponized” because it’s still happening.
A 2023 study found that Christians who endorsed purity culture were more likely to believe domestic violence myths at higher rates than those who ascribed to hostile sexism, traditional sexism or traditional sex roles.
Domestic violence myths argue that it’s okay for a man to push his wife into submission through any means, violently if necessary. The justification is that if wives are to truly submit to their husbands, then they can be punished for refusing to submit.
I wonder if any of those who believe those myths are police officers called to a domestic disturbance scene.
A similar study in 2020 found that both Christian men and women who endorsed purity culture’s teachings were more likely also to believe rape myths.
Rape myths argue that rape is impossible between spouses because sex is “owed” in a marital relationship. Other rape myths include that women (married or not) “ask for it” by way of their dress, mannerisms and so on. Therefore, it can’t be rape if they “lured” a man.
I wonder if any of those who believe those myths are judges or jury members for sexual assault cases.
Two decades after the supposed heyday of this ideology, it is still wreaking havoc.
Even after now-divorced author Joshua Harris publicly apologized in the late 2010s for the harm his book “I Kissed Dating Goodbye” (a foundational purity culture reading) has done, communities around the country still teach its lessons. Case in point: I recently saw a friend from high school post on Facebook about how excited she is to start a “purity club” for the teen girls at her church.
I still hear stories of teenage girls forced to confess their “sin” of sexual activity in front of the entire congregation, while their partners, usually male, get no such public shaming. I still hear tales of youth group pastors using damaging metaphors to describe “what happens” to those teens’ spirits if they engage in premarital sex.
If we are truly made in the image of God, how can we justify speaking to God’s image that way?
As we enter this season of relentless Valentine’s Day advertising, it’s an excellent time to challenge us to ask better, healthier questions about how to build healthy romantic relationships.
What would it look like to build a Christian sexual ethic based on love instead of shame? On shared dignity instead of manipulation? On consent instead of taking what’s “owed?”
Some folks around the country are asking those questions and building beautiful communities of healing as a result. Life coaches like Erna Kim Hackett and Megan Potter help women overcome the shame of purity culture. Writer and queer contemplative Jon Carl Lewis writes about healthy queer intimacy. Nadia Bolz-Weber’s book “Shameless” and Matthias Robert’s book “Beyond Shame” discuss reclaiming sex as good in our lives.
Their work shows us that a better Christian sexual ethic is possible. The reception of their work shows us that people want and need it. If we are to truly learn what it means to honor the image of God in one another, we have to find a better way forward. How we love one another, romantically or not, depends on it.
A bivocational pastor, writer and spiritual director based in Atlanta, Georgia, she currently works as a Spiritual Director at Reclamation Theology. Cawthon-Freels is the author of Reclamation: A Queer Pastor’s Guide to Finding Spiritual Growth in the Passages Used to Harm Us (Nurturing Faith Books), and a contributing correspondent at Good Faith Media.
