A Christian camp, a place where I worked in my younger years, is hosting a purity retreat.
When I read this news, I groaned.
“What are they going to teach those students?” I said to myself, “And how long will it take them to undo it?”
As someone who was on the early edge of the big evangelical push to churn out curriculum, trinkets, marketing and events surrounding purity and abstinence, I speak as an observer a few steps removed from the hard-core movement. But I remember accountability partners, vague discussion of boundaries, the concern about being a stumbling block for the males of the world, the guilt over “going too far”, and the way it was stressed that sex should be confined to marriage.
At a purity retreat, there will most likely be a challenge to use your mind over your emotions (although I’m sure they’re not above drawing on emotions to motivate the participants), pledges of future behavior, repentance over past thoughts or behavior, and they might even give out some small purity token — a souvenir of significance to mark the weekend and the new commitments people made.
If you are not familiar with the purity/modesty rules philosophy, it goes like this:
Sex before marriage is wrong for lots of reasons.
Foremost of those reasons is that the Bible says you are supposed to reserve sex for marriage.
If you do not reserve sex for marriage, you are messing up God’s plan.
When you mess up God’s plan (a.k.a. ‘the two shall become one’,’ a woman shall leave her mother and a man shall leave his home’, etc.) you give away parts of your heart to each partner until you have but a tiny scrap of a heart left. You are unable to give yourself fully to your eventual spouse (because everyone gets married, you see), you end up with lots of baggage and assumed regrets, and you mess up your spouse’s life because your spouse was a good person and saved sex for marriage.
If you have sex before marriage, you are guilty, blemished, and broken in God’s eyes. Sure, you can be forgiven — there’s even discussion of having your virginity reclaimed — but you’re still going to have to sort out the consequences of your sin, which may play out for the rest of your life.
This also goes for other sexual expression, because the Bible says to stay away from sexual immorality. In some circles it includes kissing and holding hands. Yes. Some people reserve kissing and/or holding hands until they are engaged or married.
I’m serious, and it is a deeply held conviction for them, one they are willing to stick with and in doing so frequently feel misunderstood and judged.
And superior, don’t forget superior.
So if you think Christian culture is quiet about sex, you’d be wrong…except that the thing students hear while they are growing up is that if you wait until marriage it will automatically be blessed, fantastic, fun and natural. You’ll take to it like a fish in water, even if you haven’t ever kissed a person and have, up to that point, convinced yourself that all sexual expression is negative and ridden with guilt and shame.
Good luck with that.
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Alongside the purity culture of evangelicalism is the modesty culture.
During her time at a Christian college, a close friend of mine was brought in to have a long talk with her resident assistant. The reason? It was because she wore a sports bra without a t-shirt while playing volleyball outside on a hot autumn day.
This is pretty common.
Girls are told what kind of swim suits they can wear to church events that involve beaches or water, and shirts and skirts are monitored for length and coverage.
Modesty can be subtly damaging because it is the preamble to sexual purity. If you are immodest, it follows that you are also impure. And if you’re not the one who is impure, you’re making a bunch of other people impure, because you’re causing them to stumble.
So make sure you cover up those mazongas because you shouldn’t “think of yourself more highly than you ought but consider others better than yourselves.” (This is an often-used morphing of Romans 12:3 and Philippians 2:3, both letters from the Apostle Paul.) First of all, who are you to think you look that good anyway, and plus, when you choose clothing you should be thinking of the ways you could be causing your Christian brothers into sin by wearing that spaghetti strap tank top.
(I’m 99% sure that boys are not taught to cover up for their Christian sisters.)
The damage to our young men and women in this is profound.
It makes our young men into mindless primates with little will of their own, held captive by their urges, which they cannot control.
It makes our young women into temptresses who, by nature of their female-ness, lead all men into impure thoughts and impure actions for which they cannot be held accountable. It’s the whole virgin vs. vixen idea of a bygone era when women were presumed to be either wholly sterile in their total lack of sexual desire or appeal, or they were women of low moral character who were ultimately subhuman, meant to be used and tossed aside like an old tissue.
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There is something amiss with the evangelical obsession with sex, either having it or not having it.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think it’s a good idea for unmarried people to sleep around. I’m all about self-respect and I’m a big fan of modesty because sometimes the reason for the lack of it is to gain self-worth from our boobies (or other parts…and yes, I just wrote “boobies.” Focus, people, focus. Stay with me.) When I consider this concern for modesty and the purity culture it spawned, it’s a huge sweater of interlocking stitches. When you pick at one, it turns out that it’s connected to the stitches around it.
Consider: The burden of modesty is set on girls, since boys’ urges are somehow too uncontrollable and they can’t reasonably be asked to take much responsibility in it. Heck, they can’t even look at a bikini without lusting, much less a girl wearing that bikini. Therefore, the responsibility lies with females. But females, by nature of being female, are lesser, the argument goes. And since they are lesser, they can’t be asked to handle such a potentially dangerous mission. Therefore, the only logical conclusion is to enact a no-touch, no-look policy…Or enlist the “leadership” of the girl’s father, and return to the days of dowries and arranged marriages, when the girl was a commodity to be traded.
It follows that since a female form, simply by existing, causes sin in the males who observe the female-ness. The curve of a breast is inherently sexual, rather than just being an added bit of skin over the pectoral muscles. The female body, it follows, must be sinful, otherwise why would it raise such chemical, physiological reactions? Plus, it was Eve who corrupted Adam by offering him the apple so it follows that it is in the nature of women to lead others into sin.
See what I mean about the stitches being interlocked? You can’t pick one stitch without it unravelling the ones around it.
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There are people having conversations about these assumptions, these categorical dismissals of the individuality of each person, the choices placed before us and the attitudes about the worthiness of women. They are talking about a woman’s ownership over her own body, and the dastardly connection between purity culture and it’s potential to tumble down the rabbit hole of making a woman responsible for her own sexual harassment, or worse. There’s a discussion about men NOT being hormone-driven maniacs who have no control over their impulses (for an interesting perspective, read Micah Murray’s piece, http://bit.ly/1dzk1BV ) , and who will do almost anything for sex.
This is too big for one post. And we’re only skimming the surface here. I’m certainly not the only one writing about it, not by far, but we need more people talking and writing about it.
It’s something I take very seriously, as a woman, as a wife, as a mother, as a human.
What I wear should not single me out for harassment, regardless of how much skin I show.
My sons should be responsible for their own actions, their own choices when it comes to purity, attitudes of the heart and physical expression.
My daughter should be free to respect herself and not draw her self-worth from how much attention she garners with her bra straps or short-shorts. And she should be safe from other people treating her as an inanimate object or something inherently sinful.
I’m going to look into this advertised purity retreat at that camp. I want to find out who is organizing it, what its goals are, and how they are treating this topic. I have a feeling it is probably representative of the whole purity/modesty culture that is so intrinsically interwoven in evangelical culture.
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe they’re doing something different with this retreat, bringing in fresh perspectives and voices that offer another way.
I know that, as a woman, I am created in the image of God. And men are as well. And we can all pursue a deeper relationship with Jesus, and that can include all parts of ourselves, even our sexuality. And that is something our students and young people need to hear.
Sigh. This makes me wish we could sit and have coffee and talk and talk and talk. I could not agree more about all of this. I am one of the ones who was damaged by the “purity” movement and I cringe every time I hear someone talking about its benefits. The image of two paper hearts being glued together and then torn apart is burned in my memory. If you had sex with someone, your heart was “glued” to theirs and then you had a crappy, torn up heart to give your future spouse. And, of course, if you gave your heart over and over and over, then there wouldn’t be anything but a scrap left. Um…shame, much? So, for someone who “messed up” and is already dealing with insecurities, how much more does that send the message of worthlessness when she’s told that her heart (and body) are torn to shreds? I could go on, but I have to help a boy get ready for school. 🙂 Thanks for writing about something so important.
I like to believe that underlying the purity culture is a good intention to protect young people from heartache and significant consequences of sexual activity. But the way it plays out can be so harmful and long-reaching. There’s much more to be said here, and I also wish we could sit and discuss this over a long coffee session, and I think a lot of women could benefit from being a part of that conversation. If you come up with an alternative approach, a “third way” so to speak, be sure to let me know, ’cause I have yet to come across one (or formulate one myself).
Thank you for writing about this. I have a blog post sitting in my drafts about this same topic – still working out the kinks but I’d like to get it out there.
My husband and I decided not to kiss until our wedding day. Even our pastor discouraged us from making that choice, and I wish we had listened. Nearly sixteen years later, I am thankful to say that sex is finally a good and normal and fun part of our relationship, not the dirty thing we awkwardly tacked on after we got our license to be naughty. But it’s been a needlessly difficult journey.
I think about the younger people whose parents held us up as role models, and I cringe to think of the baggage we may have helped to pile on them. Thankful for new opportunities with my own children.
When you pull the trigger on that blog post, please share a link here with the rest of us. Your perspective would be good to hear. Thank you for sharing some of your story with us.
Here it is! http://juliabloom.wordpress.com/2014/02/27/why-i-wish-id-kissed-him-sooner/
This is an interesting take on an important issue. But having deconstructed the current Christian culture, how should we build a new, more realistic definition of marriage? Is a couple married when the State blesses the marriage? Is a couple married when the Church blesses it? Is a couple married when their bodies are united? How do we know what purity is if we don’t know what marriage is?
I think it is also interesting that Jesus says in the sermon on the Mount: If a MAN looks at a woman …, but does not add if a woman looks at a man. Don’t we need to acknowledge that the eye-gate is a more spiritually vulnerable thing for the male? Not saying that modesty doesn’t go both ways, but doesn’t female Beauty shout at us guys and make us respond in unpredictable ways? Guys should play good defense to not do the eye-sin, but I feel that a little help from the beautiful ones is a gracious acceptance of the male’s weakness and struggle to think right and do right. It is not a commandment from on high as your teachers may have told you, but I think it gracious to assist good men to think proper thoughts. And those good guys, the ones that value inner beauty, they are the ones you want looking at your outer beauty at the end of the day.
I would love to have some definition about all of this. It seems more vague and subjective to me now that I am a grandpa than it did when I was a lot younger and smarter. !!!
Love ya kid!
“I think it is also interesting that Jesus says in the sermon on the Mount: If a MAN looks at a woman …, but does not add if a woman looks at a man. Don’t we need to acknowledge that the eye-gate is a more spiritually vulnerable thing for the male?”
I don’t think so. I think Jesus said what he said because he was talking to religiously powerful men in a very patriarchal society, men who held to the letter of the law but not the spirit of it, who felt that as long as they weren’t touching a woman, they were faultless in any amount and type of looking. As I understand it, in that culture (and some Middle Eastern cultures of today), women weren’t even allowed to look at men. So telling a woman not to look at a man lustfully would have been just irrelevant.
While I think you have some interesting points and some good insights in your post and that it’s all worthy of discussion, I think you are being naive on this point. Have some open conversations with men (with your husband, brother, father, etc), and I am sure you will begin to understand that in general (of course, there are exceptions!) men are much more enticed by the outward physical appearance than women are and are generally more quickly aroused and have more sexual thoughts than women (not everyone, I know! And sometimes the reverse is true for a couple, I know!). I think that saying that the Bible was written in a patriarchal society is just a straw-man argument. The Bible is clear that there are differences between men and women (and sometimes different commandments to them too! Notice there are no commandments for the men to dress modestly…). To try to ignore this difference is just plain naive, as I already stated.
That said, I really appreciated your comment about a common myth that was perpetuated by the church: “if you wait until marriage it will automatically be blessed, fantastic, fun and natural. You’ll take to it like a fish in water, even if you haven’t ever kissed a person and have, up to that point, convinced yourself that all sexual expression is negative and ridden with guilt and shame.” My husband and I are still recovering from this mindset, after over a decade of marriage. :oP I assumed everything would just magically fall into place even though I was fearful and thought sex was dirty. My husband assumed since he saved himself for me that sex would be the fantastic, amazing experience he’d fantasized about. When we were immediately confronted with exceptional and relatively rare physical issues (compounded by my fears), we quickly become disillusioned and years of emotional and spiritual turmoil followed. Ugh.
Hi Sarah – Just to clarify, I am not the author of the blog post. I was a reader responding to one thought in Uncle Wes’s comment. And I wasn’t actually arguing against the whole “visual stimulation” thing, just taking issue with the idea that Jesus addressed that statement to men because it’s their problem in particular.
In other words, I’m not saying Jesus would have necessarily disagreed with the generalization that men are more visually stimulated than women; I just don’t think that was his point in that particular statement. But I can see that by starting my comment with “I don’t think so,” this isn’t very clear!
Thank you for your clarification – I’m sorry I got you confused with the blog author! 🙂
I love the respectful conversation that is happening here. Thanks to all of you for keeping it positive even as we may disagree.
Julia, it looks like we are really pretty close in our perceptions about Jesus, but I did look up the context of the Sermon. It appears to have been the next big event following the call of the disciples, very early on, and folks were streaming in from all nearby areas according to the Luke 6 record of the event. It may have still been powerful men even in that case, but it sounds like the word got out that he was providing healing services and that is the crowd who was drawn- those who wanted healing…those who were desperate for an important need to be met. All of this to say thanks for making me re-examine. I would say his “look at” remark is actually for both sexes to ponder, but that males are more illustrative of eye-lust difficulties. I don’t think that one sex can sin in ways that the other cannot. So I would discourage young men from wearing Speedos, but in my experience they don’t use them anyway. Why is it that the Speedo-wearers I seem to run into are so often wrinkly, skinny old guys?
What a hard topic. I have a hard time giving any credibility to some of this. The definitions of so many common words seem vague. What is lust? What is sexual impurity? Why are young girls such a main focus? I have young girls and I can say that I honestly have no idea what to tell them about srx
I agree about how tricky it is to teach our young about this subject. It’s bad enough that shame is used like a stick by the knuckle-dragging conservative crowd. But even when one does one’s best, shame seems to slip in there. Why is that? My guess is that of all the things one can do, this area of our lives is so personal that even to bring it up is to risk shaming or being shamed. At that point it becomes too late to say anything constructive. So what does it look like to teach well? Who is doing it right? “Neither do I condemn you” is a good place to start. We also need a new word for what used to be called “sin” because that 3-letter word is no longer a meaningful way of communicating in our culture. Anything beyond these gross generalizations is pretty hard for me to understand.
I really appreciate your thoughtful comments Uncle Wes!