10 Things That Scare Me About the “Purity” Culture

by | Jan 19, 2016 | Faith, Sex | 170 comments

Orgasm Course

Does the purity culture movement do more harm than good?

Last week I wrote a three part series on vaginismus, when you experience pain during intercourse. And in that series we ended up discussing the purity culture in modern Christianity, and its potentially harmful effects. It seems as if women who grew up in homes where the purity culture was paramount are far more likely to experience vaginismus.

By purity movement I don’t mean a home that believes that sex before marriage should be avoided. That’s just a basic Christian tenet.

But the purity culture has extra-biblical rules attached to it: dating is wrong; one should always court; parents must chaperone; parents should set kids’ boundaries; kissing before marriage is wrong; clothing should be stringently monitored and modesty enforced; girls who aren’t pure are “chipped teacups” or “stained napkins” (those are analogies that are often used in rallies).

The purity movement is a cultural movement far more than just a moral one, because one can certainly believe in purity but not hold to all of those trappings.

I wonder if this purity culture has taken over because most of us are scared to contradict it. It’s the purity movement that we see on shows like the Duggars and on so much Christian media. And if we dare to say, “I don’t mind if my adult kids hang out at each other’s homes unchaperoned” or “I kissed my husband before our wedding and I’m glad I did!”, or “I don’t think wearing fashionable jeans is a sin!”, we feel like we’re somehow LESS Christian, because those with firmer rules always look more Christian.

Almost every Christian I know who saved sex for marriage also kissed before their wedding day. Almost NO Christians that I know who saved sex for marriage had their parents chaperoning them. And yet somehow we have allowed the purity culture to claim that it is mainstream Christianity.

But my reservations are not just that people think it’s more common that it is; it’s that I believe that many parents who join the purity culture movement with the absolute best of intentions may inadvertently be doing some harm.

So today, on Top 10 Tuesday, I’d like to start dispelling the myth that all of these trappings of the purity culture movement are good and necessary, and instead look at 10 things that actually scare me. Now a parent doesn’t have to actually believe these things for the kids to pick up on it. Most parents, I think, would totally reject all 10 of these things. Yet by stressing purity the way that we do, with balls and pledges and even the language that we use, these are the messages we give kids, even if we do so unintentionally:

10 Things That Make Me Uncomfortable about the Purity Movement--and how I raised kids to wait until marriage WITHOUT all the purity culture trappings!

1. The Purity Movement focuses on girls’ purity far more than boys’ purity

It is girls who go to “purity balls” with their dads. It is girls who wear purity rings.

Boys may go to boys’ events, but they’re called something different: “Being a Man of God” for instance. The word purity is used primarily in the female context, even though both boys and girls EQUALLY are called to be pure. This can give a distorted view that girls’ worth is in their bodies.

2. To stress “Purity” as being about one’s sexual behaviour creates a works-based theology

Let’s be clear: we are pure because of the blood of Jesus, not because of what we do with our bodies. By saying that purity is something that can be “lost”, we imply that what we do, or don’t do, makes us acceptable or dirty in God’s eyes.

We are all sinners. We are all in need of a Saviour. Let’s never make people think that they can somehow do enough to get right with God–or, even worse, that they can do something to make them forever “tainted”.

3. Stressing “purity” harms abuse victims

If purity is something you can lose because of sexual activity, then those who are abused or raped are no longer pure. What a burden to put on abuse survivors!

Even if your children haven’t been abused or raped, those around you very well may be, and if you are spreading the purity culture, then they are picking up on this message. Elizabeth Smart, the Mormon girl who was kidnapped, has talked about this at length, and the effect that “losing her purity” had on her. She had to recover and heal from feeling as if she was not worth anything anymore since she was no longer a virgin.

4. Saying “Stay Pure Until You’re Married” implies that you lose your purity at marriage

We don’t stay pure until we’re married. We stay pure. Period. I’m married and I’m pure. And yet the way that we phrase it makes it sound as if you lose your purity the moment you have sex–even if sex is with your husband.

5. The Purity Culture idolizes the young, innocent virgin

The pinnacle of purity is the young girl who is past puberty but who hasn’t engaged in any sexual activity.

Of course we want our kids to remain virgins until marriage, but that is not the pinnacle of everything they can be. God has also given them gifts and talents and personalities and ambitions, and He wants those girls to use them! The young, innocent girl who stays at home is lovely, but she is not the only manifestation of Christ that the kingdom of God needs. We also need girls who are actively reaching others for Christ.

It’s the whole picture that counts, not just the virginity. Let’s not make a woman’s worth in the kingdom only about what she does with her body, instead of also her mind and her energy.

6. The Purity Culture can make women afraid of sex

If sex makes one lose one’s purity, then sex is something bad. I have heard from countless women on this blog who found it difficult to enjoy sex because they had been taught their whole lives to flee from it–and that the ideal woman was one who had not had sex. To have sex, then, is a letdown and a failure. This seriously impacts the marriage!

I want to stress, too, that most parents NEVER explicitly taught this. In fact, they’d be appalled if they realized that this is how their message had been interpreted! But when we frame purity like this, then this is the message that often gets picked up, whether we realize it or not.

The Good Girls Guide to Great SexYou’re not alone!

So many women who grew up in the purity culture entered marriage really intimidated, and unsure how to embrace their sexual side (or even if they SHOULD have a sexual side!)

In The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex I show how God designed sex to be intimate physically, spiritually, AND emotionally–and how sex was supposed to be both hot and holy.

If you’re struggling with seeing sex like that, check out The Good Girl’s Guide!

7. The Purity Culture makes women (and girls) responsible for men’s thoughts and sins

By stressing modesty so much, the purity culture makes women the gatekeepers of men’s sins and thoughts. Woman after woman on this blog has written something like,

I spent my teenage years wearing XL T-shirts on my tiny frame so that men may not see my curves, and they still noticed. I’d feel so ashamed. I started avoiding being in public because I didn’t want men to see my dirty body.

I’ve written more about the modesty culture here, and about the “don’t be a stumbling block” argument here.

8. The Purity Culture creates an “all-or-nothing” mentality about sex

Ironically, studies have shown that Christian teens steeped in the purity culture are more likely to engage in risky sexual behaviour than Christian teens who are not, and it’s likely because of the “all or nothing” mentality. If kids feel that kissing is an absolute sin, then if they’ve kissed, they’re horribly ashamed of themselves. They’ve already “gone too far”. And because purity is lost in an instant, it’s too late now. So what’s the point in turning back?

9. The Purity Culture doesn’t encourage young people to rely on God

To go along with that point, the purity culture uses rules to control behaviour–no kissing, hand holding only after engagement (or other commitment), chaperoning, parents’ permission, no being alone, etc. etc. But rules can’t control people’s behaviour. Only the Holy Spirit can. We can live according to the law or according to the Spirit–it’s your choice. You can’t have both. And if you expect your kids to make good decisions, you need to teach them to rely on God, not just to have rules that keep you safe.

I’m not saying guidelines aren’t a good idea; but ultimately the only way to withstand temptation is because of a personal relationship with God. If they have that personal relationship, they don’t need the chaperoning. They really don’t.

10. The Purity Movement treats adults as if they’re still children

Do you want your children to get married and start a life of their own without ever making decisions for themselves, relying on God during difficult times, figuring out their calling, or learning to withstand temptation? Probably not. Some of these things can be learned under a parent’s roof, but ultimately a child needs to learn them and claim them on their own. That’s an important part of growing up.

If adults still need parents to chaperone, then they aren’t really adults. A 19-year-old has the Holy Spirit as much as you do, if you both believe. Trust God with your kids. He’s got it. He really does.

So how would I raise kids WITHOUT the purity culture?

I’ve raised two girls who are now college-aged and living away from home. One is now married. Both have believed in purity and both committed to saving sex for marriage.

And yet in all their years growing up I don’t think I ever used the word “purity”. I asked them over the weekend if they could remember me saying it, and they couldn’t. We just didn’t phrase it that way. We simply talked about loving Jesus and following Jesus and making Jesus real in their lives. We talked a ton about sex and why God wants us to wait for marriage. We talked about what to do when you’re tempted–whatever the temptation is.

I did say no dating until 16, because until then, their brains just aren’t necessarily ready. But after that it was entirely their choice.

And I encouraged them to run hard after the areas of ministry that God was calling them to.

In other words, you can raise kids to wait until marriage without purity balls, purity rings, chaperoning, and rules. You can raise kids who love God wholeheartedly without these trappings.

It’s about authenticity in your own relationship with God, and then authenticity (and lots of talking!) in your own relationship with your kids. That’s what ultimately matters.

Personally, the older I get the more I think that most rules are antithetical to the gospel. If it were honestly about rules, we wouldn’t need to “walk by the Spirit”. If rules were all that it took to achieve purity, then we wouldn’t need Jesus!

But if we have to walk by the Spirit WITHOUT rules, then we must also live with this uncomfortable truth: God may call other Christians to live in a different way than He calls you, because they have different backgrounds, different temptations, and different personalities. That’s why the Spirit will convict us in different ways about different things. And that’s perfectly okay! So let’s not assume that because a family doesn’t follow the “purity culture” or doesn’t believe that kissing is always wrong that this means that they are somehow lesser Christians. We all serve God; let’s stick to the heart of the gospel, and let our kids do the same.

Now let me know in the comments: Did you grow up in the purity movement? What do you think is the best way to encourage our kids towards “purity”?

Good Girls Guide My Site

Have a daughter/sister/friend getting married soon? Make sure she has GOOD information about sex, and a GREAT perspective on how God made it. My book, The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex, will get her marriage off to a great start (whether she’s a virgin or not!)

Check it out here.

Written by

Sheila Wray Gregoire

Tags

Recent Posts

Want to support our work? You can donate to support our work here:

Good Fruit Faith is an initiative of the Bosko nonprofit. Bosko will provide tax receipts for U.S. donations as the law allows.

Sheila Wray Gregoire

Author at Bare Marriage

Sheila is determined to help Christians find biblical, healthy, evidence-based help for their marriages. And in doing so, she's turning the evangelical world on its head, challenging many of the toxic teachings, especially in her newest book The Great Sex Rescue. She’s an award-winning author of 8 books and a sought-after speaker. With her humorous, no-nonsense approach, Sheila works with her husband Keith and daughter Rebecca to create podcasts and courses to help couples find true intimacy. Plus she knits. All the time. ENTJ, straight 8

Related Posts

What if the 5 Love Languages Are Junk Science?

Do the 5 Love Languages stand up to scientific scrutiny? In January of this year, an article was published and was called Popular Psychology Through a Scientific Lens: Evaluating Love Languages From a Relationship Science Perspective in the Psychological Science...

The Question That Haunts Me 35 Years Later

Scott was a seriously cute Australian whose accent made me swoon. I was 18-years-old, and attending Capernwray Bible college in England for a semester before I started at Queen’s University the following year. And I spent the first few weeks trying to get Scott’s...

Comments

We welcome your comments and want this to be a place for healthy discussion. Comments that are rude, profane, or abusive will not be allowed. Comments that are unrelated to the current post may be deleted. Comments above 300 words in length are let through at the moderator’s discretion and may be shortened to the first 300 words or deleted. By commenting you are agreeing to the terms outlined in our comment and privacy policy, which you can read in full here!

170 Comments

  1. Rosanna

    I don’t have teenagers yet. (My oldest is just 10 years old) But I found this to be a really good read. I, personally, grew up with parents that plain didn’t really talk about the sexual side of things. They had the rule that I wasn’t allowed to date until 18 years old and they talked about how they waited to kiss until they got married, but I didn’t follow that nor did I ever tell them that. I had one boyfriend before my husband, but I remained “pure.” For myself, my first time was REALLY good. We had really good pre-marital counseling and I was really excited to finally be able to have sex.

    Reply
    • Sheila

      Yay! I’m so glad it worked out so well for you! And thanks for your kind words about the post.

      Reply
      • Sarah

        So, I hope this is taken as a compliment…

        As an atheist, I didn’t hate this article. I believe your points could be molded to fit any household, religious or not.

        Especially when discussing self worth as attributed to sex or how sexual assault victims would feel.

        I don’t think one needs a diety in order to understand the ramifications of sex with someone you aren’t spending your life with. It’s a very big emotional connection and easily glazed over in everyday scenarios.

        Thanks for your viewpoint

        Reply
      • GARY

        BASSICALLY THOSE STRINGENT RULES BECOME BONDAGE- LAW AND ACCORDING TO 1 CORINTHIANS 15 : 56 THE STRENTH OF SIN IS THE LAW, KIDS NEED TO WITNESS THE GRACE AND GOODNESS OF GOD THROUGH THIER PARENTS AND OTHER MEANINGFUL ADULTS, THEREBY BEING LEAD TO CHRIST WHO IS THE SOURCE OF ALL PURITY.

        Reply
    • Gerri Means

      The most simple explanation you will find is located in the Bible. Nothing was ever said about not kissing, however, what was mentioned was fornication. I do not agree with half of what was said in this article and pray that families will be able to teach both girls and boys the right way.

      Reply
    • kenny

      Pure? Or virgin?

      Reply
  2. Amanda

    Happy birthday! It’s my birthday too! This is probably my favorite of your mom’s posts!

    Reply
    • Sheila

      Happy birthday to you, too! (I haven’t left for birdwatching yet! It’s kinda foggy. But we’re hoping to get out of here soon!)

      Reply
  3. Monica

    My son is almost 12, so we are just starting to peak out of the girls are yuck closet…they have mostly been classified as “annoying” now. Instead of purity, we stress respect. It is disrespectful to just see girls bodies, not their hearts. Sexton with someone you don’t love is disrespectful, and if you aren’t mature enough to get married, it disrespect you to have sex you aren’t ready for (as well as the girl, of course). It is disrespectful to talk down about “how far” people have gone with other people, or how many people they have done something with, but it’s respectful of ourselves to ask those questions of someone you want to build a life with. If someone is dressed in a way that shows off her body (he’s a competitive swimmer, and even the most modest competition swimsuits are form-fitting) it is his job to be respectful and look at their faces instead. And it is respectful of his body and the girls around him to wear the longer jammer swimsuits and not speedos, and to put on long lose shorts and a shirt when he’s not in the water. I want him to grow up respecting his body and his future wife’s body both, and I’m hoping by phrasing it this way he learns there is nothing wrong or shameful about our bodies, but that they are all wonderful and deserving of respect

    And Happy Birthday Rebecca!

    Reply
    • Sheila

      That’s great, Monica! That sounds VERY healthy. (And I really am leaving soon to go birdwatching! The sun just came out and the fog is lifting!)

      Reply
    • unmowngrass

      This is wonderful! I will be bookmarking this article specifically because of this comment! It hits at the exact point, without going off to either side! Well done!!

      And happy birthday, Rebecca 🙂

      Reply
    • Taunya

      This is an awesome comment! I have a 17yo son who I’ve always taught that he has no right to own, touch or grab a person. That one day he will have a wife and they will love one another and share their bodies with one another. Until then he must respect the dignity of another person. So far, I think we are doing ok.

      I have 13 and 15yo girls. They live with the aftermath of the twisted purity culture I grew up with (we didn’t idolize virginity, we denounced sex). I’m very open with them about how it’s affected our marriage. They’ve seen our marriage be redeemed when I was finally released from those chains a couple years ago.

      I have guidelines for their safety … No hanging in bedrooms (i was abused in my own bedroom with my parents in the other room). Very limited social media. No dating until 16. Dating involves a few rules about time and place and not adding to the temptation.

      But mostly I’m honest. I’ve told them what it’s like to kiss a boyfriend and want more… And how to deal with that. I’ve told them what sex is and is not and why it is intended for marriage.

      I also told them that if they find themselves in a situation and they go too far, that grace is there. That Abba loves them and their worth is not tied into their virgin bodies.

      I have to trust the Spirit to speak to my child. I have to trust Jesus walks beside them. I have to trust that Abba loves them more than I do. I have to trust that my parenting will give them the tools they need to make the decision.

      If it’s not their own conviction, their own decision-making than when they are under pressure they won’t stand.

      Thank You Sheila for speaking up about this. It’s time the Christian world knows the truth about this teaching.

      Reply
      • Adam

        “I have a 17yo son who I’ve always taught that he has no right to own, touch or grab a person.”
        I hope there is an emphasis on that its not ok UNLESS he has consent. Otherwise he may grow up finding it difficult to be intimate later on.
        All the best 🙂
        A young concerned adult.

        Reply
        • Taunya

          Of course! Since he was little we talked about personal space. If the person invites you into the personal space then it’s ok. But owning. Never. I am a survivor of sexual abuse and my children are raised with all the ramifications of that…so I have told them they can not own someone and no one can own them. As you can imagine, I Corinthians 7 drives me crazy. I know the concept, but to have someone say that I don’t own my body does not work. So I raise my kids that way.

          Reply
      • Sheila

        Thank you for that, Taunya! I appreciate it.

        Reply
    • Katrina

      Great perspective! I need to remember this!

      Reply
    • Sarara

      Monica, you win parent of the year. I wish all boys were taught like this!

      Reply
      • Monica

        Thank you! I try to teach him the things I wish I had known! My parents tried, and in most ways did a good job with us. But they just kind of accepted that we knew to respect our bodies…and I didnt. I want him to do better than me

        Reply
    • Kat

      What a great way to discuss this issue, Monica. My eldest is only five (a boy) so we don’t really talk about it much yet, aside from not walking in on mummy when I’m showering. We do talk about respect for others in other aspects of our behaviour, so this makes perfect sense for when he’s older and starts to notice girls or ask questions.

      Reply
  4. Leah Perrault

    I’m so glad another Canadian woman is talking about this! A colleague /friend and I wrote a book on this in 2009 from a Catholic perspective. It was so frustrating to us that the whole culture seemed to be more concerned about doing things right – in whatever framework they were in, and then horizontally attacking people who did things differently. We wanted to present a way of thinking about dating which kept authentic faith at the heart and allowed each person/couple to respond freely and faithfully to God in their own lives. Thanks for all the great work you’re doing!

    Reply
    • Sheila

      Thank you, Leah! Nice to talk to another Canadian, too! 🙂

      Reply
    • Bridget Olver

      Just so you know, Leah, your book set the standard for me and many people I know as a healthy way to look at sexuality! When I grew up there was only ‘I Kissed Dating Goodbye’, and others like it, which I rejected as being unbalanced, but didn’t have a replacement for. Now there is, so thanks for writing it, and thanks Sheila for your post!

      Reply
  5. Mrs. Abella

    I wish years ago I’d had that “movement” around me. I grew up in the 80’s/90’s, but even in our small town, it was ok to have a baby while in school, have multiple partners, and so on. Looking back I’d love to tell my younger self to grab on to the purity idea and run with it….it’d have saved lots of heart ache down the road!

    Reply
    • Natalie

      I don’t think Sheila means to imply that purity culture is worse than promiscuity. I think that there were a lot of people (especially among homeschoolers where this sort of thing tends to be strong) who grew up seeing these social ills and trying to run as far away from them as possible. That’s great, but I also think many of them overreacted. If you don’t have the social structure or mental foundations in place to really “get” how chastity works then it’s tempting to string up a lot of rules.

      My analogy would be that it’s sort of like trying to throw a three course dinner party from scratch as an adult when you never saw your mom do anything other than reheat frozen meals. You depend a lot on recipes and how-to’s and that book your picked up on “10 meals for friends and family” that tells you when to put this thing in the oven and when to take something else off the stove. Without all those “rules” you might feel too intimidated to try.

      Someone else though, who grew up cooking and planning and hosting with extended family, they just do it. They know more than they may ever know that they know. It’s not because they’re smarter or better or anything – they just grew up in a context where this all sort of soaked into their bones.

      I think chastity can be that sort of thing too. In many cases I think personally think that if you need the rules to get you started then that’s fine, but the goal (IMO) should be towards arriving at a place where chastity is something you learn like you learn cooking. There are a few absolute rules and a lot of freedom.

      Reply
      • Sheila

        I really, really like this thought. I think I may use it when I speak as an illustration. EXACTLY. Rules may start us out, but once you get good at it, you don’t need them anymore. And that’s where we all should be. The “rules”, ironically, aren’t for the “super-Christians”, as it’s portrayed. They’re more like “milk”. Walking by the Spirit is more the meat of the gospel, and it’s a lot harder–but a lot more in tune with God’s heart.

        Reply
    • Sheila

      I wish you had been taught that sex before marriage was harmful, too! And I totally believe in teaching about what sex is meant to be and how powerful it is–and the consequences when we misuse it. I just don’t agree with all the “extras” we’ve put around it. I do think the pendulum has just swung, and perhaps it needs to come back to the middle, where what you (and I) grew up in isn’t right, but what this is doing isn’t right, either.

      Reply
  6. Rebecca Watson

    You make excellent points.

    I work with men and women who are struggling with healthy sexuality in their marriage, and so often their problems stem from sex-negative messages they got as teenagers – either from their parents or a respected religious leader.

    “Purity” ie virginity has been elevated to idol status for some, and that’s a mistake. It can be so hard for a ‘good girl’ to relax and let go once she finally does get married, and it leads to a lot of unnecessary angst for her and her husband.

    Great post!

    Reply
    • Sheila

      Thanks, Rebecca!

      Reply
  7. Katie

    Happy birthday, Rebecca! As an engaged girl who’s around your age, I really look up to you!

    I agree with pretty much all of these points, but I’d like to add that growing up in a church/social circle where waiting until marriage for sex is the norm DOES make it easier when you actually start dating. At least that’s how it’s been for my fiancé and me: His parents and friends always assumed he and his sister would wait for marriage, and he’s really good at withstanding temptation — partially as a result of his upbringing, I think. I just recently became a Christian (well, almost four years ago) and nobody in my social circle growing up would even consider the idea of not having sex pre-marriage (“What if you’re not compatible?” Sigh.). I think that’s part of why it’s harder for me to deal with temptation. But of course your relationship with God is always a big factor, too. Fortunately, we only have 2.5 months left until our wedding 🙂

    Reply
    • Sheila

      Yes! I totally agree, Katie–being in an environment where it’s assumed you’ll wait is a totally HEALTHY thing. That way others can hold you accountable, and you know the other person won’t be pressuring you. It’s that fine line, isn’t it, between believing God’s best (waiting until marriage) and creating a culture out of it (purity).

      And you can do it! You can get there! 2.5 months isn’t that much time! Congratulations!

      Reply
  8. G

    I come from South Africa where a girl’s purity is more valuable than her salvation! A man who gets me hits gold and I’m just a target! As if Salvation is nothing of value.

    On the other side – every other female who isn’t “pure” is waiting for me to make a mistake. To fall pregnant. 🙁 For many it’s talk but for me it’s a chain. In April I am getting married and the pressure of getting it right in the bedroom is much much higher! It’s as if – if I do mess up I should guarantee myself as a failure. I’ve read articles and books (including yours) and found that it’s not true. Waiting until marriage is great I know. But the ones who regret the mistake of losing their virginity – in my country are of little value.

    My marriage, salvation, success, all of it is tied to being “pure” – it makes the Gospel of Jesus Christ out of the picture completely! We need more Gospel in Africa!

    Reply
    • Sheila

      Wow, that’s so hard! It’s like it pits girls against girls, too. And I would LOVE to come to Africa and do some work with female leaders. I’m praying that God will open the door and give me some specific opportunity, because that’s really where my heart is.

      Reply
  9. Holly

    Another fabulous, spot on post!

    Reply
    • Sheila

      Thanks, Holly!

      Reply
  10. Emily

    There is so much that I love about this post!! I have 2 teenage boys and a daughter that is nearly 12.

    My husband and I have been a bit squeamish about sex talk with our kids (it’s how we grew up, well, definitely how I grew up). But I’m going to send him this article. We need to have these talks with our kids.

    Growing up in the “purity culture” I can attest to some of the above feelings. The goal of several of my friends was not to kiss before marriage, but I did kiss before I got married. It was something I felt a little bit bad about for a while, but I have no regrets. 🙂 I was 22 when I had my first kiss. Having the Holy Spirit and having boundaries set by Him prevented us from going any further. I want my kids to be able to follow Him and live their lives for Him, in all areas.

    Sorry this is a rambling post. Thank you for a wonderful, wonderful post! Enjoy your bird watching! 🙂

    Reply
    • Sheila

      Thanks for sharing, Emily! And I agree–it’s about the Holy Spirit, and that’s wonderful that He protected you.

      Reply
  11. Peggy

    The point I’d like to add is, regardless of how you phrase the message it needs to be modeled as well. Far too many families in today’s culture have parents that don’t accept the truth of this moral teaching, and worse don’t live it. Even if these parents teach the truth in pure, poetic form it will fall on deaf ears if they don’t live it.

    This is true for both chastity within the single life, as well as chastity within a marriage. Positive, respectful, practicing role models will teach far more than words ever could. To see a man respect his wife and vice versa takes the “ick factor” out of the affection parents display in front of their children.

    Reply
    • Sheila

      I totally agree. Parents who really love each other and show that affection IN FRONT of their kids (reasonably), but who also respect their spouses in not checking out other people or in speaking respectfully about other people really help.

      Reply
  12. Alicia Marks

    I totally agree with this! Especially the part about stressing this way too lop-sided against girls. How do we expect our young men to become spiritual leaders if we have a “boys will be boys” attitude about sex, expecting girls to be the ones who carry this load? I’m so glad that you wrote this and I hope people really hear what you are saying.

    Reply
    • Sheila

      YES! So true. If we tell boys “all boys lust and use porn and have issues with how girls look” then what will they think?

      Reply
      • Tammy

        I have been very troubled by #1 – the lopsided teaching that purity is for girls. Thank you for sharing this. “Boys will be boys” mentality should not be in the church. As you stated purity is an equal calling.

        Reply
  13. Lindsay

    I grew up in a homeschooling family who did a lot of the “purity culture” stuff. I got a purity ring. My family’s stance was no kissing until marriage. However, I also knew that it was really about the Bible’s standards and all the other stuff was just to help. My parents at least made it clear that sex wasn’t bad, just wrong outside marriage. Virginity wasn’t the standard, just the proper thing for an unmarried person.

    I moved away from home and started dating after that, so I didn’t really know how it was going to work without parents and siblings always there to chaperone. It was just me, in a new place. But I had to evaluate my own standards that way, and that was good. We had to police ourselves and avoid situations that were tempting. My now-husband and I did kiss before marriage, but we waited to have sex.

    My parents didn’t take the kissing part very well. But I actually found that having a outlet like kissing for expressing the love we felt for each other (once we knew we were going to get married and were in love) made it easier to not do other things we shouldn’t. Contrary to purity culture belief, kissing doesn’t automatically lead to sex, as if once you start, your body just takes over and you have no choice.

    Because I knew sex wasn’t bad, just wrong outside marriage, I didn’t have any hangups about sex after marriage. I was excited to have sex. I entered marriage fully embracing being a lover to my husband. So in that regard, while there were certainly things that could have been done better, it didn’t scar me.

    Reply
    • Sheila

      I’m glad, Lindsay! And I think you raise a great point about kissing. I respect those who feel they should wait until the wedding, but I also think that it’s fine when you’re in a serious relationship. It all depends what God calls you to!

      Reply
  14. Jessica

    Thank you! Especially for #5. As a woman in ministry that one made me want to stand up and applaud (what funny looks my sons would give me then since I’m reading this sitting at the desk). I am more than my body, I have a calling beyond my 4 walls and within it.

    This part “Let’s not make a woman’s worth in the kingdom only about what she does with her body, instead of also her mind and her energy” really spoke to me today, thank you.

    Reply
    • Sheila

      I’m glad, Jessica! That’s really my heart cry.

      Reply
  15. Angie

    Like Sheila has said, the purity culture can harm those who were assaulted soooo badly. Once your “purity” is taken away, you feel worthless, dirty, ashamed. So some girls(like me) figure what’s the point now and subconsciously I think we decide to go after sex with whomever so it’s OUR decision before a guy can take that decision away from us again. Thus, intimacy with a husband and God is really hard. How can I trust a man, even Jesus, when men have done nothing but hurt me and use me? There needs to be more teachings of grace after bad things happen or mistakes are made. Its hard enough for women to know God loves us with all the chauvinistic teachings and scriptures.

    Reply
    • Sheila

      Thanks for sharing that, Angie! It’s so important to share.

      Reply
  16. Andra R.

    Great article! Number 3 – yes. I was sexually abused both as a young girl and as a teen. As an adult I remember speaking with a pastor about it. He handed me a book and told me to read chapter 7, which was entitled, “But I am not pure.” Needless to say, that made me feel worse than when I went into his office.
    My husband and I have 17 year old boy/girl twins. While we did give them both a purity ring, we have had numerous discussions. They know that sex is awesome and wonderful, but it should be saved for marriage. And if they would happen to engage in sex before marriage, there is always God’s grace and forgiveness – and ours as well.

    Reply
    • Sheila

      Ouch! That’s awful that the pastor gave that to you. Oh, my heart hurts over that! Yes, stressing grace is so important with your girls. I try to do that, too.

      Reply
  17. Cynthia Slyter

    I am the director of a crisis pregnancy center that offers sexual risk avoidance presentations in the public schools in our area. We also engage our clients on conversation about purity. One of the ministries we absolutely love is our once a month event for the teens in our area churches – Pure A.I.R. (Absolute Integrity in Relationships).
    Having been in this role for fourteen years, and having been a presenter in each of these settings for ten of those years I was pretty discouraged at your handling of this “movement”. I know of most of the national groups, and many of the curricula that presents the abstinence/purity/sexual risk avoidance information and I don’t at all see the picture you are presenting.
    I see the potential for this kind of confusion, and I know there are always people out there who don’t handle this information well in their presentations, but to label the “movement” as something to be worried about is a little far I believe. You bring good points – but the vast majority of the people I speak with at conferences who are presenting this material are being very careful of those very points.
    I am disappointed in a Christian voice that acts to gently condemn those trying to bring a clear message of hope to very confused teens (who in my 10 years of experience are deeply grateful to hear they don’t HAVE to be sexually active before marriage and that there is a bigger picture). This is an approach that condemns all in one lump…and it is unfair.

    Reply
    • Sheila

      Cynthia, I’m so sorry that you feel that way. But I do believe that I made an effort to separate those who teach that sex before marriage is harmful–and I would lump myself into that group–and those who teach all of the “extras”, like no kissing, parents chaperoning, purity balls, etc. That’s what I was talking about, and I did try to explain that at the beginning of the post.

      I think those who go into public schools and teach that sex is deeply personal and can wound us if we use it cavalierly are doing a great service, and I’ve talked about that at length on the blog (as the links that I left showed). It’s the culture of it that I worry about.

      Reply
      • A

        I completely agree with Cynthia. My husband and I are youth pastors and have worked with youth for over 10 years. I also work at an organization that oversees hundreds of churches and youth pastors and I do not see this extreme purity trend at all that you speak of. While I know you are addressing more extreme issues which I agree would be a problem if it was actually “the culture” out there, I find your post is also “all or nothing” as you say yourself, and not at all reflective of the current culture, or all over media as you mention (I don’t know what kindof social media you look at but it’s certainly not what we see/hear about in Canada). In the extreme possible cases that you present, I do agree it could have harmful effects. But the truth is, it’s just not out there near as much as you are portraying! It makes me wonder, do you even work with large amounts of youth on a regular basis? Is your life immersed in youth culture? If it was, the tone of your message about what really is in youth culture these days would be quite different. You would encourage a movement of purity more, not in the harmful ways your saying its present, but you would be cautious to even allow this post to circulate, because you know that the truth about youth culture is they need a bit more of a purity movement. I don’t mean to be harsh at all, but do find it concerning when people speak about things as if they are the norm, the “culture” as you say, because unfortunately there is little purity in our culture but the fact is the culture does resist the talk of purity at all coming from us who try to encourage it at least a little in what is really a highly sexualized culture. Please be careful in speaking of extremes as if it represents the culture as a whole, because this post sure doesn’t reflect the reality of the hundreds of teenagers we work with. These examples sound more like what would be small pockets of cult-like groups that go this extreme, but you are portraying it as if it’s culture at large. The truth is, people need to hear more on purity, because it’s hardly out there at all. I agree with what would be harmful effects of extreme “purity movements” which I’ve never seen or heard of anywhere. But the truth is, our actual culture could use a little more of a purity movement. I wish people of influence in their writing would think more about how it makes Christianity look as a whole, especially when addressing extreme scenarios as if this is how we really are as a “Christian culture.” Lord I pray for wisdom!!!

        Reply
        • Kay

          Cynthia and A (above), I realize this is an old post, but I just wanted to chime in that at least in the parts of Midwest where I was grew up, the “dark side” of the purity movement was prevalent. I am SO thankful to hear that your experiences have been different, and I hope things continue to move in a healthier direction, so keep up the good work.

          Unfortunately my friends and I all received messages (some implied, some explicit) that sex is bad, girls’ bodies are a source of temptation and are to be covered up and ashamed of, all our worth is wrapped up in virginity, and sex is just for men.

          My youth group/high school went to purity rallies that used illustrations where the speaker passed around a cup of water and encouraged everyone to spit in it, then held that cup up next to a cup of pure water and told us that that is what we would be like if we had sex before married; who would want that nasty cup of backwash when you could drink a cup of pure water? Or a piece of tape that was stuck to multiple people’s skin until it wasn’t sticky anymore and basically worthless as a piece of tape now, telling that is what is was like to have sex before marriage and how we would be ruining that bond with our husband. ALL of our worth was placed in our virginity. Or they passed a rose around the group and by the time it got back up front it was crumpled and petals were missing and ripped. I’ll never forget a blog one of my friends (who had been sexually abused as a child) wrote about that “rose ceremony” ten years after the fact… “‘Who would want this crumpled rose?’ JESUS STILL WANTS THE CRUMPLED ROSES. And so will a man who loves Jesus and understands the true meaning of grace, because we aren’t crumpled roses at all but are the SPOTLESS bride of Christ.”

          We had to wear dark colored t-shirts over our one piece bathing suits at the beach because that still wasn’t modest enough, and it was our job to make sure we weren’t a stumbling block to our brothers in Christ, who are not capable of seeing any portion of our bodies and not lusting after us.

          A few examples of the repercussions. My best friend from high school had to be treated for vaginismus when she got married (as Sheila mentioned) because she had internalized her whole life that “sex/sexuality is bad” because the purity message was so drilled into us. She is *still* going through a lot of talk therapy to try and accept that her sexuality (especially as a married woman) is not evil. She has been married for ten years, still cannot have sex with the lights on or let her husband see her naked, and she has never once had an orgasm.

          One of our other dear friends in the same circle slipped with her now husband two weeks before their wedding and she was so devastated that she was now impure that she refused to have sex for their entire honeymoon because she felt like she needed to spend that time repenting for their sin. Their sex life and marriage is still strained, and she blames him for ruining everything… For ruining “her.”

          My college roommate (not from my high school) experienced extremely painful sex for the first several months of marriage, but like me, she was taught that “sex is just for him” so she just put up with it without complaint while her husband–not knowing she was even in pain–wanted sex multiple times a day after waiting his whole life. By the grace of God, she got a raging UTI after a few months (MONTHS!) and her doctor told her she needed to refrain from having sex for at least 7 days. When they finally did have sex again she was shocked to find that it didn’t hurt the entire time! Basically, he had insisted on having sex so often that she tore over and over again and could not heal (again, not knowing she was in pain, so he isn’t a jerk, I promise!), but she thought it was her “wifely duty” so she was just trying to be a good Christian woman and not refuse her husband. Even now, a woman in my Bible study is still putting up with painful sex and never orgasming because “that’s just what a good Christian wife does” or else her husband will have an affair or turn to porn, as we’ve been told over and over again. If a Christian husband has a porn problem, the wives are told it’s their fault for not being available enough.

          I have SO many more stories just like these. After reading MANY marriage books, Sheila’s in particular and No More Headaches (or something like that) by Julie Seibert, I feel blessed to have been able to overcome my “purity culture” upbringing and have a healthy *mutually enjoyable* sex life with my incredible husband. I am now most of my friends’ “go-to-gal” for awkward sex conversations about what is normal and what isn’t because I am the only person they know that is willing to talk about sex beyond “Don’t have sex before marriage” that is passionate about having a wonderful, MUTUAL sexual unity with our husband’s.

          Anyway, THAT is why Sheila’s post is so important. Hundreds upon hundreds of women have been deeply wounded by this purity culture gone wrong.

          Reply
        • Lynn

          Also chiming in very late, but I have to join the voices that say this isn’t a fringe movement! The public schools in many counties in the northern half of Missouri get abstinence-only presentations from a crisis pregnancy center, which uses the rose/spit/tape analogies. This is mainstream stuff for us!

          Reply
        • Caley

          Just because this is not as relevant in Canada does not mean it is not in the U.S. It is arrogant for you to question the authenticity and the author’s ministry. I am heavily involved in church ministry myself, and I know how tempting it can be to think that, after a while, you know everything. I’m afraid, Friend, that you have fallen into this trap.

          I am 21 years old and I attended church camp every year for six years that prohibited “dating” and encouraged waiting until marriage before even holding hands. I also attended a missions camp every year for four years that did the same. This camp taught that guys and girls should not even text or call each other. Those who did were thought to be immoral. I am not talking about 12 year olds, these were people in their 20s. My youth pastor encouraged no kissing before marriage. This idea is EXTREMELY prevalent in many other places. In fact, so many young adults have been affected by this and have a very difficult time finding a spouse due to fear of stepping out of God’s will. Please make sure and do research before criticizing someone else.

          Reply
    • Alicia

      I would like to add that having been a Christian in the later part of my teen years & all throughout my now dwindling 20s, I never heard this kind of message about sex. It was much more of the thoughtful middle ground you were advocating. & that’s what I have experienced is the normal evangelical message.
      If anything, I have seen/heard/read more messages/articles arguing AGAINST this type of thought than advocating. And I’ve decided not to treat a thing as a thing if the backlash against the thing is greater than the thing itself.
      “The thing” in this case being the message you advocate against.
      I think this might even have been a more popular view to have in maybe like the 90s? I’ve heard “courting” was really in vogue in the 90s.

      Reply
      • Sheila

        Alicia, I’m glad you never really experienced it! I think what happened was that in the 90s it was confined to a certain small subculture: say ultraconservative churches. Growing up in the 80s I certainly NEVER heard anything about it. I didn’t know ANYONE who didn’t kiss until their wedding.

        But in 2003 Josh Harris published I Kissed Dating Goodbye, which I think was the launch of the “more mainstream Christianity” purity movement. That book sold like wildfire (I bought it and even bought into it for a time, and I still think he makes some good points, he just takes them too far). But that book brought the idea of no kissing until you’re married and no dating into even contemporary churches and youth groups.

        Then the Duggars got their TV show, and all of a sudden the no hand holding and chaperoning also became normal.

        In my Pinterest feed I’m constantly seeing “why no kissing before marriage” posts showing up, and things like that. It really is a more modern cultural thing. But that doesn’t mean that it’s everywhere. It’s just that, Christian media wise, it’s far more widespread than it ever has been. I think it’s reached its pinnacle and the pendulum will swing back (I hope), but it is more modern than people think. If you had told me in the 80s when I was a teen that the church would become MORE conservative I would never have believed you. But here we are!

        Reply
        • Hannah

          Yes, I Kissed Dating Goodbye came out when I was a preteen, and while my parents handled sex reasonably well, my friends were hugely caught up in it, both in high school and in college. And I wasn’t even in a particularly conservative church. The fact that my husband and I kissed before we got married, were ever alone together, and so on wasn’t normal. Or rather, I’m sure it was perfectly normal, but the purity “movement” advocates were much, much louder than anyone else.

          Thank you, Cynthia, for the work that you do. It’s hugely important and I’m grateful that you do it! But there really is a subset of Christian culture that takes it to an extreme, and I am far, far from the only young woman to have issues or problems because of it. Sheila’s blog would hardly need to exist if I were.

          Reply
  18. Kym Krizek

    Holy cow you have far too much common sense! ? I absolutely love that you spoke about being in relationship with Jesus and not about rules. It’s what Christianity is all about!

    By the way, I really enjoyed when you were on the Dennis Prager Show a couple years ago. I listen to him every day and loved that you were a guest. It was a great show and if I remember correctly you said you were nervous but we’re fantastic!


    Kym

    Reply
    • Sheila

      Wow! Cool! You remember that? That was a ton of fun!

      Reply
  19. Melissa

    I was in high school during the “purity” craze of the late 90’s. Then at 19 I went and spent a year in a religious internship program where there were rules upon rules upon rules about how the boys and girls could interact (although, as you pointed out, there were more rules for girls than for boys and even then I thought there was something very wrong with that). I got married at 23 and by then my ideas had changed. My husband’s parents asked him if we were going to do a “purity ring exchange” during our wedding ceremony. He asked me what I thought. That was something he had envisioned for himself when he was younger, but his ideas were changing too and he wasn’t sure how he felt about it. I flat-out said no, I didn’t want to do that. We both had many family members – immediate and extended – who had sex before getting married, all of whom were going to be in attendance. I know the wedding is supposed to be all about us blah blah blah, but why would I want to do something that could make people I love feel uncomfortable or cast us in an unflattering holier-than-thou light? It just didn’t seem necessary and we both had outgrown the idea. My virginity was between me and God and it made me uncomfortable to discuss it in front of 200 wedding guests.

    Then of course, during the toasts at our reception my father in law just HAD to get up and say something about both of us being “pure”…neither of us were happy about that, but what are you gonna do. It’s not like we could have jumped up and ripped the microphone out of his hands.

    You know what the whole “purity culture” thing did for me? It made me extremely uncomfortable around men, constantly second-guessing what I said or did. It was exhausting. It finally occurred to me one day that I’m a grown woman, I know how to be appropriate. I should be able to hold an intelligent conversation with a male in a public setting without practically having an anxiety attack later wondering if anything I did gave him “the wrong idea”. I wish someone had taught me about THAT. Yes we need to be appropriate, but at some point people are responsible for their own thoughts and actions and we need to not take all of that responsibility on ourselves or put it on kids who are just trying to figure the world out.

    Reply
    • Sheila

      LOVE your last paragraph! I think so many women experience that!

      And I’ve seen the lists of rules at some Christian universities, and I always think, “These are adults! Many of them are 20 or 21! Why are we holding them to these rules?” It’s very, very strange to me.

      Reply
  20. Nikki Cox

    Love this! I am one who has suffered vaginismus. And this was due to the fear that my parents put into me about having sex before marriage. They did not intend to harm my sex life once I did get married, but that is exactly what happened. I waited and was super excited, nervous and scared when our honeymoon came. And then it was awful. It was the worst feeling ever. More pain than I have ever experienced. And I immediately felt worthless and felt terrible that my husband just married someone who could not please him. Three years of counseling and a whole lot of prayer, and I still have issues but it’s better. But now I have three daughters and am so nervous as to how to approach this topic and how to guide them. Thank you for this!

    Reply
    • Sheila

      I’m so glad that it’s getting better! It really can. I’d really encourage you to see a physiotherapist if you can, too, because someone who specializes in pelvic floor exercises can do a world of good. I think being nervous is okay–just tell them you’re nervous. As long as we’re authentic and tell them what we really think, even if it’s awkward, that’s really the main thing.

      Reply
  21. nylse

    I’d be curious to know how this breaks down by race. The overemphasis on purity isn’t prevalent where I’m from yet being Christlike is. I may email the rest of my thoughts so as not to create a firestorm in the comments.

    Reply
    • Sheila

      That’s a good point, and I really think that it is something that is highly American-specific in its current context, but also very relevant to some African countries, according to some commenters here. I think every area has a certain “strain” of Christianity, that isn’t necessarily as prevalent elsewhere. We all have our own temptations and our own things we do really well. Each “church”, if you can call a geographical area that, has its own strengths and weaknesses. I don’t see this quite as much in Canada, for instance, but it still is here, just not to the extent that it is in some areas of the U.S.

      Reply
      • Jana

        Shelia, this is the first time for me to read anything of yours and was delighted by it. I appreciate the way you tactfully and gracefully handle this subject and have liked reading the comment section. My comment here is in response to Nylse (above) who wonders how this breaks down by race. There is only one human race. 😉 Having visited and stayed in several very different places in the world I can attest, people are people where ever one goes!Though this is not about race, it has nearly everything to do with religion – being performance based for ones value and acceptance in the family, community and culture and even “God”. In having many Muslim friends, every point and comment you outlined here would fit perfectly into how “purity” is defined for girls/women in Islamic culture along with the attitude that “boys will be boys”. I could EASILY take your article (even with all the “Christian” words ) and sit down with my Muslim friends (particularly the girls/ women) and have a very relevant and meaningful discussion with them, point by point (minus the specifics of the purity ring and ball – however each culture and family have their own forms of “purity rings” and “balls”). Many of my friends could easily relate with the comments of the women here – the struggles, the fall-out, the push-back, etc. This “purity culture” in the US may be “modern” or considered “sub-culture Christianity”… it is not. This kind of (religious) treatment of”purity” and sex which you address in this blog/article (especially as it relates to females) is VERY old and VERY relevant in the majority of the world’s population – especially among the “religious” eager to do what is “right” and to do what looks “good”. This “movement” took until the 90ies to finally surface it’s head in the US and then it was dubbed “Christian” and “American”.

        Reply
        • Sheila

          Great points, Jana! You’re totally right.

          Reply
  22. Jen Smart

    For me, it would be helpful to see a 10 things to do list. A 10 this wrong with xyz list is one thing so while you have my attention, give a 10 things to do or 10 good things to balance the 10 bad. I don’t want to feel defeated, wrong, or lost if I thought the road of purity culture was the one I thought I needed to be on with my kids. Some bible verses would be great, too. Let me see where you are getting your thoughts from.

    Reply
  23. Gaye @CalmHealthySexy

    Thanks for addressing this, Sheila. Whenever we focus on following rules rather than seeking Christ we are going to find ourselves in trouble. I didn’t grow up in the purity culture, but I think that anyone who grew up in church in the past 30 years could not avoid being influenced by it.

    I don’t think it’s a coincidence that a very significant leader in the purity culture movement recently was accused by nearly 40 women of sexually inappropriate behavior when they were interns or young employees in his program. Any sort of rules-based system that’s designed to control behavior, as opposed to promoting a relationship with Christ, is bound to fail.

    Reply
    • Sheila

      I totally know who you’re talking about, and I’m going to name him because I think it’s so important to validate the abuse survivors–Bill Gothard. And interestingly, so many more in the “purity movement” have fallen recently. Whenever there are Pharisaical-like “us vs. them” elements of the church it tends to lead to disaster. So true!

      Reply
      • Lydia purple

        I believe there is a simple reason as to why this happens. If we replace the work of the Holy Spirit with rules, we loose. We loose out on life and loose out on the fruit of the spirit, one of which is self control and love. The lack of these lead to temptation coming out in its ugliest form. By removing God’s grace and power from the picture they have become coworker of evil!

        Reply
  24. Penney Hanson

    I raised three sons. They are in their late 20’s and early 30’s now. They are all college graduates with successful careers. Two are married. The third is going to propose this year. They went to public schools from kindergarten through their undergraduate degrees. They had sex education in the schools, female friends and attended Church. We actively answered their questions about sexuality. We played the game of Scruples as they became teenagers with them and their friends.
    It was much more important for us to have sons who liked and respected women. We placed no bounty on virginity. One of my sons fell in love at 17. They moved in together during her residency. They married when he finished his graduate degree. Why would her virginity be an issue? It is just hubris. We have loved her since they first met and guided them as opposed to being judgemental.
    The content of both my sons and their wives character is all that matters. When I meet someone I do not care if they have a hymen. Why would I force that bounty on a child? It was hard enough to become a woman without that hype. My mother was very honest with me about the longing. I came of age in the early 70’s. When it was time for birth control, she supported me without judgement. I still adore her. She turned 70 this year.
    IMHO boys, as they become men, are beyond curious. They are driven by needs and wants that are difficult for women to understand. They masterbate. To home school them without the outlets to form outside social relationships is a recipe for disaster-i.e. Duggers. How can you expect them to function in the world without letting them be in the world? It was predictable that the boys would look to their sisters if there was no one else.
    My mother had the best advice: know where they were at all times, know their friends & friends families and keep them busy with sports and clubs so they can socialize. I wanted my sons brave and strong. We let the leash out slowly but out it went. People are sinners, they fall and we pray they get up again. To push purity to such a high priority is to set the scene for fear and weakness.

    Reply
    • Penney Hanson

      She turned 90 this year. Sorry for any confusion.

      Reply
  25. melinda gallone

    I believe the biblical way to teach our kids in this to emphasize the gravity of a sexual relationship. It’s a covenant. It’s really a blood covenant. If we look at biblical definitions of marriage than we can see this kind of relationship equates to marriage. If a man has sex with a woman he has committed to take care of her for the rest of her life. Emphasize what it should be instead of what shouldn’t.

    Reply
    • Sheila

      Love that!

      Reply
    • KARA

      ” If a man has sex with a woman he has committed to take care of her for the rest of her life. ”

      Not necessarily…..

      I agree we should emphasize the importance and sacredness of the act, and the proper context in which it should occur (only within marriage) but if the sexual union takes place without the publicly recognized vows first in place, it is not the enactment of a covenant but merely a perversion of it, which does not in itself make a vow as it can not solidify what was never promised (lifelong commitment). See what I’m saying? Intercourse alone cannot be a covenant act if there was no covenant made yet it does “seal the deal” when something was promised and witnessed first (marriage). Only then does it become an enactment of the vows=blood (or at least body) covenant. Otherwise, there’s a lot of people walking around with myriad broken covenants or plural covenants. Personally, I won’t elevate those illicit unions to covenant status: nothing promised, nothing owed, which is why it’s so deplorable to misuse it–akin to idolatry, the Bible says. I hope that’s what you meant–that you shouldn’t engage in the act without the covenant in place first. However, if the act is done without the covenant in place that does not necessitate the making of one afterwards, only that the act was misused to say something it never promised!

      Reply
      • unmowngrass

        Not entirely true. For example, Issac and Rebekah in Genesis 24:

        67 And Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah’s tent, and took Rebekah, and she became his wife;

        How exactly did she “bec[o]me his wife” in the tent (in private)? Doesn’t sound like they had a ceremony in front of family and friends…

        That said, yes, there is a change in theology throughout the bible on this matter.

        Reply
  26. P. Walker

    “… we feel like we’re somehow LESS Christian, because those with firmer rules always look more Christian.”

    Uh, hello?! That’s a no. The Pharisees had plenty of firm rules, yet Jesus condemned their attitude and approach.

    It’s ALWAYS a bad idea to be adding rules that the Bible never contained, or forcing the adherence to commandments that were for another people and/or time. Otherwise, why lower the sheet and say, “Take, eat!”? Those commandments were to show us our inability to gain acceptance by God. We’re free from that, in Christ. We know now that we are saved by faith in the saving power of what Jesus did on the cross, alone. Following those older commandments — or adding to them — shows a basic misunderstanding of God’s grace. It could mean that we’re not even saved.

    Now, as a believer, I have the freedom to choose to follow nullified-by-the-cross commandments in order to be like a Jew, unto the Jews (or like a Muslim, unto the Muslims). However, that’s not because I’m forbidden to eat pork, work on the Sabbath, etc. It’s because of God’s strategy for reaching out to the lost. (If only Wheaton College could realize this.)

    Reply
  27. Alicia

    First, really good article overall. I’m glad more people are saying this. I’ve done 15 years or so of youth work and the kids who have fared best in terms of sex have been those whose parents had an open discussion policy. And those that at the same time taught their kids to love and respect themselves and others very highly and to love and respect life very highly. Kids have questions. If you want then full of misinformation send them out into the world to ask their less mature than you friends.

    Reply
  28. Nicole

    Great thoughts! I struggled a lot when I was growing up as a teenager living with my grandparents. Our church talked a lot about purity, and I remember never feeling “pure” from being sexually abused as a child. I had a few amazing female teachers who came alongside me and helped me realize that my purity was not something that could be taken from me. It makes me angry that people still teach that rape or sexual abuse makes you impure, and even that in certain cases, abuse can be your own fault. Also, I was never taught or talked to about sex, except from what I learned while being abused and from sex ed in high school. At church, we were always talked to about why we should wait for marriage to have sex, but it was very confusing to hear conflicting messages with no real guidance from my family. I had a boyfriend and I did things I regret. I felt bad for messing up all the time, so I stopped trying to be “pure” since I wasn’t “pure” anyways. Even with strict rules set in place, it didn’t help, in fact, it just made the forbidden more enticing. I cut off the relationship which saved my virginity for my now husband, but we also had a tough time because it was all about rules, and “don’t do this”, or “don’t do that”, and I was in an environment where purity culture and courting was very dominant. Trying to conform to such high standards made both of us fall even worse, because “saving ourselves” was the focus, not Jesus. We ended up having sex before we got married, and to this day, I wish I had been able to surprise him on our honeymoon. One day, with my own kids, I hope to be able to speak to them honestly and communicate clearly about sex and all the things that go along with it without making my kids feel ashamed,embarrassed, or afraid. I will try my best to point them to Jesus, so that they know where their focus should be!
    Thanks again for addressing this issue! 🙂

    Reply
  29. Karen R

    One thing I want to address is that young women in the purity culture are told that by being “pure”, they won’t create inappropriate emotional ties and bonds. This is not always the case. My husband was an early entrant into the purity/courtship movement in the very early 1990s. He was involved with a young woman and they entered into an official courtship. They did everything “right” – pure, clean, in the light. They only ever held hands. He traveled out of state to meet her parents (yes, she was out of her father’s home – I don’t think the purity tho,I was their doing; it was something my now-husband and she took on for themselves). However, during courtship, and in counseling, my hubby determined that this was not the right woman for him. He broke it off gently, kindly, the “right”, honorable way. SHE WAS DEVASTATED. She never recovered. She never married. She told me some years ago, as we still have peripheral contact with her, that she missed her “one chance”. I think that’s what the purity and courtship culture stresses: You don’t ever commit to someone unless you’re all-but-sure. But, what if it turns out you’re wrong? There can be a huge imbalance in expectations. There are too many eggs placed in one basket, so to speak. Too much riding on “getting it right” with your one chance.

    I did not grow up in the purity culture. I grew up in a church with youth group pastor’s who basically said, “Sure, it’s great to wait for marriage, but it’s not realistic.” Not too surprisingly, to the best of my knowledge, I’m the only girl from that group who waited. It’s the grace of God that He laid that conviction on my heart; I just knew that was what He was calling me to. But I had no support – ZERO – from anywhere. I consider it a pretty significant miracle that I was a virgin when I married at 21 years old. I think that I could have benefited from some Godly, pastoral (or motherly) guidance, as I didn’t understand the concept of purity at all; I just felt convicted to maintain my virginity. But, with my husband’s really bad experience with the purity/courtship movement, I have been pretty shocked and dismayed over its rise, seemingly unabated, in the Christian church. Like you said: it doesn’t deliver on its promises, treats women as chattel, and studies are now revealing the negative consequences from misplaced focus. All that PLUS it takes our focus off of Jesus and the Holy Spirit’s work within our lives.

    My husband and I did wait for marriage. We kissed a lot before that – before our engagement, even. The only thing I regret is,what our first kiss was in a gas station – not romantic at all!

    Reply
    • Karen R

      tho’I = thing
      pastor’s should be pastors (no apostrophe)

      (My self-worth is too tied to my spelling and grammar. ?)

      Reply
  30. Matthew

    I think a lot of the drama surrounding the “sexy is bad” complex people give their kids may simply lie in making a distinction between when it can be good and when it can be bad. As Christians, we support a healthy prayer life. Prayer is not bad… but one shouldn’t pray to a life-less idol or to some other pagan deity. We support a young person who goes out to make money, and gets wealthy from their job at the bank… but not so much if they’re getting wealthy from a ‘bank job’. So if we can encourage a healthy and Biblically sound prayer life, as a profoundly positive aspect of a Christian life, certainly we should be able to similarly promote a healthy and Biblically sound see life as a profoundly positive aspect of the Christian life. So, prayer is something you offer to God alone… and sex something you share with your spouse alone. That doesn’t have to make it negative if it is framed correctly.

    Reply
  31. Lydia purple

    This whole purity talk always reminds of this passage from Song of Songs 8: 8-10…
    “8We have a little sister,
    and she has no breasts.
    What shall we do for our sister
    on the day when she is spoken for?
    9If she is a wall,
    we will build on her a battlement of silver,
    but if she is a door,
    we will enclose her with boards of cedar.
    10I was a wall,
    and my breasts were like towers;
    then I was in his eyes
    as one who finds peace.”

    It kind of illustrates the individuality about each person’s need… Like you say, we need the holy spirits to guide us. So if a girl is a “wall” (uptight, and believes she is not pretty) we have to make her get what her worth is in God’s eyes, that she is precious no matter what (“build on her s battlement of silver”). But if she’s a door (like she’s too loose letting anybody in without thinking about it) we “enclose her with boards of cedar” which kind of illustrates how we should help her stay pure but not in a degrading way either. Cedar wood is a precious thing too and was used all throughout the temple!

    Reply
    • Lydia purple

      Holy Spirit, not holy spirits, no idea how this mistake happened 🙂

      Reply
  32. Lydia

    Wow! I grew up immersed in this culture. I never owned a pair of jeans until I was pregnant with my first and received hand me down maternity jeans. Talk about culture shock when I grew up, got married and moved away from that church! …I remember my pastor growing up preached one particular sermon about staying pure. And how if you lost your virginity you would lose out on Gods perfect will for your life. So then you would get His back up ‘plan’ for you. You know what?! That’s such a load of bull! I did “mess up” and when I did meet my husband I had to tell him about my “mess up”. My husband had not messed up. I was his first. So what was I? Was I Gods perfect will for him? Was he my back up plan? Seriously battled with this for a couple years. Then I realized we were the perfect will for each other. Doesn’t matter what I did or what he did. We were meant to be. I can’t begin to tell you how much I love this article!!!! We’ve been figuring out our own standards. Not what our parents raised is with. Not what our churches have told us to do or not to do. But what we have been led to do. It’s so freeing! Thank you for writing this and sharing!!!!!!

    Reply
  33. E.

    Sheila,

    I wish you could have been my mom! She has red hair also, but that’s where the similarities
    end. I grew up in a religion where it was “dirty” and my mom never talked about it. Which led
    to experimentation, lots of curiosity in the wrong areas, and eventually an abusive marriage.

    THANKFULLY (God is good, and totally saved me) 20 years later I am married again with two sons. 🙂

    Thank you for this! It is awesome! I have two boys and LOVE your suggestions!

    Reply
    • Sheila

      Yay! Although honestly, my red hair comes from a bottle. 🙂

      Reply
      • E

        so does my mom’s now! 🙂

        Reply
  34. Samantha

    Love this article! And, glad you included Elizabeth Smart’s comments. I thought of her as I clicked on this link.

    Reply
    • Sheila

      Yes, I read an article by her a while ago and it just haunted me. I wanted NEVER to do that to my girls.

      Reply
  35. Jenn

    Something I discovered growing up in a somewhat “purity” culture was that once you start a relationship with someone you feel obligated to let it lead to marriage when in reality that might not be God’s plan for your life. This is what happened to me. I was in university when I got too close with a guy and realized I was his girlfriend without really intending to be. I had no clue what I was doing, but I convinced myself that I loved him and was going to marry him. I mean I was in a relationship with him and you don’t get into a relationship with a guy unless you are planning to marry him. That is what I heard my whole life. You don’t start a relationship with someone unless you are planning for it to lead to marriage. Thankfully the Lord helped me to see that this was not the plan or person he had for my life. But I hate the thought of other ladies or young men for that matter feeling obligated to marry someone because they have started a relationship with them. I am so grateful for all the Lord did in my life and the amazing places he took me until I met the man I am married to now. It took 10 years from that “wrong” relationship and some amazing years of singleness before God united us and I am convinced that it was totally worth the wait!

    Reply
    • Sheila

      That’s wonderful, Jenn! Thanks for sharing. And that’s something that’s so important, too, and I didn’t mention it. I’ve blogged about it before, but I left it out here, so thank you for adding that to the discussion. I’ve known other people who have gotten into that trap–if they broke up, it means that they hadn’t bee courting, they’d only been dating. And that’s a sin. So they can’t break up!

      Reply
  36. Dr Carol

    Thank you for sharing this. I grew up in the “purity” culture, and I know it’s only by the grace of God that my wedding night was wonderful. It could have been so different! I was much older – 48 – before I got married. I think it took that long for God to get me straightened out. Thankfully we are very very happy. I hope all moms read this.

    Reply
  37. AC

    I think you make some really good points here. I grew up with some aspects of the Purity Movement, but came through it pretty much unscathed. I do remember though that after I broke one rule, others were easier to break because I had already blown it! I did save myself for marriage, which I’m so thankful for.

    I think I have a very healthy view of sex and its rightful place. Sadly I’m not sure some of my friends do. I remember 2 conversations with women in my church that I’m friends with that ended up being rather personal. We weren’t talking about sex necessarily, but sex did come up in the conversations briefly. And would you know, neither of my 2 friends could actually bring themselves to say the word “sex”? I thought it was sad. And I hope they have the freedom in their marriages that God wants them to have!

    Reply
  38. Amy M

    I found this article so helpful. I come from a very conservative background and I grew up with the early version of “purity culture” in the 90s and hit my 20s just as it went mainstream in Christian circles. While purity culture sprang from the biblical commands to avoid sex outside of marriage, in so many of my circles, the idea of purity came to have all kinds of legalism mixed in. Even though I married in my early 20s, it took me years to unwind some of the mental hangups associated with things I heard in “purity culture” circles.

    Reply
  39. Ana

    My mom said the most amazing thing when I asked her about her desire to buy a purity ring for my younger sister. “Am I going to buy her virginity with a ring? Is she going to sell me her virginity for a ring? Absolutely not. When she decides to have sex is between her and the LORD. I’m not buying her a ring to make her pure. I’m buying her a ring to celebrate that she IS pure. She’s beautiful, and lovely and pure, and nothing will change that.”

    Reply
  40. Alex

    I grew up with four sisters and all of us were given purity rings when we turned 12 years old. We weren’t raised in the strict purity culture but we were taught that God does have a husband for you. Life isn’t a hit and miss dart board. It isn’t about “practicing” your relationships with someone else’s husband (as someone rolls there eyes) I wanted to be able to tell my husband that I saved myself for YOU; a girls/woman’s body is worth so much inside and out, physically and spiritually. When you become married you become ONE; why give away even the smallest pieces of yourself to someone else? I, not my parents, made a promise with God to not kiss until my wedding day and I didn’t. I wasn’t perfect but I was a virgin when I married my husband. Yes, it became harder as I got older (I was 23) and people thought many different things about me but it was so worth it. I was the one that was nervous at the “kiss the bride”! And NO our sex life is not messed up because I only had maybe two other relationships and a (short) courtship before my husband and I married. It’s beautiful. I may have not been the preppy girl at school but I was more self concious when my backside was hanging out than when I was dressed stylish and modest.
    I plan on teaching my son and daughter about modesty and purity and how freeing and less regretting it can be; a teenager doesn’t have to have 12 relationships and heartbreaks before they actually know what love actually is.

    Reply
  41. Julia

    Hi Sheila! I totally love this post! I agree that the Spirit works differently in every person, so He guides and convicts everyone differently! Personally, ive grown up with parents who didnt talk anything about sex, just to wait until youre married. But with friends and youth leaders talking so much about staying pure until marriage, it all sounded like sex was so bad, that it was just a necessary evil, so I wondered to myself if that really could be true? I had this wish that sex wouldn’t be a bad thing! Now im 19 and getting married in less than 2 months, with our premarital counseling ive learned that sex is a great thing if done in the right circumstances ? and im totally excited for that day!! I just wanted to ask, someone like me that grew up thinking sex was bad, how can they change their perspective?
    Thanks!

    Reply
    • Sheila

      Julia, congratulations on your marriage! That’s wonderful. I wish you all the best!

      And now for your question: I’m honestly not trying to toot my own horn, but I wrote The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex to help women understand how great sex is supposed to be, and how to make it great in all three ways: physically, spiritually, and emotionally. I think you’ll really like it, and it’s a great book to read just before your wedding! You can get it here. I hope that helps!

      Reply
      • Julia

        Thanks Sheila! I’ll check it out!

        Reply
        • Amber

          Julia,
          I grew up in a similar situation and had a fear of/negative feelings towards sex- because I knew nothing other than “don’t do it!”. When I was dating my now-husband, I started to feel excitement and not as much fear in that regard, but was still super nervous, as he was my first kiss, first to hold hands, first to become a serious relationship. Once we were engaged my mom gave me Sheila’s book as her way of explaining things she never had spoken of before.

          The book is amazing! I read it within a week and felt so much more confident going into our wedding night. I was still a little nervous as it was my first time and I knew it would be painful, but I was excited to know tht it would get better! God used “The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex” to reform my views on sex and marriage into something beautiful and wonderful.

          We are now 9 months into marriage and it’s fantastic ?. Thank you, Sheila, for all your guidance and resources! Love your books and your blog!

          Reply
          • Sheila

            Oh, Amber, that’s so wonderful! You have no idea how much that encouraged me today! Thank you.

  42. RPerry

    My daughter is only 11 months old and I am already thinking about how to approach this issue. My Dad is a Minister and all my life I was to follow “rules” and feel like sex is bad, sex is bad, sex is bad was beaten into my brain every church service. Not once was sex explained to me for its real purpose and how it is a GOOD thing for a Husband and Wife. I struggle still today. It’s not fair that I worry about if I am dressed modestly enough before I leave the house or that sex is not viewed positively by me. I hope that I can teach my daughter to respect her body until married, but not give her rules that she will want to break. I pray that she will be comfortable with all that she is and know that she is always pure in God’s eyes if she decides to follow him. Thank you so much for this post Sheila!

    Reply
  43. Tina Marantette

    THank you for this great article! My daughter is getting married this July, and has been waiting for marriage to have sex. We have talked a LOT about sex, especially during her 2 1/2 year relationship with her fiance. My daughter asked for a purity ring for her 16th birthday and I shopped with her to buy it. She has been very committed. She has told me that she and her boyfriend reached a place in their relationship that if they did slip up and have sex, that they would both be really sad about it later. They want to please the Lord, and keep that their goal. She also knows that I would never be angry or judgmental if she did lose her virginity, that she is loved completely unconditionally. I also stopped asking her about how that area of her relationship was going, because I knew that I needed to trust God with my daughter, and I needed to let my daughter live her life walking with Jesus, building strength in Him to deal with temptation. She is completely open with me and brings “purity” into the conversation often when she talks about her plans, etc. Parents need to ask for wisdom; to know when to step forward and say something, and when to step back and let God do His thing. Sometimes parents want to have control, and also worry, deep down, about how they will look or be judged by their peers if their children get caught in sin; (even though most won’t admit to that!) I have a wonderful daughter (and son for that matter) and sinnfully want to take credit for them, but in all truth, they are God’s and He has made them for Himself.
    I applaud all parents for teaching their children that there is a right and a wrong, and that sex is a serious and important matter bearing consequences for life.
    P.S. My birthday is also Jan. 19th!!!

    Reply
  44. Sally

    So on point. This, along with the modesty article makes me want to clap. I have suffered both from tying my worth to “purity” and from others tying my worth to my “modesty”. (that word really doesn’t mean what we think it means)
    Let’s all chase after God first instead of looking at eachother. And open communication with our kids. So important.

    Reply
  45. Allison B

    If I wrote this 6-10 would be on my list. I would add that from the women I met they struggled going from 0 to 100 in one night. How do you go from never kissing your husband and only side hugs to sex in a few hours? It seems like a recipe for marital disaster.

    Reply
  46. Mandi

    My son is 14 and has a ‘friend’ who is 13. We’ve had some great discussions about dating, sex and boundaries, but lately I’ve felt a lack of wisdom in how to handle this as a parent. Where to lead and then when to allow him to make his own choices. He is a good kid who loves Jesus and has shared with me that he has already prayed about what their boundaries should be, but their SO YOUNG!! We agreed that dating should wait until 16 as well, but what do we do in the next 3 years? This post was very insightful as I’ve been praying for wisdom. Any advice on how to encourage kids at a younger age to “hold off” on an emotional type relationship? Obviously forbidding them to see each other or not like one another is futile.

    Reply
    • Sheila

      Hi Mandi! I do have a post I wrote a while ago on how to raise kids who won’t date too young. I think the big thing is to monitor cell phone use and social media (at 14 they really don’t need to be on it all the time, and they don’t need total privacy). And then make sure they aren’t alone together. Other than that, it’s just really talking to them!

      Reply
  47. Scotty

    I grew up in this purity culture — Christian school, father-daughter purity balls, “I Kissed Dating Goodbye,” purity rings, idolatry of couples who married the first person they dated (haha).

    Thank GOODNESS for my mother though. When I was 17 starting to date my first boyfriend, I remember her coming to my room to talk to me. She frankly talked to me about why she and my dad waited even when it was really hard for them because they loved each other so much; she talked to me about birth control. She talked about financially helping me get married if we found that’s what we needed to do (not even close to relevant at that time, haha, but still sweet). What I remember most was when she said, “And Emma, if you make a mistake. If you find yourself pregnant or dealing with something, call me. I don’t want you to get in a difficult situation and make a second mistake because you’re afraid. You can always talk to me. You can always come home.” You can always come home. I love that. Still means the world to me.

    Now, I’m 24 and in love, talking about marriage with my boyfriend. We are waiting until marriage, but I don’t see our desire to go farther than we should now as something unnatural, scary, or satanic (haha). It’s just a desire we have to be careful about right now, something we need to submit to His purposes; it’s the wrong time and hopefully something to look forward to later!

    Thanks for the great post. I am really looking forward to talking to my children about this like my mother did for me.

    Reply
    • Sheila

      That’s wonderful! Sounds like your mom was awesome. And I wish you and your boyfriend all the best and God’s leading!

      Reply
    • unmowngrass

      What I said upthread about saving it for the comment? Applies here too 🙂 God bless your Mama!

      Reply
  48. Teresa R

    Great article! I’m not married, but many of my friends are, who are products of the purity culture. And they’ve noted that it is a challenge for their husbands to show non-sexual physical affection because the only “speeds” they know are no touching or sex.

    I also find it interesting that the more conservative previous generations still encouraged their young people to engage in ballroom dancing, and other activities to buffer between the extremes of no touching and sex. Perhaps churches should bring that back.

    Reply
    • Sheila

      Love that thought! And I love ballroom dancing! Absolutely, my mom and I are often talking about how her upbringing (in the 50s in a conservative Mennonite community) wasn’t even as conservative as today’s purity culture. It’s just so strange!

      Reply
  49. Anonymous ;)

    Thank you so much for this. I grew up in a modified purity culture. No purity balls or rings, but I “courted” my husband and our parents insisted that we not kiss before we got married. We knew each other as kids and grew up together. At 15 and 16 we fell in love and knew we would get married. Because the rules were forced on us rather than the focus being our relationship with Christ, it wasn’t long before we broke them. Sneaking holding hands, a peck on the cheek, touching and eventually oral sex. We had no ownership of our sexuality. Sex before marriage was the ultimate failure, so we made sure that we didn’t have vaginal sex before we were married. That splitting of hairs is so revealing isn’t it? And now, years later, both of our fathers who wanted that “purity” for us have had affairs and left our moms. I’m so thankful for my husband and so incredibly blessed to not have shame about our past. We got married at 19 and 20, and our marriage is an amazing gift from God that only gets better. We have been married almost 8 years now, and have 4 kids of our own. I absolutely love what you said: it’s not just about “purity”, it is about a relationship with Jesus! We will definitely be teaching our kids that.

    Reply
    • Sheila

      Thank you so much for that story! I’m so glad that you don’t have shame, too. And I’m SO sorry about both of your fathers. That’s heartbreaking. I’m glad that Jesus had His arms on you, though, and glad that you have found real freedom!

      Reply
  50. Monica2

    Hello, this is my first visit here. 🙂 I loved the article, it presents such a balanced view.

    The point is, I think, that it’s possible to objectify women in two different ways. Porn culture does it, of course, and as a woman I feel totally disrespected when I see women’s bodies used to sell car parts or to advertise for all kinds of stuff. But women are also treated as sex objects when fundamentalist rules for ‘purity’ are taught/enforced. When the fact that I wear pants (even a decent pair of pants, not tight, and covered with a long blouse), as opposed to dresses/skirts only, makes a Christian man no longer look me in the eyes, but look only at the floor when talking to me (because I’m not dressed as a ‘Godly’ woman should), I feel treated like a prostitute. When a married Christian man, who’s supposedly a friend of my family’s, thinks it’s out of line for me to write for my husband too in order to share, in very broad lines, how we’ve been doing lately (which my husband had no problem with whatsoever), as a response to ‘So how are you all doing?’ addressed to both of us… what in the world?! This is treating me as a sex object. Things like these made me wonder once why on earth evangelicals treat me like a ‘female’, and why it takes non-Christian friends to treat me like I’m a person, a human being? (And I assure you, I love my husband, I never get inappropriate with anyone, I dress very decently.) Porn culture and purity culture are pretty alike in how they treat women when all they see in one is a female body and an opportunity for sex.

    Reply
    • Sheila

      Monica, that’s very insightful, and very true! I think this sentence is apt: “Things like these made me wonder once why on earth evangelicals treat me like a ‘female’, and why it takes non-Christian friends to treat me like I’m a person, a human being? ”

      I have known women who grew up in some fundamentalist churches who vowed never to marry a Christian because of all the abuse and because of how lazy so many of the men were (expected the wives to do everything), while the men they knew in school were very decent towards women. When that becomes the case, then we really have to start wondering how “Christian” some of these cultures are, in my opinion.

      Reply
      • Monica2

        Thank you! Yes, I quite agree. Thankfully, my husband is decent and kind, he doesn’t think like that at all. (And yes, we did wait until we got married to actually live together. But extremes are never healthy.)

        Reply
    • Sheila

      Thanks for all the work you ladies do raising kids who love Christ.

      But, if I may say, this made me sad, because I don’t think you “got” my article at all. I wasn’t saying that anybody who preaches purity believes the things I said necessarily; what I said is that when we stress purity the way we do, this is the underlying message that we give. And just because you believe that purity isn’t finite doesn’t necessarily mean that the sexual abuse survivors sitting in the audience hearing all about purity and how to give that to our husbands are going to “get” that side of it.

      Also, you changed my “Stay pure UNTIL marriage” to “Stay Pure FOR marriage”, showing that there’s still a big misunderstanding here. Again, you’re implying that purity is for BEFORE marriage. Changing that one preposition doesn’t actually change the underlying assumption.

      God wants us PURE. Sexually pure. Married people are still sexually pure. If we say “Stay Pure For Marriage” we’re still giving the impression that purity ends.

      Here’s another way of putting it: the Christian virtue is chastity, not virginity. One can be chaste within marriage, because it means one is sexually pure. By using purity the way you are, you’re still substituting virginity for chastity, and that’s what can cause so many women to have hang-ups about sex.

      Again, I do understand that your heart is to raise kids who love God and wholeheartedly follow Him, and that’s wonderful. I just worry that the culture that this is creating is one in which people can get a very messed up view of what God wants and of His grace, which is what is evident from all the comments on this article, and from how many times it’s been shared. There is a problem here, and I do think it’s one that needs addressing.

      Reply
    • Taunya

      I can’t even read past the first point. I don’t think they WANT to get the point of your article. I argued with someone about the way the purity message was coming across to me, as an abuse survivor, and the response was that I needed to give that pain to Jesus. AS IF that will solve all the aftermath of being sexually abused.

      Those who embrace the purity culture are modern-day Pharisees in some ways. They will not see it any other way. And I don’t have much more patience for their opinions…only fight to keep their twisted view of purity and God’s design for sexuality far away from my daughters.

      Reply
  51. Tash

    I would like to comment on this article with my personal experience. 🙂 I am 24 years old and have been married for 3 months. When my husband and I started courting we had many discussions about what the Lord had shown us and how he had dealt with us in our lives. We shared the same strong personal convictions, and both desired for the Lord to give us the grace to follow them. The Lord was so faithful to us both in our relationship. Our whole courtship was so sweet to me. As time went on we grew closer and closer and very slowly and sweetly fell in love. We chose to not hold hands or touch at all before our wedding, and to be careful about any situations that could be a stumbling block to us. The Lord was faithful to give us the grace to wait for all those things until our wedding day. It wasn’t a case of rules being enforced upon us. He is 27 and I am 24-we both had personal convictions and the Lord honored our desire to keep our relationship constantly given to Him. Our honeymoon was perfect. The firsts
    were all as sweet and amazing as I could ever imagine. God has been so good to us! I say this only hoping for it to be an encouragement. 🙂 The Lord can direct you, and give you grace for a relationship pleasing to Him, and He made sex to be enjoyed and delighted in as a part of the marriage covenant. The Song of Solomon is an appropriate model for a truly joyful, unashamed and beautiful marriage as God planned it to be 🙂

    Reply
    • Sheila

      I’m so glad that things worked so well for you, Tash! That’s beautiful. And best wishes on your future marriage together! Like I said in the article, I have absolutely NO PROBLEM with people choosing to live like this at all, and I think people SHOULD when God calls them. I just worry that the way we talk about it can have harmful effects for some, that’s all.

      Reply
  52. Amanda @ The Fundamental Home

    I read this article and your 10 Tips for Teaching Kids About Sex. I think my main issue is that you give a lot of advice that seems to be logical, but there is no Biblical support on either post. That being said, I have teenagers (18, 16, and almost 13), and we have always supported what you call “The Purity Culture” (I had not heard that term before). For me, it was a bit different. I was not raised in a Christian home, but my parents were responsible, moral people. I was never taught anything about purity. I was given freedom to make my own choices, and although my parents discouraged sex before marriage, they did little to stop it. It was exactly the way you describe as ideal. However. much of my life was damaged because of choices that were made during my teen years. I wish with all of my heart that someone had stepped in and told me, “No. Here is the line and you may not pass it.” It would have helped me (and pretty much everyone I grew up with) so much. Believe me, even outside the “purity culture,” people look down on women who are “imperfect” in these ways. Criticism came from every sides. I was broken and just a girl of 16, 17, and 18; but everyone jeered and told me that I should have made better choices. I had no idea how to make right choices when the culture showed women dressing immodestly and people were dating, kissing, and having sex on every TV show and movie out there. I thought I was “normal.” It was impossible for me to understand what was wrong about my behavior because no one would give me specific instructions. No one said, “You should not dress this way” or “You should not date.” Yet, without it being explicitly said, it was a societal expectation (and still is). The difference, from my perspective, is that the purity culture speaks about the need for boundaries. It knows the trouble that could come from poor decisions, and rather than allow someone to make mistakes and criticize them for it (and yes, the world as a whole will be critical), they seek to help a young person to keep the commitments they make to themselves and the Lord by giving them boundaries. We don’t do “purity balls,” and I have never even heard of them. Our family supports courting, no kissing, and modest clothing for the sake of helping our children. Sex is not a taboo subject, so long as it is within the context of the marital relationship. Even someone within the purity movement can be rational and reasonable. That is why it is important to have a relationship with your children, talk to them, and not be quick to pounce on imperfections. A movement that gives children boundaries doesn’t harm them. Parents who apply the movement’s intentions improperly do- just as with any other movement. In the 80’s, it was “Just Say No” to drugs. Kids were told to stay away from drugs and the people who use them. They were taught it was wrong. They were give scripts they could use if drugs were offered so they would be prepared to stay away. Some children ran out and did it anyway, usually the ones whose parents did not provide supervision, but sometimes it was the kids whose parents were the harshest in their strictness. There was the son of a police officer when I was a teenager who was a serious drug addict because his dad was so strict. The “Just Say No” movement was not the problem. The dad was. The movement had the right purpose, but the dad applied its tenets inappropriately. I only share this because I think that those who came from strict upbringings may think that they are helping their child by giving them freedom. That is simply not the case. You say, “I’m not saying guidelines aren’t a good idea; but ultimately the only way to withstand temptation is because of a personal relationship with God. If they have that personal relationship, they don’t need the chaperoning. They really don’t.” A young person who has a relationship with God still needs their parents to set boundaries. Lots of adults have a relationship with God, but they can’t even be responsible enough to exercise for the purpose of good health without paying a trainer. A relationship with God is necessary, but He also provides authority (and according to the Bible Dads still have authority over their unmarried children, even if they are over 18) to lead and guide. Do not discount the movement as a whole. The issues you describe are distortions from the misapplication of a good thing.

    Reply
    • Sheila

      Hi there–

      Thanks for your thoughtful comment. I totally commend your desire to raise kids who follow God, and I do understand what you’re saying about not knowing right and wrong when you were younger. I do think we need to make that plainer, as I did in this post when I said again and again that sex before marriage was wrong, and I linked to posts where I wrote about that, and I talked about how my girls and I discussed that. I absolutely believe in right and wrong, as I said. I simply don’t assume that it has to do with kissing or holding hands, that’s all. 🙂

      I do want to comment, though, on the fact that you have said there’s no biblical support for the posts. I’m not sure exactly what you mean. All of this is rooted in Scripture. Here are the 10 points I made on the teaching kids healthy sexuality which I linked to, for instance:
      1. Use real words for body parts
      2. Recognize that different people will express masculinity and femininity differently
      3. Monitor media use
      4. Don’t avoid questions about sex
      5. Don’t be afraid of kids knowing you have sex
      6. Gross out your kids (or be affectionate in front of them)
      7. Keep talking–about everything
      8. Be disappointed FOR your child not IN your child
      9. Don’t talk about purity as something you can lose
      10. Rules matter less than relationship

      I’m at a total loss as to how that is not biblical. To say that it’s logical but not biblical is really bizarre to me, I’m sorry. Purity is not something you can lose because our purity is based in Christ, not in our bodies! That’s basic Christian doctrine.

      Rules matter less than relationship–that’s what Jesus said over and over again to the Pharisees. They were creating rules, but then they were ignoring relationship and people’s real needs. How can that not be biblical?

      Keep talking to your kids–about everything. How is that not biblical? Isn’t that what God tells parents in Deutoronomy–to talk while they get up and when they lie down, while they eat, along the road, etc. etc.?

      Use real words for body parts–the Bible doesn’t mince words about things, and is actually quite blunt.

      I guess I’m just really confused as to why you think that if something is logical, it isn’t biblical? Or that all of this isn’t biblical? It especially scares me that you would say that the part about purity being something we can lose isn’t biblical. If you think that’s not biblical, then you don’t really believe in salvation through grace and in Jesus’ atoning sacrifice. Sorry to be blunt, but it’s very clear that we are saved through grace, not because we are virgins on our wedding night or we do everything perfectly.

      This is one of the reasons that the purity culture does backfire–because people forget about the true nature of salvation, as you are saying by assuming that this isn’t biblical. Just please, don’t put up such high standards for your children that they think they will lose your love or your devotion if they mess up, because that has seriously backfired for so many (as the comments section here shows), and has given such a distorted view of God and of Jesus’ heart for us.

      Reply
      • Amanda @ The Fundamental Home

        I am not sure how you took my comment to mean that I felt all of you posts were un-Biblical. Forgive me if I was unclear. I simply meant that this post in particular does not reference specific Bible verses. I did not say or intend to imply that all human logic is not Biblical. Human rational, however, does not always line up with Biblical truth, so I prefer to hear from God’s Word- ideally, in connection with every point you make. I will address the idea of purity in Christ. I absolutely believe that true purity comes from Jesus Christ alone. That is definitely Scriptural. There is another area where we seem to be looking at things from a different perspective is the use of the word “purity” when it comes to refraining from a inappropriate relationships before marriage. You seem to be taking it from a literal standpoint, as though all those in (what you call) “the purity culture” (those courting and setting modesty standards) see the physical state of virginity as a higher level of holiness. In fact you say that it creates a works-based theology. That is a logical fallacy. One does not create the other. By stating it that way, you are perpetuating the idea that those of us who choose to follow this route with our families are all legalistic. We paint a picture in which we are portrayed as unloving and unwilling for our children to be led by the Spirit. It is simply untrue. Children, even unmarried adults (which, as I mentioned earlier, are still under their parents guidance according to the Bible), can be given rules by their parents and still listen to the Holy Spirit. In fact, it was the Holy Spirit who wrote the Scriptures that tell them to obey their parents because it was right. It is in their best interest. I want you to understand that all of those in the purity culture (I speak for myself and many others I know who choose this path) DO NOT (caps for clarity, not yelling) equate obedience to salvation, which is by grace though faith. No one is expected to do everything perfectly to have salvation because, of course, that is not possible. Please know that there is no distortion here on that point, and I think that is what bothers me the most- the assumption that, because of the bad examples, those in the purity culture are all legalistic, Pharisees. Frankly, it is offensive. I have watched some of your daughter’s videos. Is it safe to assume that you had some standards of dress and behavior when she grew up? If so, then the only difference between my home and yours is that we drew our line in the sand in different places. Because I set more conservative standards, does that mean that I am less dependent on the blood of Christ? Does it have to mean I am a Pharisee? I have no understanding as to why you would make that jump except by taking the worst examples and thinking that was what the whole movement stood for. Now that I have tried to make it clear that I believe 100% in salvation only by the blood of Christ, I would like to say that Jesus said, “If you love me, obey my commandments.” Obedience is one way we show our love to Him (again, it does not make us any more or less loved by Christ, it is only an outward expression of our love to Him- like giving Him a bouquet of flowers on Valentine’s Day, only everyday). I want to show my love and appreciation for him all the time. By choosing modesty, I feel I can do that. One more time, it is NOT (caps for emphasis, not yelling) required for salvation. It is a small, meaningless sacrifice to others, but between me and the Lord it is special. It’s like a small child who draws their mommy a picture on a scrap piece of paper. It is worthless in the eyes of anyone else, but to the mother, it is a precious token of the affection and faith their child has placed in them. Of course, that is relevant to my personal relationship with the Lord. When it comes to my children, I have a responsibility to teach them what is good and right. We do that by creating rules for our house. I think everyone understands the need for rules in the home. Having rules and expecting your children to abide by them does not mean that we value rules over relationship, which I think, if you set rules of any kind in your home, you understand. Mine are simply different from yours Again, thinking we value rules over relationship because we have rules is a big jump (and not logical in the classical sense). I do not wish to offend you. I simply want you to see that 1. Parents who set standards in their home in regards to relationships and dress (lets take the word “purity” off the table for a while, and just look at what is behind the movement) are not preventing their children from having a relationship with Christ. They are doing the work that Christ asked them to do faithfully (or at least, attempting to) 2. Having personal standards does not mean that you believe that your salvation hinges on your behavior (and therefore, it is not legalism). It also does not imply it. It could be a result of a completely unrelated choice or it could be a way to show your love to the Lord. Either is acceptable. 3. Having standards for your adult children who live in your home is not overstepping. Even non-Christians understand their their home= their rules, no matter how old the child is in the home. 4. Anyone who has a loving, gracious heart for others understands that each family must set their own boundaries. Mine may be different than yours, but that does not mean I would say you love the Lord less because we don’t agree on things like the age when beginning a relationship and the terms of those relationships are different (dating/courting/whatever you choose to call it, it is simply starting to have relationships). Because you daughter wears pants, and mine wear skirts doesn’t mean I believe we are more Spiritual. It also does not mean that we are less dependent on the Holy Spirit. They are clothes! They are literal rags! Who cares what my children wear?! Sure. We do things differently, but if we have the same salvation, are we not supposed to love one another? Why bash an entire group of people who simply want the best for their children? I am sorry, but this is how I felt when I read your post- as though you were calling me a Pharisee, but thinking that your less strict rules made you somehow more Spiritual. Like you see me as wallowing in rules, while you are basking in the Holy Spirit. I hope you will consider what I say. Perhaps you may have known some poor Christians (or even false Christians) who associated themselves with the Purity culture, but that does not mean that all of us who make these choices put them above our relationship with Christ. If I thought it hindered my relationship with him, I would throw it all out the window. This is simply how we choose to live our life in Christ, through the Holy Spirit. I have so much I want to say, but this is enough for now. Consider what I have said. We have had different lives that have led us to make different choices, but that doesn’t mean that my choices are worse than yours.

        Reply
        • Sheila

          Hi Amanda,

          Thanks for another thoughtful comment!

          I do agree that standards are good (in fact, I said in this post that guidelines and standards are good, and that we did have rules about dating when the girls were under 16). There’s nothing wrong with standards, and we certainly have standards.

          What I was really addressing was the whole culture–the culture that talks about purity a lot, that focused on modesty a lot, and that this is the almost the primary identity in the home (the Duggars would be a good example). In this case, even if the parents say that they believe in grace first and foremost, and that purity isn’t finite, by their actions and by the emphasis of their words they are showing their children something else. I am not saying that all homes are like this at all; I am just saying that there is a danger here. If every conference that girls attend is about modesty and about purity, then it is quite likely that they will get the impression that this is the main thing about Christianity–not evangelism, not grace, not anything else. And then, if they were to “mess up”, they would feel as if they had lost Jesus. It is not what is said, but it is the emphasis. And that’s what scares me.

          I think I explained much of this in this post about how we frame cultural issues: as good vs. evil or wise vs. unwise.

          Reply
          • Sheila

            Oh, one more thought: I understand that you think it’s unfair of me to write a post “condemning” a whole way of parenting, and I can totally see how you would feel that way. But I hope that you understand that I wrote this because I was receiving so many emails from women who are dealing with growing up in this culture and experiencing a lot of shame and difficulty with sexuality in marriage. You just have to read the comments on my vaginismus posts, especially, to see that.

            It is not me who is creating this criticism against the purity culture; it is the voices of so many women who feel that they were damaged. So you can argue against me, but that really won’t address the problem, because it’s not about me. It’s about these women.

            When I wrote this post to validate the experiences that were being shared with me, it went crazy on Facebook because it resonated. Just read all the comments here! These are real people’s experiences. Of course, I’m sure the vast majority of these women’s parents would NEVER have said that they personally believed these 10 points (as I said in my article). It’s just that their culture of parenting gave this impression. These girls picked up the shame not necessarily from what the parents said they believed but from what was emphasized and the way it was emphasized.

            You can debate whether I’m right if you want, but I think these comments do speak for themselves. There is a real problem here. And I just hope and pray that parents who are raising kids to believe in the “no hand holding, only chaperoning, only courting, no kissing” etc. rules will just listen to these voices and make sure that the other side–the grace and love of Jesus, and the blessing of healthy sexuality–is emphasized just as much in their homes.

            I hope that makes sense.

    • Alex

      Thank you! This is the simplest example of how the purity “movement” can work when explained or shared with children but not forced and not withheld!

      Reply
  53. Theresa L

    This is so amazing! Thank you! My oldest is 14 and we’re just treading these waters. I grew up in a “sex is bad” house and it took me a long time and a some mistakes to get over it. Praise God for His grace! Anyway, this is exactly the message I want me kids to get. Sex is wonderful and beautiful in the right context.

    Thank you!

    Reply
    • Sheila

      You’re so welcome, Theresa!

      Reply
  54. Donielle

    This is so true. I especially get annoyed with the suggesting that purity ends at marriage or that no sex means pure. I was pure when I got married, but my husband was not though he had never been with a woman. I did chose not to kiss again until I was married, but it was MY choice, not my parents and it was made after had kissed. I will do the same now that I find myself single again simply because I want to keep my boundaries far enough that should I cross them, it won’t be a life-altering cross and it helps keep my mind pure, especially now that I’m no longer a virgin. I think it is incredibly important for single people to make their own boundaries and understand their importance themselves. As my pastor likes to say, “Rules without revelation lead to rebellion.”

    Reply
  55. Georgia

    Totally agree!! I feel like it’s based off of the parent’s fear and control issues.

    Reply
  56. Paul Byerly

    I’m late to the party, but I wanted to say this is exceptional. You hit it right on the head. I hope your wisdom wakes some folks up and bring about needed changes.

    Reply
    • Sheila

      Aw, thanks, Paul! I’m glad you appreciated it. I, too, hope that it helps some parents question how they’re teaching their kids, because I think many parents think there isn’t really an alternative–and there is. Authenticity.

      Reply
  57. Laura Bayird

    I’ve discovered as a young mom with young chidren a whole new area this purity culture has affected. Breastfeeding. I haven’t found it to be an easy thing. Covers, and staying covered makes it even worse. I could not bring myself to breastfeed at my old church because there was nowhere private to feed without a cover, and I was too scared to try even with a cover out with other people. I’ve been told point blank that’s it’s not modest. Didn’t God make breasts for feeding babies, or are our breasts just sex objects for our husbands?

    Reply
    • Sally Vanlaar

      You’re not alone! I have been told this too and it is certainly part of the modesty/purity culture putting our worth purely in our bodies.

      Reply
    • Kay

      Oh gosh, Laura! Thank you for this comment. I’m only sorry I am writing it so much later that you’ll never see it. My FIL, a pastor, is not comfortable with me nursing COVERED in the same room as him or any male. I asked my husband what his problem was since I was covered, and he just said, “Because my dad doesn’t want to think of you that way.” WHAT WAY?? As a woman?? WITH BREASTS?! I hate to break it to you, but I am a woman, and I have breasts. It’s okay. God created my body to do a beautiful thing. We watched a video with the lights off for Sunday school once so I thought I would be okay to nurse under the cover while I watched the video (again, in the dark!); my FIL was several rows *behind* me but he saw the strap of my nursing cover around my neck so he moved to the other side of the aisle. One of the elders in my church was upset to learn that I was nursing without a cover in the nursery in front of other women and children [someone, please think of the children!!] and told my husband that I need to do that in the bathroom. Thankfully my husband said, “No, absolutely not. First of all, that’s DISGUSTING. Second, it is called a NURSE-ry. My wife will NURSE in the NURSE-RY.” I’ve otherwise given up on going to any church social events while I have a nursling, which has pretty much been on and off for the past 8 years and I’m pregnant again now, so I have at least another year to go.

      It just bothers me that I can breastfeed openly in public without a cover and no one in this part of the country even bats an eye, but at church people are disgusted by the mere knowledge that I am breastfeeding my baby, even though there is NOTHING TO SEE. I’ve never felt so objectified as I have since becoming a mother in my church. And I absolutely think this is a fall out of purity culture gone wrong. My husband was raised where girls had to wear dark colored tshirts over their one piece bathing suit to go swimming. I think he struggles with temptation more than guys not raised in purity culture *because* of the way he was raised; he feels like seeing any kind of skin MUST be lusted over, and breasts are sexual in ANY context, including breastfeeding, therefore it is immodest to even bring attention to the fact that I have breasts by breastfeeding.

      Just a huge difference… When my first daughter was born, I went into her nursery at home to nurse as I was already accustomed to because of my in-laws who are local, but when my parents finally got to come up to visit my dad just walked right in on me and gave me a giant hug, kissed my baby’s head while latched, and then sat down next to me to tell me how beautiful she was and how beautiful I was as her mother in this moment. It’s one of my favorite early memories of her life because it was in such stark contrast to the way my in-laws were responding. Another time I went over to a mommy friend’s house who is not a Christian, and we were both nursing our new babies when her husband got home from work. I asked her if I needed to cover up and she was so confused… “No, why would you?” Her husband came in to say hi, chatted with me for a few minutes about our new babies, and went on about his business like it was no big thing. BECAUSE IT WASN’T. In both of these situations, both my dad and her husband had NO problem realizing that there is nothing inherently sexual about breastfeeding. So why am I am treated like a leper in my church? I promise I am a very modest person!

      Sorry for the rant here. I’m just really disappointed and hurt by my church’s response to breastfeeding. I don’t think this is how Jesus would “handle” breastfeeding women at all. What has changed over the years? How many HUNDREDS of paintings are there of Mary breastfeeding Jesus? Heck, there are even paintings of monks with open mouths as Mary sprays milk out of her exposed breast! (No, seriously. Google images of “The Miraculous Lactation of St Bernard.”) Why was this once considered beautiful and worthy of paintings yet is now considered pornographic and a sexual fetish? What was culture like in Jesus’ day that it wasn’t even weird when someone shouted in front of a huge crowd, “Blessed… [are] the breasts at which You nursed!” I just feel like the church has REALLY messed up sexuality here. I feel like the church OF ALL PLACES should have the healthiest view of women’s bodies and what God designed them to do. Yes, my husband can delight in my breasts (and boy, does he!!) but their sexual function is truly secondary to God’s primary function as mammary glands put there for the survival of the human race. Christians more than any group should be able to see that a women is never just a sum of sexual parts to be lusted over.

      But how do we get there when we’ve gone so far astray?

      Reply
  58. Youth Pastor

    It looks like most people who have commented with “I grew up” in the Purity Movement as in it is past tense, which I completely agree with. Not nearly this extreme as you mention, but I did hear of purity a bit growing up. I had the purity ring, the book, and am so thankful as it did teach me on purity, but it certainly didn’t effect me negatively. Because it wasn’t presented nearly as extreme as you mention thankfully. The Duggarts are an example you mention often. I’ve heard of them, but I don’t think they represent the actual movement that’s gone very far in our present day youth culture. Thankfully what you present is much less of what’s actually going on in Christian culture as a whole. The truth is, our youth culture could use some more teaching and emphasis on purity. Without minimizing the harmful effects that such an extreme movement might have caused, this so called “purity movement” is largely a thing of the past, unfortunately. With the reality of this movement having been much more moderate presentation for most, I believe it helped more by far than what those who may have taken to extremes caused harm. Praying God will help those who took extreme measures and caused harm for those who did feel it’s effects. However, our youth today living in a highly sexualized culture could again benefit from a new purity movement!

    Reply
    • Sheila

      I do hear what you’re saying–but culturally you can trace the “new” purity movement to 2003, when Josh Harris’ I Kissed Dating Goodbye was published. Until then, the idea of waiting until you’re married to kiss somebody was virtually unheard of. And the purity balls are largely a thing of the early 2000s.

      Look, I’m seriously glad that many people haven’t encountered this, but if you trace the culture of it, it’s actually MORE SO today than it was when I grew up in the 80s. My girls certainly experienced it, though not to this extent.

      I don’t think we need a return to purity as much as we need a return to Jesus. I think if we were to teach our teens authentic faith and walking by the Spirit, all this need for rules would go out the window–and purity would be a natural extension of faith. The problem is rules without authenticity, and I just hope for a youth culture which stresses an authentic faith rather than rules.

      It sounds like that’s what you’re experiencing in your youth group–which is why you (and other commenters) find this whole thing so strange. And I’m so GLAD you find this strange, because I’m glad it’s not everywhere! Unfortunately, though, it really does permeate a lot of Christian subculture, especially in the homeschooling movement, and because of that, it’s online a lot (because most of these subcultures get most of their ideas online). And I’m just hoping to argue against that.

      I’ve written so many other posts about how to teach kids healthy sexuality, and how to help kids wait until they’re married to have sex, and I have a whole chapter in my book about that! So it’s not like I don’t teach it. I think people who land on this one post don’t understand what my total ministry is–I actually go around the country teaching people about healthy sexuality, and my anti-porn “wait until marriage” thing is a big part of that. But I still think this really needed to be said, and I just hope that people understand that it’s not that I don’t believe in purity. I just don’t believe in legalism and rules!

      Reply
  59. Janis Meredith

    I hear you. I respect how you’ve raised your daughters. Each parent must answer to God for how they choose to raise their kids. If someone chooses to use the word “purity” (we did), that’s not the issue. The issue is walking the talk, living an authentic God-following life that your kids “catch”. Our three kids are in their 20s and my oldest, now 28 gets married next month AS A VIRGIN! Even her doctor laughed at her for that! My other two are also virgins. Yes, we did the purity ring, but quite honestly I don’t think it was the ring that kept them pure because they lost them! It was guiding them to live a life that sought after God.

    Reply
    • Sheila

      Exactly! Seek out God first; because it’s only God’s strength that protects us, not rules.

      Reply
  60. MJ

    Wow…I stumbled upon this article/blog and am so glad I did. Can’t wait to explore more.

    I DID NOT grow up in the purity culture. I grew up where I had boyfriends when I was in 7th grade. (gulp) When I was 16 and had a boyfriend, my mom’s “special girl talk” consisted of telling me “It’s (sex) not like the movies.” And, “Now that you’re 16, you’ll be having sex soon, so go down to the health department and get on some birth control.” Umm……

    Thankfully, I was saved through a church camp when I was 12. While I did not understand anything relating to purity, God saw fit to guide me through. I am married, and happily so! We have a handful of kids…oldest is 12. Boys are still “stupid” and girls are still “gross” but I know that will soon change.

    I love this list you have laid out and agree with every point. I am so thankful I did not grow up in the purity movement, as I know that I would have felt shame/guilt…that sex is bad. A wise woman told me before I got married that with each passing year, sex and intimacy should get better and better. She said there will always be an ebb and flow as children come along, but that as a whole, it should always get better and better. I think the points you have made will go a long way in helping me to better explain to my children that sex in the marriage is good. “Everything he had mad was very good.” I want them to have fulfilled and pure/unashamed and fun married life. Sex is a big part of that.

    Thanks for such a great article.

    And BTW~ my mom was totally wrong. From what I’ve seen of the movies… Sex is WAY better. 😉

    Reply
  61. Anonymous

    I envy the people who had mothers who wouldn’t freak if they confessed a struggle or slip up during engagement. My mom thinks girls who make out or touch are sluts and “not good girls” so they’re times my fiancé and I had an intense (fully clothed) making out and light touching session, which honestly is probably very mild, but because we were so naive (I knew nothing about how boys worked and I had no idea I had a sex drive) and excited it easily brought us both to O. I didn’t DARE confess to my mom. I did a lot of crying and praying and begging forgiveness from my fiancé and the lord during my engagement. I know now I wasn’t a slut and was/am not damaged goods, but I wish my younger self could have known. 🙁

    Reply
  62. Renee

    I didn’t read all of the comments, so I’m not sure if this point was already hit on. I’d just like to say that another result of the “purity culture”, as you call it, is that sex is so taboo that young people tend to do it out of curiosity. I personally believe it’s because it’s referred to so much. If it wasn’t constantly being pounded into our heads, we probably wouldn’t think about it as much. I’m not saying it shouldn’t be spoken about, but I think preachers need to lay off a little bit. Isn’t it interesting that most preachers (in my experience, anyway) who preach about sexual things a lot, tend to be the ones who fall into sin of that exact nature? I speak as one who was brought up in the purity culture, was sexually abused, and ended up not waiting for marriage (even though we did marry (we would have married, either way)). I now struggle as a married lady with sexual things. My husband and I are fine, however, I struggle personally in my mind (thoughts, etc.).

    Reply
  63. Alicia

    Thank you so very much for posting this! I saw a link to it on the XY Code, and wanted to read this. I’m pretty much a walking testimony to the harm done by the purity culture. Once my “purity” was taken away from me by an abuser when I was a teen, I felt like a woman who was dirty, damaged, and could no longer be used by God. I bought those lies of the Enemy, and lived in promiscuity in my twenties. Only when I met my now husband a few years ago did I learn that a Christian man could indeed see past my sexual history. God used my husband to bring me back to Himself, help me re-learn who I am as a woman of God and now as a wife. We don’t have kids, but I’m so thankful on behalf of all girls and women that Christians are starting to recognize the things you are. Thank you again!!

    Reply
  64. Cheryl

    I did not come from a strict household in terms of purity culture boundaries, but i did come from a family where Purity = Virginity but we didn’t talk about it much. When I first had sex at 15 it became a devastating and embarrassing family affair (inc grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc). I was so ashamed. I even began projecting things from my family (like disappointment) into my relationship with the Lord, so I became convinced that He was disappointed and ashamed of me.
    I am 22 and single and I have often thought about how the church approaches purity. I had church leaders shame me and place unnecessary rules on me because they did not trust Jesus was changing my heart. I was sexually harassed on my way home from school and their response was, “What were you wearing?”
    The legalism drove me into isolation and distrust because I didn’t understand how I could be responsible for other people’s actions. It didn’t make sense and it has since taken much inner healing to recover from those years and relationships.
    With my own children, I would like to impress purity as a posture of your heart, but also instilling the value of sex for marriage and WHY God intended it that way… How marriage is the physical representation of Jesus and his bridegroom and how Family is the ultimate reflection of God on the earth.
    I think a sex-focused purity message is perverted and toxic and I think many adolescents don’t wait for marriage because they have not come to that commitment in their heart.
    I want my life and the way I raise my kids to call people into that place of committing to purity in the heart and out of that overflow comes purity everywhere else (emotionally, mentally, etc).

    I am sorry – I wrote so much!

    Reply
  65. A

    The purity culture made me feel bad bc I am the victim of abuse. There was no real place for me, I’m not a virgin so I face consequences I am celibate’ but bc of past sins deal with hatred towards married people bc I cannot abstain as easily and still have strong desire for sex, but am totally understand prepared to be a wife and mother The consequences of living a part from God are endless. I’ve felt dirty and pretty gross bc I thought this was the ideal but my life looks nothing like that. Where are room for ppl w a past

    Reply
    • Sheila

      Oh, A, I’m so sorry! But just because you were abused and just because you face temptations does not mean that you’re not pure at all! Please don’t believe that lie. Jesus doesn’t expect our lives to look all pristine and perfect. He just expects us to come to Him with honesty and humility. Repentance from a humble heart–that’s real purity.

      Reply
  66. NonSpectatus

    Thank you for writing something toward men. I have read a number of your articles, and I found this article to be very balanced, fair and astute. I grew up in a very purity based religion and was very active in it. I married into it, and for the most part have a very happy marriage. I saved myself physically and mentally for marriage, and as I had adult friends marry heard stories of how glad they were, and how great being married was. I often recall to mind what one newlywed couple said regarding their first year of marriage “take a water jug and put a penny in it every time you are intimate during your first year of marriage, and then take one out for each time after the first year and see if you every empty it.” I thought this a humorous exaggeration at the time, and did not base my expectations of marriage off of it, though I have used it as a comparative since.
    We were not intimate during our wedding night, or for the first week. We were when we went on our honeymoon, but even then, less than once a day, and I felt like I was pressuring her (which after being celibate for so long, I probable was). If we had kept a water jug and put pennies in it each time we were intimate over the last 11+ years of our marriage, I doubt we would even have a dollar, and have on more than one occasion gone without for nearly a year. Those first five of six years, I heard “no” a lot, as my libido is much greater than is hers, now I when I think about asking I feel like a mouse who has been conditioned to run a maze via electric shock.
    We are happy for the most part otherwise but I would be blind if I could not see that it puts a wedge between us, hurts me deeply; makes me feel like less of a “man”, and that we often misdirect that frustration and pain onto other things. If feel like our marriage is a building which has not been painted for over a decade. The weather seal the paint creates holds up for a while, but then starts to leak. The longer the weather seal from the paint goes without being repainted, the more and deeper the damage goes.
    I strongly believe in marriage, and divorce is not an option (especially having kids) without the aspect of abuse and neglect; but that aspect of friendship that my wife and I have enjoyed I can feel waning as well. I do notice I have become less patient with her, as if too many of our conversations start with some level of frustration as the pain of rejection wains into anger and mistrust. I know it is insane, but physical intimacy for me is linked to emotional intimacy, and I physically feel alone rejected and ashamed that this may ruin my marriage.
    I try to bottle the pain, but it is always on my mind, for more than a decade now, and the pain has rotted into frustration, and fermented into anger. As you can imagine, if by no means other than shear need, we have had a goodly number of conversations about it, which started as how I could be more romantic, more passionate, more loving, and after years of attempting remedy she tried to be more sexual with me, but it was easy to tell she did not want it, and it had the feeling of her “doing me a favor” no matter her enjoyment. And now… now we are roommates, and that is starting to deteriorate.
    I am often angry at other things, I am a ball of stress which I thought was work, but that has not changed now that I have spent years making work a stress release. Feeling as if I have exhausted my options, I have become depressed, anxious, and generally unpleasant. I have all but resigned myself to being alone.
    For lack of a better term, I feel as if my wife has been “brainwashed” by the purity mantra, and my biggest fear is it being passed on to my children. I do not attend church any more, though I still believe in the gospel; I just do not trust that I will be able to help my children to keep a will and mind of their own there.

    Reply
    • Kay

      NonSpectatus, I’m sorry you will likely never see this comment, but to anyone else reading this, you are NOT insane for connecting sexual intimacy with emotional intimacy, that is EXACTLY what Sheila believes sexual intimacy is supposed to be: physical, emotional, and spiritual connectedness! I am so sorry for the years of rejection you have experienced; your hurt sounds very normal. You are living in what qualifies as a sexless marriage (anything less than 10 times a year), and that is NOT what’s God desires for marriage. Your wife may have huge hang ups about sex because of the twisted ways that she may have internalized the purity message you were raised with, thereby shutting down her sexuality. I see it a lot in the culture I was raised with too. I wish you and your wife could read Sheila’s book together, The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex so she would see how God created sex to be MUTUAL. My heart breaks for you.

      Ladies reading this, please hear the hurt in this husband’s heart. Sex is SO much more than physical release, and it is not “just for him.” God gave you a clitoris that serves NO purpose except for sexual pleasure; that’s not even true of the penis! Married sexuality is beautiful and holy and something God wants to be amazing, because it is meant to connect us as one in body, mind, and spirit.

      Reply
  67. Michelle

    Awesome article. Just wanted to randomly comment about the movie “Courageous.” There’s a part where a young teen girl is being liked by a guy in school who is clearly no good. Her father takes her out to a really nice restaurant and gives her a ring. I was really glad that they didn’t say it was a purity ring, or that they tied it to sexuality/virginity in any way. Basically, the Dad was just trying to show her how special she was and how she should be treated by a man. He was committing to her to be her Dad – to watch over her, and to affirm her worth and help her not get mixed up with someone who was not right for her. The young man was troubled and in a gang. The ring was more about the Dad’s commitment to her and making her feel special, not about her behaviour. Way to go, Kendrick brothers!

    Reply
    • Sheila

      You know, after all this time I’ve never actually seen Courageous. It’s the only one I haven’t seen. Isn’t that awful? But I’m so glad about that scene! Thanks for sharing that.

      Reply
  68. Jennifer Bender

    Thank you SO much! Being a mom of 6 (4 being girls) this is a much discussed subject. So many times I feel guilty for not being better organized . . . Planning ahead for their coming out parties . . . Surrounding them with trinkets and tokens of milestones in their lives . . . Tea parties . . . And ,and, and.
    Thank you for saying that this is an ongoing conversation and that as parents, our greatest need is to help them find their strength in Jesus, to learn by steps to depend on Him.
    My husband and I come from nearly opposite backgrounds (it’s still amazing to me how much we really do have in common – only God!!!) I was raised TOTALLY sheltered and he was pretty much allowed to learn most everything on his own (he survived!) It takes a bit to find our balance. So your confirmation that this is about a continuing conversation is very refreshing. Even your comments about our boys. We want all our children to go into their married life fresh, pure, ready to learn about their mate with a clean slate- recognizing that we are ALL born in sin and the battle is fierce and daily.
    God bless your efforts!

    Reply
    • Sheila

      Thanks so much, Jennifer! And YES to the boys thing! I think we need to bring boys into this conversation so much more, because by making it primarily about girls we’ve really gone off track. It’s about being Christlike, people, that’s it. And that has no gender, age, or race!

      Reply
  69. Charlie Grantham

    Hi! I was wondering what study you are referring to when you say, “studies have shown that Christian teens steeped in the purity culture are more likely to engage in risky sexual behaviour than Christian teens who are not, and it’s likely because of the “all or nothing” mentality.” I am very interested in this and would love a link to the study! Thanks!

    Reply
    • Sheila Wray Gregoire

      I’ll ask my daughter and get back to you! She quotes the study in her book “Why I Didn’t Rebel” that’s coming out soon!

      Reply
  70. Dean

    Men are the ones who struggle the most with purity, so that is what the focus needs to be on. Women, young girls, young boys can be given a bit of a break.

    Reply
  71. Tanya

    As someone who is … ahem, over 40 and STILL waiting, this whole purity culture thing makes me uneasy. I get the feeling the implication is always that if you follow this culture, you’ll be rewarded with a godly husband in your early to mid-20s, like the Duggars. What if you aren’t? The church does not do a very good job of teaching single women to build fruitful lives for themselves; it just seems to spout platitudes: “be content and don’t have sex and then God will send you a husband.” I’ve actually had people basically say that to my face. It’s a pretty flawed formula that doesn’t take into account God doesn’t follow formulas. Single women (and men) are human beings with real needs and desires, and waiting, frankly, is about as pleasant — but important — as paying taxes. I wholeheartedly agree with Sheila’s take that learning to depend on God, not some works-based “purity culture” rules, is really what teens and everyone needs.

    Reply
    • Sheila Gregoire

      Thank you, Tanya. That’s so true!

      Reply
  72. Carlene Seghers

    “But if we have to walk by the Spirit WITHOUT rules, then we must also live with this uncomfortable truth: God may call other Christians to live in a different way than He calls you, because they have different backgrounds, different temptations, and different personalities. ….We all serve God; let’s stick to the heart of the gospel, and let our kids do the same.” A really powerful statement Sheila! Thank you! Relationships are all about walking by the Spirit and validating relationships in godly ways that build up the church! Too often we lose sight of the gospel when it comes to sorting through issues of sexuality. But sex is ALL ABOUT THE GOSPEL, isn’t it?! That’s GRACE. Rules seem so much easier but in fact drive us apart! Thank you Tanya for speaking up for the single person. We don’t do a good job validating singles in the church. May we each walk by His Spirit and come together as we celebrate our Lord and the unique road He walks with each of us!

    Reply
  73. Mark

    1. Asking people to obey Christ, to remain sexually pure (married or unmarired) is not at all a works based theology. Hebrews 13:4 commands us to keep the marriage bed pure.

    That God expects obedience, and we are to teach our children to obey God, is not claiming works as their source of salvation.

    Paul, whose letters flow with grace, boldly demanded Christians (male and female) avoid “pornia.”

    1 Thess 4:3-7
    “It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God; and that in this matter no one should wrong his brother or take advantage of him. The Lord will punish men for all such sins, as we have already told you and warned you. ”

    Was Paul worried about a “works based theology” ? Actually, he declared it was “God’s will.”

    2. About purity movement

    My wife and I do not ask our girls to participate in: purity balls, purity rings, chaperoning, and so on.

    We also don’t attack those who do. Because they are our brothers and sisters in Jesus who are seeking sincerely to teach their children to honor God.

    Purity movement’s not my thing. Obedience out of love for Jesus — that’s the real deal. that’s what I’ll teach my four daughters. But I refuse to go on attacking God’s church because I disagree about how we will teach our children.

    Stop quibbling over a movement within the church that you personally don’t like. I’m not a fan either, but at the end of the day, the church isn’t my Bride, and I don’t want to mess with Her Groom. Those who push the purity movement seek to do so with the deepest love for the Lord. They are seeking to do well by the young people entrusted to them.

    Reply
    • Sheila Gregoire

      Hi Mark,

      It sounds like we have very similar ways of raising our kids! That’s great.

      But here’s the thing: the reason that I’m quibbling is not because I want to score theological points. It’s because the purity movement is actually HARMING people. The number of women who have body issues and who are afraid of sex once they’re married or who become severely depressed because now they’re “impure” is astounding. Just read Elizabeth Smart’s testimony.

      So it’s not really enough to say, “let’s agree to disagree”. You can’t do that when children are being hurt. And that, to me, is the crux of the matter.

      Reply
  74. Karen D

    This is one of the best posts I’ve ever read on this topic. And, I believe that your daughter’s youtube is the best video I’ve seen on the topic. My 17 yo daughter and I have been having these discussions lately and how to handle situations where the dress codes are one-sided. I showed her the video and she thought it was very good also! Thank you both for being willing to address this topic!!

    Reply
    • Sheila Gregoire

      Really glad you liked it! 🙂

      Reply
  75. Shauna

    I raised my three daughters and 1 son much like you. Dating was permitted at 17. We talked a ton about sex and why it should be SAVED! Because it’s a beautiful gift.
    We did encourage courtship, and avoiding alone time. And all three of my married daughters have healthy sexual relationships and mindsets. They are thankful for my open honesty in sharing some of my dating pitfalls with boys.
    I love the ministry you have here! I recommend it regularly.

    Reply
    • Sheila Gregoire

      Oh, thank you so much, Shauna!

      Reply

Trackbacks/Pingbacks

  1. How Not to Screw Up Your Kid When It Comes to Sex - […] our babies. However, they need to be able to accept their sexuality as a good and a right thing. Sheila…
  2. What I read this week – 1/22/16 - DragonLady's World - […] 10 Things That Scare Me About the “Purity” Culture […]

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *