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Talking Back to Purity Culture: Rediscovering Faithful Christian Sexuality?
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Talking back to purity culture has been really helpful to me, and I highly recommend it. Super gospel focused as well as hyper aware of real life and real struggles.
It's definitely a minefield and it's super hard to unpack that kind of messaging. There are some good books out there about purity culture that might be helpful for you. These are about Christianity but I'm sure there's stuff out there for other religions too.
I'm gonna apologize in advance for the rambling wall of text.
>What were some of your experiences with the purity movement if you had it? How do you view purity now? If you have children, how do you plan on handling this issue?
The church I went to in my childhood avoided trends in the evangelical world, which I'm thankful for. However, it was a legalistic church and my relatives were pretty judgmental about women becoming pregnant out of wedlock, so I wrongly (and hypocritically) equated sexually purity with penetration. I don't ever remember hearing about the heart's attitude. It was all about outward appearances. My parents weren't open about discussing sex with me or my sister, so basically my sex education came from movies/shows, my peers, and watching "The Miracle of Life" film with my family at the Epcot Center in Disney World. Honestly, it's by God's grace, that my views now on sex seem balanced. And despite all the weird stuff I believed and the lack of guidance regarding purity, I wanted to save myself for marriage. As I was entering adulthood, I still liked the idea of being a virgin on my wedding night, but because I wasn’t a Christian, I was ok with the idea of losing my virginity to someone I was in a serious relationship with. There were many issues brought up in the podcast that seemed to stem from the purity movement. I was a teenager in the midst of it, and again, maybe because my church didn’t promote the purity movement per se, I wasn’t too affected by it. The idea that being sexually abused made one sexually impure never came to mind, nor the one about being impure once you have sex on your wedding night (that’s actually the first time I ever heard of that belief!). Going to a Christian college was my only brush with the purity movement. I was excited about all the boys I would potentially date, and possibly even marry, so I would borrow “Christian dating” books from the college library. One of the books I read was “I Kissed Dating Goodbye,” and I actually thought highly of the book but at the same time I put it in the back of my mind. My attitude towards dating and relationship was weird though because I wanted to date a lot of guys, but I wanted to be picky about who I chose to call my boyfriend (and I guess that’s where I was influenced by IKDG).
“The pursuit of purity is lifelong” (quote from the podcast) is definitely how I view purity now. I look back on my days as a teenager and young adult, and I wish I were a Christian back then. I would've viewed purity more biblically, and I would’ve approached dating, relationships, and marriage from a biblical standpoint.
This was such a timely discussion. Two of my children approached me last night with some sex-related questions. The younger of the two was curious about biological sex, while the older one had a lot of different questions, some of which were about relationships. Both were good conversations, and it warmed my heart that they opened up to me. My own experience about the lack of appropriate sex education I had, what I've learned about biblical purity, plus being a foster parent have all contributed to the way I approach discussing purity, sex, and even modesty with my children. BTW, as soon as your child learns to talk, you can start teaching your child the proper names for their body parts. Other natural ways to talk about sex/purity with your children is when you're reading the Bible or even talking about current events. Something sexual is bound to be brought up.
A friend of mine has been promoting "Talking Back to Purity Culture" by Rachel Joy Welcher (who was on the show) on Instagram, so I've actually added it to my "Want to Read" list. The only purity book that I've read as a Christian that talked about purity in an all-encompassing way was Purity: A Godly Woman's Adornment by Lydia Brownback.
TLDR: I had some skewed views of purity growing up, but by the grace of God, it didn't totally mess up the way I view sex and purity now. Also, parents should be open, biblical , age-appropriate, and available to talk to their children about sex and purity. Don't wait until they're entering puberty!
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