While there are a lot of problems that stem from the purity movement, and the resulting purity paradigm, I want to start with a more basic issue. This is a problem that has particularly impacted females, although males have played a role as well, and I would love to hear feedback from both sides. In following with the purpose of this project, I will only give a very brief introduction to this first issue that I want to discuss. I could say so much more, but I want to leave room for others to talk! So, here it is…
We have a tendency to unintentionally communicate the idea that sex is dirty. It is crucial to understand that our sexual nature is not a mistake. It is part of the way that God created us [on purpose!]. To talk with our teenagers as if sex is something nasty or even just uncomfortable to talk about brazenly disrespects one of God’s very good parts of his good creation, and I believe that is what the purity movement’s well-intentioned, but damaging emphasis on purity has done.
In her book, Faithful: A Theology of Sex, Beth Felker Jones says, “In this paradigm, sexual purity turns the body into a commodity.” The purity movement put an emphasis on virginity as a most valuable possession. The terms “purity” and “virginity” seem to have become nearly synonymous; if you “lost your virginity,” you “lost your purity,” and neither was something you could recover. Virginity was a commodity to be clung to, and once you lost it, you could never get it back. Sure, there is truth to this — once someone has sex for the first time, they technically can never get their virginity back. The problem here is that the emphasis is being placed so strongly on the value that purity carries, and that value transfers to the holder of the purity. The one who remains pure has value, and once he/she loses that purity, he/she loses their value.
Let me give just one example of how this message was delivered. I remember hearing the metaphor that each time you date a guy, you give a piece of your heart away. If you date too many guys, when you finally find your husband, you will only have scraps left to give him — you can no longer give him your whole self. The fundamental problem with this is that it leaves no room for Christ’s redemptive work in our lives. It has made many people, girls in particular, feel unworthy of their spouse’s love because of mistakes they have made.
One long-term problem that this message has created is that when two Christians get married after being steeped in this purity message, it can make for a difficult adjustment into married life. How are they supposed to go from it being the most wrong, dirty thing they could do to being the most right, beautiful thing that they are supposed to do… all in one day? I think it comes down to intentions. Sure, we should abstain from sex if we are unmarried, but what is our motive behind abstaining?
This brings us to the discussion questions that I want to raise. I want to hear your responses and thoughts, and they don’t have to be specifically answering these questions, but here are a few starting points:
- How can we emphasize the importance of saving sex for marriage while simultaneously avoiding devaluing and objectifying teenagers based on their purity? How can we balance the message that “sex is good” with the message of “don’t do it yet”?
- In what ways has this purity concept been explained to you? Have you heard other metaphors similar to the one I heard? Have you experienced conversations that helped you to build a stronger, more biblically rich foundation for understanding your sexuality and reasons for abstaining from sex until marriage? Or, on the other hand, have you heard damaging rhetoric that led to an unhealthy view of yourself and your sexuality?
- How can we make this conversation more equal between guys and girls, so that the brunt of the pressure is not being put on girls?
**Note: I reserve the right to use comments left on this blog as part of my research for this project and any further related projects**
The Proverbs 2 Project 
1. I agree with the comments others have made about emphasizing the goodness of sex in marriage and the Biblical design for sex in the life of the believer. I agree that there are some bad metaphors floating around out there (that are almost exclusively told to girls) about what losing one’s virginity means for any hopes of either finding a good man that would still want to be with you, or of having anything of value left to offer your future spouse. Still, there is also a danger of downplaying the significance of sex in the effort to combat these faulty teachings. I think part of what we need to be thinking about is what should an unmarried youth think and feel about sex? Also, maybe the problem is less with the Biblical teaching on sex and more with a culture that expects you to go from 0-60 in one night. A mindset that you should go from sexual novice to sexual expert in a matter of hours. I would venture to say that that is a mindset held mostly by people who have never in fact had sex. Maybe you should be nervous on your wedding night. Maybe you should feel awkward being naked in front of someone for the first time. I’m not sure that there is any level of quality teaching that can prevent that, actually. In all honesty, the older I get and the farther into married life I get, the firmer and stricter my views on pre-marital sexuality get. I have experienced myself and seen in my church youth the slippery slope that comes from not taking all sexual intimacy seriously (and that includes far more than just intercourse). To me the most damaging part of the purity movement’s teaching is that it seems to imply that the most important thing a teenager can do is abstain from sex. If you can make it to marriage before having sex then you, my friend, have achieved success as a Christian youth. Not so.
2. As for the second question, I grew up in the 90’s during the first wave of True Love Waits and I Kissed Dating Goodbye. I was in a youth group at one point that did a fairly extensive sex ed study – partly co-ed, partly split boys/girls. I heard a few of the awful metaphors, but also had some good honest teaching. I probably thought of sex itself as “dirty” at some point, but that was more due to my own immaturity. And let’s face it, teenagers are all immature – not less mature than their peers, but actually not fully mature. I believe that is going to be the biggest hurdle to your goal of reasoned non-awkward discourse on sexuality among middle/high school aged kids.
3. As to your third question, I’m not sure it’s fair to say that the brunt of the pressure is put on girls to be pure. Girls are taught to resist male sexual advances as if they are inevitable, yes. But the fact is, girls are far more likely to have to resist the sexual advances of a guy than vice versa. Yes, some girls do seduce guys, but it’s a far less likely scenario. Also, I hear a lot of talk about how being taught modesty makes the guy’s lust the girl’s fault and puts even more of the pressure on the girl. I have to say, with all of the talks on modesty and how visual guys are and how much they think about and desire sex that I heard as a youth, I was grossly under informed until I was married and had a man in my life to interpret the male mind for me. No, not every guy is going to drag you down a back alley to have his way with you, but if you think that guys think about sex in any way similar to the way that girls think about sex, you are also under informed. I always go back to an incident in college when my husband and I were dating. I was sitting on the arm of a couch in the student center in a group of friends and a guy friend (that I had been on one date with in the previous year) pushed my shoulder so that I started to fall backward toward the couch, then grabbed my backpack straps and pulled me back up. I didn’t think anything about it other than he was just goofing around and that was it. My then boyfriend was livid. He said, “The only reason he did that was so that he could touch you.” I thought he was being absolutely ridiculous. I thought he was making something out of nothing. I had not been touched on any “sexual” part of my body and I did not feel violated. I proceeded to ask the most upstanding christian guys I could find about their take on the situation… and they all agreed with my boyfriend! I was shocked. Since then, I have learned that the male mind sees sex where the female mind sees NOTHING. If the teaching seems slanted in some ways, I’m sorry but the truth is he wants sex more than you. He thinks about sex more than you. His battle is a steeper incline than yours. Not that you don’t battle. Not that he isn’t responsible for his actions. But that is reality. Being modest is a fairly easy way to spare the guys in your life a lot of grief – can we not play the victim on this one? I’m not advocating for burkas, but it does feel like a giant “Am I my brother’s keeper?” sometimes. Rant over. All of this to say, there is some wisdom in the different ways things are presented to guys and girls – of course there are exceptions to every rule, but I find this to be true for the majority.
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Hey Elizabeth,
Your comment is really insightful! I would love to hear your opinion on a few questions I had related to things you had mentioned:
1. A lot of my guy friends in college told me stories of growing up and hearing their fathers and peers tell them that their masculinity was rooted in how many women they wooed/had sex with, how aggressive they were, and being a pursuer/protector. A lot of these male friends grew up feeling as if they were being told they could not control themselves sexually, and they shouldn’t try to. How much do you think purity culture has picked up on this notion in the broader culture and compounded the issue, telling men in the church that they are uncontrollable brutes and women that their job is to guard both their own and men’s purity, subsequently leading to the issues you talk about – excessive sexual advances by men and making girls less likely to express themselves sexually?
2. There has been a lot of research done supporting the notion that guys don’t actually think about sex more than girls do – both genders don’t vary in how much they think about sex, but how they express it (likely also do to social conditioning). Do you think that this research is invalid, or do you think that maybe some things have changed over the last little bit?
3. I think it’s really important to say, “I am my brother’s keeper.” However, I also wonder when guys will take a more active role in being their sister’s keeper. I, for one, have wrestled with issues relating to sex and guys my entire life, and when they have been brought up, have been told “that’s not an issue for girls,” or if I stopped acting and dressing a certain way, it would change. I was really confused when I was doing all I could to do right and the same issues still persisted. I think part of it was that guys don’t really recognize that they have an active role to play in rectifying all of this. This isn’t an intentional oversight on their part, just something that doesn’t seem to be a big conversation topic among men (from my view as a woman, so this may be misguided), and so understandably isn’t as big a deal. I guess the question I’m trying to ask is, can we recognize that we are each others’ keepers but that there is still room for improvement in how we talk about these issues?
Thanks for any thoughts you might have! I really appreciated your post. 🙂
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1. I don’t believe the church is teaching men that they are uncontrollable brutes – if that has been the experience of some, then that is disturbing. The purity movement/culture that I am familiar with does tend to teach that a guy is going to struggle immensely with putting on the brakes if he passes a certain point of physical intimacy, and may not be able to stop himself in the heat of that moment. I don’t equate that with being a brute. The point of that line of teaching is not to tell guys they are hopeless sex addicts and can’t control themselves at all, but to say don’t let yourself get to that point. Guys have plenty of control over themselves in how they chose to treat the women in their lives – but the choice has to be made to not get into a passionate make out session in the first place, not to stop just short of intercourse. I completely agree that the broader culture encourages men/boys to be sexually aggressive and considers virginity a curse to be lost as soon as possible, but that has not been my experience in church teaching. I was not taught at any point it was “my job” to make sure the men in my life didn’t sin sexually. I was only taught to be responsible for my own actions and to not add extra difficulty to the men/boys in my life by being modest in my dress and actions. I have seen the concept of “sexual expression” more than once on this blog and I have to admit, I don’t know what that really means in this context. How should an unmarried youth/college student sexually express themselves? I would say that they shouldn’t. I think sex should be a little bit of a mystery that is unraveled over time by a husband and wife. I would really like to know your thoughts on this.
2. I would have to see those studies and how they were performed for myself to interact in any productive way with them. I will say the Kinsey Institute studies were a twisted, child abusive, unscientific train wreck and I do not believe the hyper-sexual findings of that one. I haven’t conducted any sociological studies of my own, but I have done some informal surveying of other married women and can give loads of anecdotal evidence that men desire and think about sex far more than women. There are always exceptions, but this has been my experience. I would also say that I would have likely believed a study that said it was equal before my man-brain interpreter arrived on the scene.
3. I think part of the issue on your third point is that you’re not likely to be present for the talks that guys might have about these things. It’s also important to understand that many of the guys in your life are not actually Christians – even the ones in Christian schools and church and youth groups and anywhere else. If a guy is not an actual dedicated Christian, you can teach these things till you’re blue in the face and not gain any traction. They aren’t going to hold each other accountable to these standards, which is why it’s so important to make sure you’re giving your time to the right guy. Girls so often date the guy that will go to church with them, or feel that as long as the guy “believes in God” that they’ve got a good one. I tell my youth girls that I don’t want them dating the guy that will go to church with them – I want them dating the guy that’s already involved in his own church so that the first big decision they have to make when they do decide to get married is where to go to church. I know my husband was counseled repeatedly by older men in college about protecting the women in his life – and he is protective not only of me, but of other vulnerable women without husbands or fathers to protect them. This is about as unfeminist as it gets, but it makes for far healthier relationships. I’m not sure what issues you were told were not an issue for girls, but was that response from your peers, guys, or church leadership? I also can’t speak to your choice of fashion, obviously, but this is where what I said about guys seeing sex where women see nothing is important. The only way to know what is visually provocative to a guy is to ask one, because I promise you will be surprised. A couple I have found surprising were sundresses and overalls – not kidding, and not just my husband.
There is always room for improvement in how we talk about things :).
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I heard similar metaphors growing up. In either a book or a magazine article I read in my early teens, there was a story about a girl whose parents gave her a charm bracelet. The bracelet’s charms were each precious gemstones of increasing “value,” and stood for some physical aspect of a relationship like holding hands, a quick peck, making out, sex, etc. Whenever the girl did one of these things for the first time, she was to give that boy the corresponding stone. Point is: be able to give the bracelet (still with all of its charms) to your husband one day. At the time I thought this was a helpful way to think about actions before it is too late, but I also think that stories/analyogies like this sewed the seed for a deeply problematic view of both sex and sexuality. Beyond being sent messages about sex being dirty, I think I was often (unintentionally) taught that sexuality itself is bad, that I should not experience it and should fear it. Going back to the bracelt thing, yes, we should be able to give a future spouse our complete self, but sexual sin does not make someone “damaged goods” any less than any other sin. I think this is where a huge problems occurs. We tend to view sexual sin as worse than others and as something which makes us less worthy of marriage. I know I grew up being taught this (indirectly) and still struggle with this false belief.
One book I found helpful in thinking about why we wait is “What are you Waiting for?” by Dannah Gresh. She discussions some of the biology that goes into sexual intercourse, the psychological consequences of pre-marital sex, and how to find healing from sexual sin.
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Just a little thought, about the last question.
I think sometimes we have the idea that we should separate guys and girls for purity, and sexuality discussions, especially in high school (but currently the organization that I work for STILL does that and we are all over the age of 22). I think that is important, and good, BUT we ALSO should have discussions together. We always “wonder what boys are thinking”, but why don’t we just ask them, especially in a safe environment with adults. I have no idea what this would look like, but I sometimes think that decreasing the separated discussion times will be helpful for taking the pressure off the girls.
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Thank you so much for this thought! I’ve been thinking about this subject of separating guys and girls for discussions on issues regarding sex, and that is going to be one of my topics coming soon (perhaps even the next one!) so make sure to subscribe so you don’t miss it!
I’m curious about the separated conversations that take place in your workplace. Is the organization you work for faith-based? What is the purpose of these conversations? What do y’all talk about? Do the guys and girls talk about the same things or different subjects altogether? My guess is that the conversations happening in your workplace are slightly different, given the age group, than those that take place at Christian schools or youth groups, but perhaps not. I’d love to hear a little more of your experience if you have a chance to share!
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I love this topic and I agree that somehow the notion has gotten around (whether through the church or culture or both) that sex is dirty. This is something I’ve done a lot of thinking about in the past year and was able to share some of those thoughts with my high school students last semester when we did a series on sexuality.
1) It’s a tricky topic to handle because students (who like to see things in black and white) have a hard time holding a nuanced view of anything. However, I think there are a couple of good places to start. One is the emphasis that purity is not virginity: that one night does not put you in a pit you can’t get out of, and that purity is an attitude that affects our manner and behavior whether you have a significant other to be tempted by or not. The other point is that sex is good because it is set apart. It’s not hard to show students how our sex-obsessed culture has cheapened the gift, so our challenge is to show that the design is both good and holy. Song of Solomon is such a fantastic resource because it conveys that so clearly.
2) I don’t remember hearing much on purity growing up other than, ‘don’t do it.’ I definitely got the subliminal message that sex was bad, however, and I am still working my way out of that hole. The books ‘Real Sex: The Naked Truth About Chastity’ and (there is another one that was so good, but I can’t remember the name or the authors- I’ll plug it in later) have been really helpful to me in that regard. Unfortunately, I haven’t had as many conversations on the topic with peers as I would like, but the ones I have had have been encouraging.
3) It is immensely frustrating that the pressure of purity continues to be wholly on women, just as it has always been. It is a culturally accepted norm that it is very difficult to counter. I think the responsibility is on wise, godly men to come alongside young boys and teach them their responsibilities towards themselves and towards women, that there are real consequences for their actions. That is a message that we as women can and should support, but difficult for us to dictate.
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The name of the book I couldn’t remember is ‘Soul Virgins’. Well worth a read
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Hey Elisa! Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts. I value your opinion, especially as someone who has experience working in this context! Your point about the difficulty of communicating with teenagers because of their lack of nuance is something that I have been thinking on for a while. I have trouble when I talk to other adults and they talk as if we should just tell teenagers the biblical truth that we are now able to understand. I keep thinking, “but when I was a teenager, I was told that, and I just didn’t get it.” Sometimes they just can’t fully grasp it because they’re not there yet. It’s not as straightforward with middle or high school students as it is with college students.
Thank you for the book suggestions! Someone else has also mentioned “Real Sex” but I hadn’t heard of “Soul Virgins.” I added it to my list of sources to check out.
Thanks for taking the time to put your thoughts together for me! Your insight is very helpful!
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I’ve been on the end of the sexual purity thing several times. What I experienced was that people didn’t stop at consensual sexual activity to show that you have been “devalued”. I was sexually abused as a child, and from that point on, many people have tried to push the point that I am not pure. My guess is that it stems from victim blaming, which is a whole different topic. As an act of probably rebellion towards being seen as impure, I became sexually active with my then-boyfriend-now-ex-fiancé and lost my virginity to him. As I see it, sexual activity outside marriage is sin, but certainly no worse than other sins like the sin of gossip (having had people spread very nasty rumors about me). I might not be a virgin any more–and aw, hell, do I regret that because of the intimacy of losing one’s virginity is absolutely incredible–but that does not mean God loves me less, and coming from that, the Church should not love me less.
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Hi, N! I’m so sorry that people have used your experience of childhood sexual abuse to point to your impurity. That saddens me so deeply, and I hope you know that that experience was not a result of your own sin. I absolutely agree with you that your loss of virginity should not make you less worthy of love, and it sounds like you are in a much healthier place now, and for that, I rejoice with you! Thank you for sharing your story. I hope that we (the church) can better love those with similar stories to yours going forward.
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1. Like you said, I think a lot of it has to do with our definition of purity. “Purity” is not simply a sexual term, but one that applies to our entire nature. Purity is an extension of holiness, not being mixed with this world and its sinful nature, but being holy and set apart for God. When we understand purity as something more than just not having sex, we realize that all of none of us are pure or holy apart from God’s saving grace. When the Holy Spirit invades our lives and brings us to know the Father through the Son, our entire being is transformed, and are filthy garments are replaced with those that are clean and pure. Purity is a state of being, not a commodity to be bought or sold, or an inherent good that we are born with until we lose it when we first have sex. I think that when we view purity through a lens of holiness, it helps us emphasize why we should save sex for marriage – marriage is a beautiful institution that is representative of Christ and his bride, who he has made and is making pure and holy. It is not merely about “saving yourself for your husband” (not to say this is not at all important) – because your sexuality does not ultimately belong to your husband, it belongs to God.
2. I think I’ve always viewed myself as “dirty” because purity always seemed unattainable. I was told that whenever guys acted in an inappropriate way towards me, it was because I was being seductive, leading them on, or not acting “pure.” While it is a good thing not to be seductive, lead guys on, and be pure, as a young teen I was not trying to do any of these things, and yet I was constantly told that I was acting in a “slutty” manner. I didn’t know how to change what I didn’t know I was doing, and I went through my life up till now feeling as if this was some unclean part of me that God simply couldn’t fix. God has intervened in my life through various people in the last few years to change these perceptions I’ve had of myself and come to a healthier understanding of my sexuality, but it was only through others telling me my God-given worth and value, crying with me over the indecency of what has been said and done, and standing up for me when I was unwilling to stand up for myself, because I didn’t know I could. While I’m still learning a lot, I am understanding more and more that I am part of Christ’s bride, the Church, and Christ protects, loves and values his bride, and has made her pure through his death.
How can we make this conversation more equal between guys and girls, so that the brunt of the pressure is not being put on girls?
3. I think we need to understand “purity” isn’t just a girl thing. Christian men are a part of the bride of Christ as well, and are therefore called to be pure. Instead of the conversation surrounding how girls can protect guys from themselves, we need to understand that all of us need to protect each other, and urge each other on towards Christ. Honestly, I think this will only happen when we have a healthier view of sexuality being preached from our pulpits and in our youth groups. We have been ignoring the elephant in the room for years, and until we address it, the issue will only get worse. I think that unhealthy views of women and purity also lead us to unhealthy views of men – we begin to believe that men are insatiable brutes that cannot control themselves. Our distorted view of sex and purity is very much influenced by our distorted view of men and women. Until we seek to understand Biblical masculinity and femininity (because I don’t think we do at all – we simply buy what the media sells to us), we will never understand purity and sex in the proper light.
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Thank you for sharing your thoughts! I think you’re really getting at this deeper issue that we need to experience a paradigm shift. This isn’t just about explaining sex in a different way. This is about understanding purity and understanding Christ’s redemptive work as being 100% related to purity. This is about understanding that we are Christ’s bride, in unity, and we need to work together to figure out what biblical masculinity and femininity is. I’m trying to figure it out, and I think everyone else is, too. The foundation that our thinking on sexuality (and many other issues) is built on isn’t very strong.
Thank you for sharing a bit of your story. I’m sorry that you felt that purity was unattainable. I’ve felt that way too, and that’s because it is, apart from God. This purity culture tends to make us try to attain it apart from God, which has created a lot of hopeless, tired people.
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I was taught that sex was a beautiful gift that was to be saved for marriage between a man and a woman, but over time I also adopted the idea that sexual sin was among the worst sin that could be committed. I think that was a result of the purity movement, of culture deifying sex, and of Christians trying to combat that deification. Sometimes in the church, we do not fight that deification well, but rather we end up saying don’t have sex before you’re married because it’s bad. The end. So then, as teenagers, we take away from that the message that if you do have sex before marriage, you are dirty and have lost a lot of your value. The purity movement definitely communicated that purity was associated with value – if you are pure, you are valuable; if you are impure, you shouldn’t have screwed up and are now doomed for the rest of your life.
I also heard the same metaphor about giving pieces of your heart away every time you dated and not wanting to present a heart of scraps. But the thing is, don’t we all have a heart of scraps in some way, shape, or form? We have all sinned and given our hearts to idols, we have all put our hope in other things, we are all desperate for the healing grace of God and God alone! I definitely disagree with that metaphor and think it causes damage in many teenagers (especially girls). I think it also communicates that we will somehow have a better relationship if we are able to give a “whole” heart to our future spouse. That the less mistakes you make, the better your future marriage will be. This all comes down to you, you, you. YOU have to work hard for purity so that YOUR marriage will be good. YOU screwed up sexually and YOU are no longer valuable. YOU must guard your heart so that YOU will not do bad things. But in reality, I can’t do it all on my own. If it’s all up to me, than there is no hope because I am fallen and I am sinful and I will fall short. I will make mistakes sexually, I will not have a perfect marriage, I will see myself as invaluable because of other things, I will let down the guard on my heart and get hurt, I will do bad things. So does that mean we are all doomed to a life of bad relationships and misery? I don’t think so! This is where the healing and redeeming grace of God comes in (as Megan mentioned earlier). This grace is for everyone and everyone needs it desperately. Whether it’s because of sexual impurity, idolatry, pride, whatever it is. We all need it. And none of us will have perfect marriages. It is true that sexual sin will bring a certain kind of baggage into the marriage, but at the same time, I’ve got baggage that I’ll be bringing in because my parents are divorced. I’ve got baggage because I am extremely prideful and selfish. Everyone has baggage of some kind. But we DO have control of our actions, so sexual sin will come with consequences that are unavoidable, that are different than the consequences of pride, which are different than the consequences of some other sin, you see the pattern. Now don’t think I am saying “Whatever, we all sin and have baggage so I’ll do what I want and it won’t make much difference.” Because that’s not what I’m trying to get at. I’m trying to level the field and say that sexual sin is no more sinful than all other sins, but to also say that each sin comes with its own set of consequences.
I know it is hard to communicate about sex to young people, especially for parents, because they are afraid their child will experiment or just feel too awkward about it or some other reasons. But these conversations really are so crucial. I feel very strongly about the lack of communication that took place in my life in regards to living out a healthy, godly romantic relationship. I will speak more on that when the time comes, because I’m sure we will get into that more.
I think youth programs in churches should take this subject more seriously and talk about it more with students. My youth group was wonderful in high school and had a few talks on sexuality, but mostly it was the same stuff about sex being beautiful, waiting is hard but totally worth it, God calls us to wait till marriage to have sex, sex was made for man and wife alone, you have to resist temptation, etc… Those are all great things, but what about when teenagers ARE sexually tempted? What do they do? Temptations come in many forms – pornography, watching sex scenes in movies and replaying them in your head, physical temptations between guys and girls, temptations to masturbate, peer pressure to do things, and many more I can’t remember and some I don’t even know about. If our parents and our churches don’t talk to us about these things, who is going to? Or are we going to have to figure them out on our own? In my relationship with my boyfriend, we had to just figure things out. Again, I’ll be willing to share more about this when it fits more with the questions asked/subject of the week.
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Hey Anna! Thank you so much for your comment! I couldn’t have said it better myself. So much of my background for choosing to take on this project is because of how long it took me to understand that sexual sin wasn’t any worse that other sin. We tend to view sin like pride or worry as acceptable, but when someone struggles with sexual sin, we can’t talk about it and those people aren’t worthy of our friendship. Even worse, those people may rub off on us and negatively influence us, and then we, too, will fall into sexual sin. But hey! We’re all sexually broken! I didn’t grasp that until I was in college. I didn’t hear that my sexual sin was no worse than any other sin I committed. I think these problems come from a lack of comfortable conversation. Even when we talk about it, it’s awkward or scary or weird. That makes kids not want to ask questions, or they ask the wrong people (peers rather than parents or pastors, for example).
I also agree that we have not addressed how to handle the reality of our sexual nature, how far is too far, etc. I’ll definitely get into that in a future post.
Thank you again for your thoughts and for taking the time to put them into words!
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First of all, I want you to know that I agree with you that there are a lot of problems with the purity movement and the way sexual purity is taught in the church. There are several points on this blog that I would like to interact with, but I am trying to go back through and hit them as they come up in the blog/comments instead of in one exceedingly long post. So here we go …
I think we need to be careful about phrases like “sexual sin is no worse than any other sin” – while I agree that we need to avoid categorizing “big sin” and “little sins” as if the little sins are somehow ok, I usually hear (and have said) phrases like “______ is no worse than any other sin” when trying to justify the sin in the blank. We use that phrase more often to downplay the “big” sin, not to treat the little sin with the gravity it deserves. For instance, you hear “sexual sin is no more of a sin than lying” more often than “lying is no less of a sin than murder.” Sin is sin, but some sins have greater consequences than others and to treat them otherwise and to teach youth to do the same is dangerous.
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Oh, I agree! However, in my own story and many of those I’ve heard, there has been a reluctance to talk about sexual sin, which made me think it was unforgivable. My pride was forgivable, and I could even go on in a cycle of pride and repentance, and be “praised” by my peers for the repentance part of the cycle. However, if someone brought up their sexual sin, everyone got uncomfortable. This implies something that is dangerous and has long-lasting effects for a lot of people. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it sounds like you’re making a distinction between the idea that no one sin is inherently worse than the other, and the idea that the consequences of one sin may be greater than that of the other. If so, I agree, and I think what we need to do is make that distinction clear. My point (and I think Anna’s as well) is that we have been treating sexual sin as less forgivable by God than other sin. I think we were looking from a different perspective, and I believe both are valuable and important. Thank you for that!
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I think the attitude you talk about toward sexual sin is the result of the purity movement implying that being a Christian teenager=keeping your virginity (which I mentioned in my response to this blog post). Not that sexual sin is inconsequential, but I’m sure hell is populated with quite a few virgins. As someone who wasn’t significantly tempted to sexual sin until college, I found it difficult to understand how many of my peers in high school could make such a grievous error – but now I realize that my piety in that area was mostly from lack of opportunity. Purity talk that equivocates virginity with Christianity breeds self righteousness. On that I think we’re on the same page.
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The more I talk to girls who grew up reading “I Kissed Dating Goodbye,” like I did, the more I realize that a lot of my experience with this culture is unique. And I view it as more healthy and positive than not. I’m not sure all of what contributed to that, but I would like to share a few small things.
1. I was taught that sex was a good healthy thing but had a proper place. It was good and healthy within marriage. Sexual intimacy was a very precious and intimate thing and it was meant to be practiced within a marital covenant relationship. It was not intended for anything else.
2. I read “I Kissed Dating Goodbye” but took it with a grain of salt. I admired the values behind it but considered its application as more fluid. In other words, don’t play around and lead other people on was a good value. “Save your first kiss for the wedding day” was just one way the application of the values could look. It was helpful that I had other examples in my life of people older than me who I viewed as godly and mature who applied the values differently.
3. One drawback I experienced was due partially to miscommunication between me and my parents. They encouraged me to focus on friendships with girls in high school. I interpreted it as they didn’t want me to be more than acquaintances with guys. This led to me not knowing how to be friends with guys or knowing how to handle a potentially romantic situation until much later than other peers.
4. I also heard the example growing up of “if you give your heart away too many times, you won’t have anything left for your husband.” While I recognized the healing power of God’s grace, I did (as a result of this concept) have the dream to marry the first guy I fell in love with. I also realized that might not happen though. That didn’t happen. But in the moment, I was able to recognize my disappointment and loss of that dream. In all of this, a lot of other theology that I had been taught played into this. I had been taught about God’s healing grace in many different types of situations and about the fact that we live in a broken world and sometimes we get hurt. Sometimes it doesn’t work out to marry the first guy you fall for. Sometimes, you make mistakes. And you get up, run to Jesus, and ask for healing.
5. One thing I struggle with even now that I have never heard addressed is that I am a sexual being who is single. What is a healthy, good, and God trusting way to deal with a desire for physical intimacy for the (potentially) long term?
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Thank you so much for your thoughtful reply! I am encouraged and thrilled that you had the maturity to, as you said, take some of these ideas with a grain of salt, and apply them in the way that best worked for you. I’m also glad to hear that you seemed to have an understanding of biblical sexuality that most teenagers don’t grasp. That’s awesome!
The problem, however, is just that… most teenagers don’t have the maturity or nuance to think about these issues in such a a healthy way. From my own experience, it sounds like you may have been the exception to the rule, and while that’s awesome for you, I wish that more were able to grasp these concepts as well as you did. Do you have any thoughts on how to encourage the kind of thinking that you employed during those years?
I’m glad you brought up singleness! That is definitely an area that has not been addressed as it should, and I’m planning on writing about it! Be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss it! Thank you again for your helpful response!
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I think a helpful perspective to encourage waiting to have sex yet not calling it dirty is the rhetoric of teaching how in Genesis God institutes that one man and one woman are supposed to become one flesh. This beautiful picture of marriage as a coming together of two separate persons into emotional and physical union helps to encourage the importance of saving complete union till marriage whilst not dirtying the idea. Children should be taught of God’s design for the beauty of sexual intimacy to be between one, monogamous married relationship. By teaching its beauty, one wishes to save it for marriage.
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Thanks for your comment, Marie! I absolutely agree with you. I think that it’s hard for teenagers to understand the nuance of this, because in telling them how beautiful it is within marriage, we’re also telling them to wait (which we should be doing, of course), and some teenagers, on their own, interpret this as “sex is wrong now… therefore it’s bad… therefore it’s dirty.” I don’t think this is the fault of those who explained the beauty of sex within marriage. I’m just pointing out that there is a challenge that comes with communicating with teenagers that isn’t the case with people who are a bit older and more mature, and able to grasp the reason for waiting. I’m not entirely sure how to solve that problem, and there’s surely not a cut-and-dried solution. But I think you’re getting at the core of what the message needs to be.
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I’m kind of scratching my head on your reply to this comment. Marie has laid out the Biblical teaching on sex pretty well, but you don’t seem to be satisfied with it? If some teenagers are going to interpret being told to wait as “sex is dirty” regardless of how it’s presented, is that a fault of the teaching or of the teenager?
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Marie laid out the biblical teaching beautifully, and I am very thankful for that. I was simply trying to interact with her thoughts on a deeper level and try to pull some tangible solutions out of what she had to say. As I said in my reply to her, I don’t think that the teenagers’ misinterpretation is a fault of the teaching. On the other hand, I am hesitant to use the word “fault” in this context, because the teenager has little control over their ability to think critically at that age, so I’m not sure it’s fair to put the fault on them, either. It’s simply the nature of working with teenagers sometimes. However, since teenagers often do misinterpret it, I feel that out of a love for them, we should do our best to prevent their misinterpretation. I don’t think that they will interpret it as “sex is dirty” regardless of how it’s presented. If that were the case, having a discussion on this topic would be unproductive. What I’m trying to ask is how we can both teach a biblically sound theology of sex and also protect teenagers from misinterpretation. I don’t know the answer to this dilemma (and like I said, I’m not convinced there is an easy answer), so I’m appealing to the wisdom of others!
Again, Marie’s comment was on-point, and I in no way meant to communicate any dissatisfaction with what she had to say. I apologize if my reply came across as anything but affirming.
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I once read a metaphor in which a girl was described as a car and having sex before marriage as allowing people to test drive her. There was a bit about spilled soda and how no one wants a car that has been test driven too many times. I bought into this growing up and felt deep shame when I even had a sexual feeling. Looking back, this metaphor disgusts me.
I honestly don’t know how to make the conversation better. I wish I did. Maybe if there was less concern with controlling actions and more emphasis on shaping perspectives and instilling respect for yourself and those around you it would be better.
The messages around me growing up were deeply damaging to my self worth and sexuality. Even now, I have difficulty separating my worth from my sexual desirability. I sometimes view myself as object.
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Thank you for your response! I think that you’re right that less emphasis needs to be put on controlling teenagers’ actions. We need to give them a healthier framework for thinking about sexuality, and their actions will hopefully flow from that foundation.
I’m sorry that those messages were so damaging to your self worth. I’m still fighting their effects in my life, and I know how pervasive they can be.
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