let's talk about purity culture
I've wanted to write about this topic for a long time. Have you ever been so mind-boggled over an injustice or belief that is so blatantly false and harmful, but a huge portion of the community you know buys into it wholeheartedly? It makes your brain spin, and even though there is ample evidence against it, you can't form enough coherent thoughts to articulate why such an injustice or belief is wrong. It seems self-evident, yet needs explaining. That's me with purity culture – and many of you relate. There is also a piece of me that felt like I couldn't talk about this issue until I could handle the inevitable backlash. To be honest, I didn't know if I could ever get there. My reasons for not writing about this topic until now have less to do with my personal experiences (though they are part) and more to do with the damage that I have seen purity culture inflict on those around me. On the heels of a recent post by a pastor apologizing for singling girls out as being responsible for "modesty," I feel more empowered to speak about this issue for myself, and I hope this is just the beginning of leaders taking responsibility for these teachings.
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First, what is purity culture? Without diving into a complete history lesson on the topic (though that is available here), the purity movement reached its heights in the late 1990's and early 2000's. This was a time when purity pledges and rings were all the rage, and people like Josh Harris were writing about kissing dating goodbye. In response to the culture's changing views on sex, the evangelical church took a firm stance. Unfortunately, this stance, regardless of its original intentions, morphed into a harmful ideology that is still alive and well in evangelical circles today.
Some of the key components of purity culture include:
1. Girls and women are responsible for dressing "modestly" in order to prevent their brothers from "stumbling" (Romans 14:21).
These regulations can be anything from no bikinis and fingertip-length shorts to no skin showing below the neck and ankle-length skirts. If the way you dress influences your male friend to have lustful thoughts, you are at least partially responsible, though many believe that you are almost entirely responsible.
2. Staying "pure" until marriage is an absolute must and if you slip-up, you are less-wanted.
Purity is often illustrated through metaphors using a candy bar or a bottle of water. In the case of the candy bar, every time you do something physical with a person (e.g., hold hands, kiss, hug, – even these "little things"), you as the candy bar become more and more tattered. If you do something real major, you might lose a piece of the candy bar. The punchline to this metaphor is – who would want this?
There is little to no redemption offered to those who make mistakes in this area. Though we all sin in a variety of ways, this type of sin is segmented by many faith traditions as being worse and leaving a permanent mark on our lives. In many circles, there is little to no distinction between sexual acts and sexual assault, leading victims to live in shame for something that wasn't their fault. This situation is further exacerbated by the lack of accountability and responsibility in churches when a person in leadership assaults someone. In many instances, the victim is questioned as to what she was wearing and what she might have done to bring the assault upon herself.
3. Boys are visual and can't really help themselves; girls are emotional and need to guard their hearts.
These are hard lines. Because of them, girls need to focus on covering themselves up and not becoming emotionally attached to any guy. They are also responsible in marriage to never say "no," because that would be sinful. (If you are also disgusted, good, thank you.) In many circles, adultery and/or porn addiction is seen as almost inevitable for husbands. To guard against these things, wives are responsible for making sure all those needs are met so that their husbands won't go looking elsewhere. In other words, wives are partially responsible if their husbands cheat. Guys are taught that as long as they live, they will wage war against lust. At the same time, they are also taught that this is just the way they are and it's not really within their control.
dismantling purity culture.
Reading the above sections, it baffles me that an explanation of why these things are wrong and not biblical is warranted, but here we go.
modesty. First and foremost, let's acknowledge that the modesty argument is based on a verse that is taken out of context. In Romans 14:21, Paul is talking about not putting a stumbling block in the way of a new believer by eating food sacrificed to idols. In essence, this verse doesn't mean what we think it means. You can read more about the context here. What Jesus and some of the New Testament writers do emphasize, however, is the posture of the heart. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus gave example after example of how our behaviors originate from our hearts. Ironically, another verse often pulled in the modesty argument is 1 Timothy 2:9: "I also want the women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, adorning themselves, not with elaborate hairstyles or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God." Purity culture loves this verse, because the word modesty is right there! But this verse is yet again referring to the heart. Braids and jewelry are not sinful, but wearing them to show off, flaunt your wealth, or purely to bring attention to yourself is not the spirit we should posses. This verse has very little (if at all) to do with lust, and everything to do with humility instead of boasting.
Ladies, should we be concerned with covering ourselves up? I'll leave that up to you to decide for yourself. I can't tell you what your intentions are or what is in your heart – no one can. If they have an issue with what you're wearing, they can look away. Because when it comes down to it, you should not have to look at yourself as a sexual object every day in order to decide what is appropriate to wear. That is wrong. It is a lie that by objectifying yourself, you can prevent someone else from objectifying you.
What this boils down to is yet another instance where man has made a list of extra rules in order to help us follow the "real" rules. Have we learned nothing from the Pharisees? Dress codes are not what it's about. We can't dress code the lust out of someone. It is a choice, not an involuntary response. It is the conscious decision to objectify someone for one's own gratification, and both males and females are capable of this. Let's be clear: attraction is normal and not sinful. In fact, the more we try to squash the part of ourselves that finds others attractive, the more damaged we become. How can we expect to have healthy marriages when we've spend 20+ years telling ourselves that it is wrong to find someone attractive? What is sinful is imagining how we can use another person for our personal gain. If you can't control those thoughts, the object of your lust is not the problem.
Regardless of modesty's place in our lives in the sense of how much we should cover up, many in older generations are tone deaf in their response to our concerns. They often respond with things like, "Well, it's still important to dress modestly" or "This generation just wants to do whatever they want." If that's you, you haven't been listening. Seek to understand and truly empathize. We need it. And let's not forget the personal responsibility emphasized in Matthew 5:27-30, which, interestingly, is in the section that talks about lust.
purity. Can we acknowledge the huge discrepancy in our semantics concerning purity? I can't think of a time when I heard purity used to talk about abstaining from sin in general. It is almost always used to talk about waiting until marriage. That practice sends several problematic messages. For one, referring to abstaining from this particular sin as "purity" makes it seem like our salvation hangs on this one area of our lives – as if messing up means we are worth less and are no longer pure. Yet Jesus has covered all of our sin – His work on the cross makes us pure. Before you attack, what am I saying here? "Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means!" (Romans 6:1-2). But those who are in Christ are not called to live in shame (Romans 8:1). Two, the phrase often used is "remaining pure until marriage." It sends the message that "purity" doesn't matter after marriage. Three, if someone is not "pure" when they get married, that means they are contaminated. Again, there is little to no redemption offered for these people within church.
Purity in Christian life is about so much more. Katie Emmerson does a beautiful job of talking about this here, and I encourage you to hear what she has to say before reading further.
While you're at it, watch Matt Chandler's talk about another example he heard used once comparing "purity" to a rose.
visual vs. emotional. Are we ready to dismiss this myth? Girls aren't allowed to be visual because that's what guys are supposed to be, all the while guys hide their emotions and deny needing help because 'emotions are for girls.' We are people. And while there might be trends within genders, they are not hard rules. We are more similar than we'd like to think. We think that "reality" confirms our assumptions, but that's only because our cultural influence has forced people who go against the status-quo into silence. Once again, I'll hand it over to Katie Emmerson to explain this struggle:
it's time to call out and reject these false teachings.
We like to blame the "world" for the state of our society, but can't we take responsibility for what we've caused? In an excellent article on the topic, Sheila Gregoire wrote, "Of course, the secular world has its scandals, too, and lust was not invented by evangelicals. But in academia, government, business and journalism, the rhetoric promotes empowering and respecting women. In evangelicalism, the rhetoric in our bestsellers promotes women as methadone. Yes, Harvey Weinsteins and Jeffrey Epsteins still proliferate, and we’ll likely always have frat boys leering at women on the street. But those frat boys will hear in their college classes and later in their human resource meetings that objectification is wrong. In their churches and at their men’s ministry retreats, though, they will be told objectification is just a natural, unavoidable part of being male." You can read the full article here.
It's time to kiss purity culture goodbye. Or wave it goodbye, in the spirit of the culture.
When I write these things, I often think about the audience that will read it. Usually, it's to the people who need to hear it – in this case, the people who have been hurt by purity culture. I don't set out with the purpose of changing anyone's mind because I don't know that I have that power. If anything, I want to make people think. But let me say this to those who believe in purity culture: We are an entire generation of people saying, "These teachings really hurt us and aren't even biblical. They have damaged our view of ourselves and healthy sexuality, and they have severely impacted our ability to have a healthy marriage." In response, please don't argue with us and dismiss our hurt as wanting to live in sin. We love Jesus and want to live in a way that honors Him. It's hard to do that when we are part of churches and communities that exclude us if our shorts aren't long enough or if our past choices aren't pure. We also can't 'just forget' what was ingrained in us. We were too young and impressionable to just ditch the bad stuff because we were taught that it was good.
There aren't any buts about this conversation. It is wrong to put the burden of responsibility on women to make sure men don't lust. It is wrong to assume lust is a male issue. It is wrong to force us to abide by dress codes that only exacerbate the problem and make more room for abuse and objectification to take place. It is wrong to blame women for sexual assault, and it is wrong to insinuate the assault could be her fault. It is also wrong to not hold her abuser accountable if they are in church leadership in order to "protect" the church. It is wrong to elevate sex before marriage as a greater-than-all-else sin. It is wrong to dehumanize girls by comparing their mistakes to being an unwanted candy bar or a contaminated glass of water or a withered rose. It is wrong to deny that we are all a mix of visual and emotional. Not only are all of these things wrong, they are harmful, and they have lasting consequences.
Purity culture began as a way of protection from the consequences of living outside of God's design. But the harsh reality is that it has caused so much damage and hurt to countless people. We were brought up having it drilled into our heads that our actions have consequences, especially in this area. We got it. But now we're asking you – the teachers and believers of these ideas – to acknowledge the consequences of your actions regardless of your original intentions. We aren't asking for an apology, though if you've got one, we're here. We are simply asking that you listen and do better and stop spreading these lies and shame-filled beliefs
Romans 13:10.
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