Monday, July 21, 2014

I Regret Purity Culture

Any fundamentalist Christian who grew up in the 90’s is familiar with the phrase “True Love Waits.” Born out of a culture that prizes sexual purity, the TLW movement came with modesty slogans (for females only), purity rings, and sermon after sermon at youth groups across America. Believing that God requires total abstinence from sex before marriage, Baptists built a law around the law. “Purity is a direction, not a line you suddenly cross by going too far,” taught Joshua Harris in I Kissed Dating Goodbye. But “purity” meant “not having sex.” So we went in the direction of fighting even our sexual desires, because we weren’t supposed to engage in anything that could theoretically lead up to sex. Choosing to save one’s first kiss for marriage was usually the acceptable way to go. Where this rule originally came up from or why it was so widely accepted, I have no idea.

A couple more things you would need to know if you looked into the TLW movement are that courting was more pure than dating, giving away your virginity or anything else physically was seen as giving pieces of yourself away—an act you could never take back and would always regret, and women could not be trusted to make their own courting/engagement/marriage decisions.

My dad took that last one to the extreme. When I was 16, he tried to betroth me to a co-worker at camp, someone I was not at all attracted to and who would require me to wear skirts and give up Christian rock music for the rest of my life. My dad liked this guy so much that he repeatedly begged…and offered him our car in exchange for me. To my co-worker’s credit, he was baffled and embarrassed. He said no. I heard about it later in the summer, which made life in the horse barn with him terribly awkward for the remainder of the season. I doubt Joshua Harris would have been ok with this, so I’m not saying it represents purity culture at large, but to my knowledge, nobody told my dad that he was being controlling and…just crazy. I can’t think of another word for his actions.

His behavior for the rest of my single life was more typical of a pro-purity dad. He and my mom were constantly matchmaking (to the point that, when I was 18 and being stalked by a fellow MK, my mom asked me, “Aren’t you at least a little flattered?”). When my older brother got a girlfriend at college, my parents were totally over the moon. They trusted him to pick a suitable mate, and were delighted to hear that he had his first kiss with her on their first date. But when I was instant messaging with a potential boyfriend, my dad started getting very grouchy because this young man hadn’t spoken to him about it first.

When I met my husband to be, David, I was at NTBI in Wisconsin and my parents were in South Africa. David had to ask me for my dad’s email so that he could get permission to court me. My dad responded with a list of 10 questions for David that required detailed answers. By the time David was finished typing up a response, his paper for my dad was bigger than his biggest paper he ever had to write in Bible college. My dad’s motto is, “You wouldn’t let anyone just take your car for a drive, so why are you letting people try out your daughter?” For the record, I’m much more capable of making good choices than a car, but ok…

My dad gave David and I strict courting rules. He said he didn’t see how it was acceptable for a couple to even hold hands. “Maybe….maaaaaybe, when they get engaged,” he said. Because we were so utterly brainwashed by purity culture’s concepts of not giving yourself away, running the opposite direction of pre-marital sex, and listening to a woman’s “spiritual leader” (my dad), my husband and I didn’t have any romantic touching at all until our first kiss at the altar. While we were courting, he once led me by the hand because I was blindfolded, but other than that, no physical contact was allowed.
We took this as a joke during our engagement, but
it's not at all funny to me now.


The entire TLW movement is based on not having any regrets before marriage. They scare young people with talks about how you don’t want to explain to your future spouse how you have had physical contact with other people. But I regret so much. I regret being a part of this movement at all. I regret not standing up to my dad’s ridiculous behavior and double standards. I regret the thousands of missed romantic moments that David and I longed to touch each other but held back. I regret that my first kiss was in front of everyone we knew. I regret that my concept of purity before God was entirely centered around not having sex before marriage. I regret teaching the girls at youth group that I had set some sort of Christlike example to follow. I could go on and on.

This movement is based around insecurity, plain and simple. If a man is upset that his wife had kissed other people before him, that would be insecure and degrading to her personhood (she didn’t give pieces of herself away—she’s still a whole person). If a parent is so worried that their child will fall into sexual pitfalls that they have to ban their children from even thinking sexual thoughts, that is insecure, too.

I am not insecure about my purity anymore. Not before my “father,” not before my husband, not before myself, and not before God. But I can’t get those years back now. The only thing I can do is throw this shame in the goddamned garbage can. So here it goes…

2 comments:

  1. GAH! I just typed this wicked long post, signed into my Google account and it didn't save the comment. So, here I go again:

    A popular idea in purity culture is that as long as you don't have sex, you'll be fine. No damage done. NOT TRUE! Purity culture was so damaging in my life. In high school I had a long term boyfriend. I was too embarrassed to hold hands with him in front of his family. Just because the idea of touching my boyfriend, although appropriately, made me feel guilty. But, we held hands not around his family. Which made me feel even more guilty. A popular idea in the purity culture is "don't do anything that you wouldn't do in front of your parents". Were we sinning by holding hands then?

    After a few years, my long term boyfriend and I broke up. I was now damaged goods (because the girl is always the damaged goods, not the guy). Even though we had never kissed or had sex, I was now damaged goods because I had "given part of my heart" to someone, and now I didn't have a whole heart to give.

    When we broke up, all I could think about how in a matter of seconds I went from having a whole heart to having part of a heart. Surely, no good Christian guy would want me now. After all, you're supposed to marry the first person you date. If the first person you date doesn't want you, there must be something wrong.
    Sometimes, even now, I dread telling my future spouse about my past relationship. If I tell him before we begin dating, or before we're engaged, will he leave me for a girl with a full heart? If someone said my thoughts to me, I would tell them they were being ridiculous.

    But, as someone who grew up thinking you could only have a good relationship if you only dated one person, escaping this mentality is so difficult. So difficult. Even in more conservative circles, when the girls found I had a long term boyfriend before, the give THAT look. The look anyone in purity culture knows. The "I'm sorry that happened to you. I will never be like you because I am keeping myself."

    Learning to love myself, and realize that I "still" have so much to offer even though I had one boyfriend in high school, is tough.

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  2. This is so heartbreaking. I am so sorry you were both lied to like this. I was raised Christian but not fundamentalist. Everybody I knew dated in high school and college. We were taught that sex was for marriage but we were never taught that we had to marry our first boyfriend. I never knew anyone who courted. It wasn't until I was already married that I started meeting people who had left fundamentalism and found out about this. I hope you know there are lots of churches and lots of Christians who don't think this way.

    I hope you find the healing you need and become free from those lies.

    ReplyDelete

I won't ever delete based on your thoughts alone, but if you are not brave or kind, your comments will be deleted. All are invited to my table, but disrespecting my boundaries means your comments won't make it past my approval for everyone to see. If your comment doesn't make it through, ask "How can I communicate with more courage and kindness?" and try again. I don't want this to turn into a place for trolls, so I'm not letting it.