In the heart of any place rooted in religion and home to conservatives, many young people find themselves facing “purity culture”. It’s described by Linda Kay Klein, author of Pure, as “the foundation of gender- and sexual-control upon which purity culture stands,” which is “global, cross-religious, and cross-cultural.”
Women live within a society that does not provide enough conversation or acceptance, forcing the idea that they should stay pure.
From Muslims using “honor-culture” or Mormons using “worthiness” to white evangelicals and “purity,” all of these ideas are rooted in the same concept: abstaining from sex. In parts of the Southeastern United States, no one talks about sex; if anyone is talking about sex, it’s because someone did it when they were not supposed to.
“Everyone spoke as if it was taboo and said to wait until marriage. Shifting from middle school to high school with this mentality made me feel alone,” Grace Ralph, a student from Southeast Georgia, said.
A lot of the concepts surrounding purity are gender-specific. Men and women are supposed to abstain, but women are given purity rings and taken to purity balls. People in these communities often see men as sexually deprived while they see women as non-sexual.
There is way more conversation around male sexuality, from watching porn to doing the actual deed. Often within the church, men confess an addiction to porn, and the congregation praises them for their bravery. It is hard to imagine a woman coming forward and even harder to imagine it taken positively. I can only assume that this veil of purity has wrapped women up in shame.
However, within Christianity, sex is still a beautiful thing. In a 1994 study, it was conclusive that religious conservatives enjoy sex.
Not all women in the church carry shame. Many choose to wait until their wedding day, and being scared into abstinence can have nothing to do with it. These women want to share this special gift with the one they believe God has chosen for them.
“We practice chastity to develop purity, not for the sake of our own sexuality, but for the sake of Christ,” Joe Carter wrote for The Gospel Coalition.
So why is there such a catch-22?
Sex is not talked about enough in actual sexual education classes, particularly in the South. A study from the Guttmacher Institute revealed that from 2011-2013, 80% of adolescents, age 15-19, learned how to say no to sex, while 55% of young men and 60% of young women were taught about birth control. Only 6% of LGBTQ+ youth aged 13-21 felt they had been well represented in sex-ed.
“Sex and sexual desires are a natural human need; to repress that is starving yourself of a basic necessity of life. Purity culture has the potential to be positive if taught from both sides — abstinence, and if you decide to have sex,” Ralph continues.
Students in the South need to reflect on their upbringing and education and revisit the information they learned. An excellent first step is visiting Georgia State’s Student Health Promotion. The patriarchy of religion and lack of education creates a purity culture that sexually disempowers women; let’s change that.
