Week 2: This Way

“It didn’t have to be this way.” 

That is the thought that echoes through my mind more than any other when I think about the ways purity culture has impacted my life, particularly as I wrestle with the emotions choosing to be single for a year brings up. 

My early experiences with sexuality did not have to be shrouded in guilt and shame. Normal developmental phases should not have resulted in fears I was being possessed by a demon. I should not have believed the objectification of my pubescent body by adult men was the inevitable outcome of being a woman who showed her collarbone. Someone should have told me that a man’s failure to honor my “no” had nothing to do with my decision to be alone with him.  

I have other grievances against purity culture, including the way it caused me to spend the first three days of my first relationship fighting off an anxiety attack because dating someone felt like it could drop my already “damaged” worth even lower, but I’ll spare you those thoughts for the moment. Today, the point I want to make is this: purity culture does more damage to people’s lives than consensual, premarital sex ever has or ever will. 

For the devout who engage in “sexual” activities before marriage, there is often an emergence of shame and fear as a result of being socialized and instilled with the values of purity culture. This is especially true for women, although men are also harmed by purity culture. Some even feel guilt over kissing prior to marriage.

For those who wait until marriage, the sexual prosperity gospel they have clung so tightly to does not often come to quick fruition. Sexual shame, pain, and legitimate medical and psychological conditions manifest in very real and harmful ways. 

For those who are working class or plus-size or queer or BIPOC individuals or survivors of sexual assault or people of disability, the effects of purity culture are increasingly painful and complex. Why? Because it was built to preserve the power of the powerful, enforce shame, and demand assimilation to a white, heterosexual, cis, upper-class, masculine narrative. In short, purity culture was built on the foundation of privilege.  

And for all those who just exist in it, the amount of time and energy spent on discerning if an action  is “pure” or not is all-consuming. The forced separation of oneself from an inherently tempting and damned flesh that cannot be trusted leads to body image issues, distrust of the self, dissociation, and so much more that, I would humbly argue, does anything but bring about heaven on earth. 

If the Church is going to better serve people - if it is truly going to have an open table - then the Church has to change their ideology around sexuality. We cannot keep going on like this. We cannot keep hurting people in the name of God. We cannot keep framing sex within the context of marriage that subsequently leads to the birth of children as one of the top tier rewards for faithfulness. We cannot keep preaching  “God called all that they had made good” without acknowledging that that goodness includes our bodies and our desires. We cannot keep excluding people from God’s love because we’ve hinged our theology on passages that were poorly translated and filled with bias and agenda. We cannot keep acting like sexual ethics are a one-size-fits-all contract. We cannot keep letting my story and the stories of so many others I know be the norm because, to put it bluntly, the Church never shows God’s love in them and, for an institution that generally hinges on a promise of unconditional love, that’s pretty hypocritical. 

Because y’all:

It doesn’t have to be this way.