Purity Culture Recovery
TUNE IN: APPLE PODCASTS I SPOTIFY I STITCHER
When I became a Christ-follower at thirty-one-years-old, I was taught to be sexually abstinent outside of marriage. It was a good, biblically correct teaching that bore nothing but good fruit in my life. It gave me a break from the crazy cycle of serial dating I’d experienced in the world.
During this time, God brought me closer to him and helped me heal from the consequences of my previous dating decisions.
Being a woman of sexual integrity, not just believing in God but following his biblical teaching on purity, boosted my sense of self-worth.
Over a decade later, some parents and their young adult children began speaking out against our church’s teachings on dating and relationships with the opposite sex inside and outside the church. Many of these children started to leave, not just our church, but sadly, many questioned their faith in God. Their experience with church had left a bad taste in their mouths for God.
What had gone wrong? How did such a good-intentioned biblical practice that had borne such good fruit in my life become such a point of contention for others?
Joe and I were abstinent through two years of dating. This picture is from our wedding day taken minutes after our first kiss. Photo: Benvil Photography
Joining me for Episode 16 of The All Gifts Podcast is Dr. Camden Morgante, a licensed psychologist and college professor of psychology who writes and speaks on a range of topics centering around relationships, sexuality, marriage and singleness, women’s issues, and mental health. Through her research and writing, I was introduced to the term Purity Culture, her area of expertise.
According to Dr. Camden in her award-winning article, 5 Purity Culture Myths, Purity Culture is the evangelical Christian movement to teach abstinence until marriage. Our church never referred to us as evangelical, but we taught abstinence until marriage. I appreciate that teaching and I believe the people who taught it had good, well-intentioned hearts.
Yet people were hurt by the execution.
This came as a great surprise to me but as I listened to the young adults who grew up in our church explain how it made them feel, it made sense. The direction they were given was tinged with worry, based in fear, and left them feeling ashamed. One young man I mentioned this podcast to told me it was especially hard for the female teenagers who came away feeling that they were somehow responsible for their “brother’s lust.”
Again, the intention was to love and protect these teenagers but unfortunately there were unintended consequences.
I’m no expert on this topic but when our church went through this season, I asked my young adult son about his experience. He said he was aware that his peers felt shame and now viewed the teaching around the opposite sex as damaging, abusive even.
But he said it hadn’t affected him in the same way because my husband and I had taught him differently. We taught abstinence not by didactic teaching but by our example, honoring God and living life grateful and open about the ways He’d protected this area of our lives. We welcomed dating and normalized friendships with the opposite sex.
We weren’t perfect. We were quite awkward at times, but we never made him feel like there was something wrong with him or with attraction.
On the other hand, I knew many parents who outsourced discussing sensitive topics with their kids to the church. Unsure how to adequately address sexuality with their kids, they left it in the hands of youth leaders to do it for them. And those good intentioned leaders, who’d yet to even have teenagers of their own, did the best they could.
This experience with our church impressed upon me the importance of considering my words and the impact I have on others. What a tremendous responsibility it is to teach biblical concepts to one another. The last thing any of us would want is to hurt the faith of another. And yet, we are mere, fallible humans.
If you or someone you love has been affected by purity culture, check out Dr. Camden’s website and the resources she to help other people find the gifts in sexual abstinence without shame or fear.
