On Purity Culture—a debrief (from James)

Note: This post is a follow-up to the Fundamental Shift podcast series on Purity Culture. If you haven’t heard them, you can listen at the following links and in your favorite podcast app: WTF is “Better?” ; When Purity Culture Kills: The Atlanta Spa Shootings; A Mormon, A Couple Catholics, and A Couple Exvangelicals Walk Into A...Discussion About Purity Culture)

When Grace and I first talked about doing a series on Purity Culture, I thought I knew what we were in for. I knew some of the subject matter would be triggering, fascinating, and maybe shocking depending on the listener, but I wasn’t quite prepared for how it would hit me.

As we spoke with many of our listeners, heard and read your stories, and as I looked around me, I was struck with how multifaceted and far reaching Purity Culture actually is. In addition to the religious horror stories, I also see sex fixations manifesting in similar ways within secular culture, as misconceptions about the relationship between trafficking, sex work, and the justice system continue to spread, making the world less safe for victims and consensual sex workers alike.

Toward the end of our series, I was forced to examine how the culture in which I grew up shaped so much of how I have acted and reacted with relationship partners and potential relationship partners over the years. I was reminded of how strong religious programming is and how much continual effort is required to peel away at those layers, unlearn, retrain.

And of course, we heard from a number of women who reminded us how patriarchy, heteronormativity, and double standards often place the greatest share of the burden on them. Women and girls are seen as failures when they give in to their sexual desires, and when men give into theirs, it’s still a woman’s fault for being too desirable.

Grace shared her experience as a protege of missionary Elisabeth Elliot. I was never a follower of the Elliots, but listening to the clips from our last episode, I could sense in Elliot’s voice a strength that I think drew a lot of women like Grace toward her. Elliot was so influential in part because she projected a sense of authority and freedom that so many women and girls desired for themselves, but as Grace pointed out regarding Elliot and authority figures like her, “They get their freedom by telling us to give ours up.”

Reflecting on this after the episode was published, it occurred to me what else I felt when listening to Elliot speak: Security. Safety. Here is a strong woman telling us there’s a better way, appealing to a higher authority than herself, and doing it with such confidence that, for me at least, it was hard not to relapse, if only momentarily, into a false sense of relief and rest at the idea that I’m not my own, that ultimately nothing is up to me, and that a higher power is in charge. Honestly, that’s a large part of what I used to find appealing in my churched years: God’s got this; the world is a mess but we aren’t the solution—the Gospel is.

It occurred to me that so many people allow themselves to be subjugated because there’s a sense of security in believing everything is above your pay grade. It feeds the sort of circular thinking that entices good, well-meaning people into a collection of moral presets that function as shortcuts to “doing the right thing.” Ancient texts are distilled down into one person’s interpretation, then that interpretation gets distilled again, and before you know it there’s a huge chunk of impressionable, kind, well-meaning people who decide to kiss dating goodbye and think their sexual ethic is the only right one. Once a person has bought into that reasoning, the real effects of these teachings and practices on people’s lives becomes subordinate to the belief that this is the “right way” handed down from on high. How dare we think we know more about ourselves than the one who literally made us?

It takes a lot of critical thinking, introspection, and honest examination for an indoctrinated person to get to a point where they understand the path down which they have been led (1) may have been based in something that isn’t as literally true as they were taught, and (2) may have caused profound harm to countless people. It takes even more effort to allow these things to matter more than a belief that this set of values came from God.

There’s a lot to sort through here. I sincerely hope those of you who followed this series found value in the stories that were told and were challenged in ways you haven’t been before. Please let us know how these episodes spoke to you. The series may be over, but the conversation continues.