Transcript
Monty Mater (0:00)
If you grew up in youth culture in the church in the 1990s or the 2000s, you are very familiar with today's topic, which is purity culture. This idea that women were sold that focus your life on your future husband, your sexuality, your ownership, and also it will give you so many blessings if you choose to follow these rules, these rules that were conveniently always directed at young women and even young girls as young as 7 or 8 or 9, and that the responsibility solely fell on women. But men were the leaders. It is a culture that has fostered abuse and psychological damage and physical damage to many young women across the country. And we're gonna talk about it today. So we're gonna do a little bit of a split episode today. I'm gonna talk about purity culture, and then I'm gonna invite a guest whose life and marriage was directly impacted by these views. We're gonna do a little intro about what is purity culture, what does it mean, what does it teach? What are some of the negative impacts?
Jubilee Dawn (0:58)
And.
Monty Mater (0:59)
And then my very special guest, Jubilee dawn, is gonna come on with us and talk about her story and get a real life perspective on the damage from purity culture. So buckle up for today's episode of Flipping Tables. Welcome back to this episode of Flipping Tables where we talk about purity culture. I've been building this episode for a while because in my personal opinion, this is one of the most harmful things that Christian nationalism, fundamentalism, and the church as a whole does to young women. And I grew up right in the heat of it, in the thick of it with books like I Kiss Dating Goodbye and True Love Waits, all these things. And I think it's super harmful. But first, I just want to say thank you so much again to my Patreon supporters who have made this possible for me as this. As I'm recording this, I'm in June, where I've recently overcome a big health scare, in part because of my Patreon user support to allow me to pursue medical care. And I'm deeply, deeply appreciative of that and for your support. And also I wanna say that moving forward into July, I have been able to quit one of my jobs to focus more fully on this content full time. And I will also be starting to release merch lines. I have found a graphic designer that I love and there will be little new pieces of merch that come out every week and those will be on my new website that's being built. There's a lot of really cool things happening and I just wanted to express my gratitude because if it weren't for you listening to me, none of those things would happen. So let's dive in. Let's talk about the origins and the rise of purity culture. Purity culture emerged as a dominant force in American evangelical Christianity in the 1990s. It was building upon early religious and political movements from the 1970s and 80s. Those movements in the 70s and 80s were conservative backlash to the sexual revolution of the 1960s. And the rise of the religious right that occurred in the 1980s opposed this movement. Organizations like Focus on the Family, Concerned Women for America, and the Moral Majority, led by figures like Jerry Falwell and James Dobson, promoted a vision of American life grounded in patriarchal gender roles, traditional marriage and abstinence until marriage. And just a reminder that Jerry Falwell was so racist, he started another school to prevent black students from attending his schools. And James Dobson was mentored by a white supremacist eugenicist who believed that white women should not be able to marry outside their race and they should not be able to leave abusive marriages or take birth control. Just a reminder. The 1990s saw the explosion of formal purity campaigns that were widely disseminated through churches and youth groups, Christian schools, and homeschool curriculums. One of the most notable was True Love Waits, launched by the Southern Baptist convention in 1993, which encouraged teenagers to sign virginity pledges and wear purity rings. So you've heard me talk about the culture of parents, especially fathers, giving their daughters purity rings. Purity culture, Purity contracts. This comes from the Southern Baptist Convention in the 80s. The movement framed sexual purity as a gift to one's future spouse, one's future husband most of the time, and to God, often using language of covenant and sacred duty. Books like I Kiss dating Goodbye in 1997 by Joshua Harris helped codify these values. Harris's book argued that dating led to emotional and sexual baggage and promoted courtship under parental oversight as the only godly path to marriage. This ideology positioned women as gatekeepers of sexual morality and painted any deviation from abstinence, real or perceived, as spiritually, emotionally and physically damaging. I do want to say that Joshua Harris has since rejected these views and publicly denounced his participation in this scenario. But the damage, honestly, has kind of already been done because this led to this belief that. That sexual morality was this very narrow view. And while, you know, submit to men, only men can be leaders. They also taught that men can't control their sexual urges. So if anything happens to you sexually as a woman, well, that's your fault. The core belief and practices of Purity culture is not just about abstaining from sex. It's a comprehensive worldview that linked a woman's worth to her sexual behavior and her appearance. This is also what gave rise to a lot of the weight loss culture in the church. So let's talk about these core values. The first core value of purity culture is virginity equals value. A girl or woman's inherent worth is measured by her virginity. Once lost, even if it's through abuse, she was frequently portrayed as damaged goods, chewed gum, a used car, or any type of used or defective object. The second was modesty doctrine. Girls were taught to dress modestly to avoid leading boys and men into sin. This instilled the belief that women were responsible for men's thoughts and actions and that their bodies were inherently dangerous. So much to say on this. And often the scripture where Paul talks about women being modest in the church is used to promote this worldview. When Paul's specific directive was to not flaunt women wealth, it was. It was an intentional misreading of scripture to promote this. Number three. They promoted courtship over dating. Emotional attachment outside of any intended marriage was discouraged. Women were to guard their hearts, often refraining from even harmless physical or emotional connections, lest they give away pieces of themselves before marriage. They would say things for, to me growing up that even if you did things like holding hands and, and it wasn't leading to marriage, you were giving parts of yourself away that should be reserved for your husband. They pitch this idea as that this centers you in your faith and centers you to God. It does not. It centers you to a man. It centers you to this imaginary man that you may never meet and that your body's only value is not to you and your choices and your own decisions, but to a man that you will later marry and then serve. Number four people. Purity culture enforces strict gender roles. It's deeply hierarch. Higher. Oh, that's a hard word today. Hierarchical. It establishes a hierarchy. There we go. And it's very patriarchal. Men were cast as leaders and providers, while women were to be submissive, pure, nurturing wives and mothers and quiet. Don't be disruptive. Speak softly. That's why when you hear certain conservative women that are like on the religious side, not the maga side, the religious side, they all talk with this kind of baby voice. That's, that's a extension of purity culture because you weren't supposed to speak with your full voice or God forbid, yell like I spend a lot of time doing. And then lastly, it was based on fear this was a lot of fear based messaging. Youth events, books and Bible studies often featured metaphors designed to instill fear. Roses with missing petals, tapes that lost its stickiness, the threat of hell, hearts with pieces torn away that couldn't heal. Sexual sin was likened to spiritual death and irrevocable ruin. Now obviously a teaching like this, and that's not to say that men weren't in certain areas taught purity culture. This was very much pushed towards women because the church cannot function without gender roles. And because of this, this explicitly was pressed on women. Even though this is not biblical, they will say in the Old Testament, well, God says in the Old Testament that women need to be virgins. Women were objects in the Old Testament. And again, it's, it's intentionally ignoring historical context of biblical passages because in the Bible, women were property. They didn't have human rights, they had no rights whatsoever. They did not even have sexual agency. When you read the scripture, the way that it address addresses sex, is that an object or, excuse me, a person with sexual agency, which is always a man, has sex to an object, not with an object. He performs a sexual act on an object, not with the object. Women did not have sexual agency. So the reason that you had to be a virgin was, was because it was about guaranteeing that your heir was yours. And it's because they owned women like they owned property. That's not something we want to emulate. It was not because of some moral high ground. It was about ownership, patriarchy, and the abuse and subjugation of women. So obviously this has had enormous negative impacts on women. The first being shame and psychological trauma. There's so much guilt and shame around sexuality, even if you have sexual feelings which are totally normal for women. For many girls growing up in purity culture, normal sexual development was accompanied by intense guilt and shame. Sexual thoughts, masturbation, or simply developing physically were treated as sins to be suppressed. I cannot tell you how badly girls who developed big chests were treated in the church. They were ostracized, they were humiliated, and there's something that they could do nothing about. This created a cycle of guilt and anxiety. And many women internalized the belief that their bodies were sinful, shameful and dangerous. Even the survivors of sexual abuse were often made to feel impure and responsible for their own abuse. Because the culture framed all sexual activity outside of marriage as equally sinful, it offers little room to distinguish between consensual and non consensual experiences. It does not matter if your father abused you, he took your value away. Some women Reported being told to forgive and move on and that their assault was punishment for their own spiritual failure. Number two, this leads to a lot of sexual dysfunction and marriage problems. Well, no shit. You tell women their whole life that virginity is their only value, that sex is dirty and it's shameful and it makes them used. And then on their wedding night, you expect them to flip a switch and be totally okay with sexual encounters. The very purity messaging that was supposed to protect young women's futures led to significant sexual dysfunction within marriage. Many women who had spent years repressing sexual thoughts and behaviors were expected to become instant porn stars and instantly comfortable and enthusiastic about sex the second they walk into the bedroom with their husband. But for those who were sec, who had been treated this way sexually, and who had sexually repressed their sexuality, this is psychologically jarring. You can't flip the switch like that. It also is a breeding ground for sexual abuse within a marriage. When you have a young woman who has no sexual education, she doesn't understand her sexuality. She has had no opportunity to explore what she likes, what she doesn't like. It turns into functionally that same sexual dynamic in ancient times, where sex is happening to her, not with her. Women in marriages reported feelings of guilt, anxiety during consensual marital sexual. Some experienced a physical condition called vaginismus, which is deep pain, physical pain, having sex. Women experience low libido or an aversion to physical intimacy. Again, of course, because you've been told your whole life that this dirty, evil, vile thing that you'll never be forgiven for, that you'll never recover for, is now something you're supposed to do anytime your husband wants it. Because purity culture not just shamed women's sexuality and restricted women's choice and treated it as this vile sin, but it also gave your sexuality to your husband. It's for his use, and they tell you you can never tell your husband no. And obviously, the lack of comprehensive sex education leaves many women unequipped to advocate for their own pleasure, their own consent, or their own safety now. 3. The loss of autonomy and voice. Purity culture taught women to defer to male authority, their fathers before marriage and their husbands after. Women were told that God's will was mediated through male leadership and that obedience to these structures was a divine requirement. This dynamic often led to women to stay in abusive or controlling relationships out of fear that leaving would mean spiritual failure or divine punishment. The this is why the Christian nationalist and the alt right and the fundamentalist movement opposes education for women because they do not want women to develop enough critical thinking skills and to have the knowledge to understand that they do not have to defer to male leadership. They do not want women to believe that they can have their own relationship with God that is not mediated by a male figure. Education, options, resources, even things like homosexuality and the existence of of the LGBTQ community threatens this structure. They do not want women to have choice. That's why the church does not advocate for consent. That's why they don't advocate for protecting victims of sexual assault from things like being forced to carry a pregnancy or even protection from their own fathers if their father is their abuser. Because functionally, they do not believe in choice for women and they do not want women to have those choices or those protections. This culture dismissed female desire or agency. They. They often act like women don't like sex. Well, women don't have strong sex drives, and if you do, you're defective. But then husbands complain that their wife doesn't have sex enough with them. None of those things are true. Women have varying libidos, the same as men do. And women should have agency the same as men do. But that's not taught within this culture. Women are rarely taught that they have the right to say no or even to articulate what they want. That makes you a dirty if you say what you want in the bedroom, well, where did you learn that from? Or if you say you don't like something, then you're rejecting your husband, and if he cheats on you, well, that's your fault. Consent is not a topic of the conversation. Impurity. Teaching sex is framed not as mutual act of love and trust, but a marital duty. And then you wonder why married Christian women treat it like a job. Because that's what you've told them. And you haven't taught them anything about love or how beautiful intimacy can be or sexual pleasure. You've dismissed the fact that women can have orgasms. And you tell men, young men in the church, though, that's not real. The lack of identity beyond marriage and motherhood. Women were taught from a young age that their ultimate calling is to be wives and mothers. They are often told that this is God's divine calling for them, even though the Bible contradicts that. But they will say that women have have to do this. Your identity is centered on preparing for a future husband through homemaking skills. Submission training. Yes, submission training. I like to call it submission grooming because it's Christian nationalists who are grooming children, not the LGBTQ community or the leftists. And self policing behavior. Careers, ambitions, or intellectual pursuits were considered secondary or distractions from a woman's true purpose. This leaves many women floundering if they never married or they got married later in life or they married someone. Abusive if a woman divorced, her community often shunned her or blamed her for not trying hard enough to save the marriage. It leads to a mistrust of the body and a disconnection from self modesty. Teachings encourage girls to view their body as a stumbling block to men's purity. This instills body dysmorphia, disordered eating, and a chronic mistrust of one's own feelings and desires. Women learn to disconnect from their own bodily cues in order to be pure, ignoring sexual curiosity, sexual desire, menstruation, related shame, and even medical needs. When reproductive health is viewed as taboo, the result was not just discomfort but an alienation from your own body. Women were taught to filter their own experience and decisions through the patriarchal moral lens instead of being empowered to understand and trust themselves. By the mid-2010s, the negative consequences of purity culture began surfacing wildly and everywhere as more and more women came forward with their stories in books, blogs, and social media. Former proponents like Joshua Harris I mentioned earlier, publicly apologized and renounced their teaching. And Harris even disavowed his best selling book and later left the Christian faith altogether because, to Harris's credit, he recognized the harm and the damage of these teachings. Movements like Church 2, which is a spin off of MeToo, highlighted sexual abuse within religious settings and how purity culture enabled victim blaming and silence. Survivors began to reclaim their narratives and challenged the toxic theology. They advocated for healthier understandings of consent, sexuality, and gender. There are now therapists who specialize in religious sexual trauma. Reported increases in patients grappling with the aftermath of purity culture, especially women raised in evangelical settings. Terms like purity culture, PTSD and religious trauma syndrome have become more commonly used. However, the church hasn't removed its teachings on purity culture. It hasn't removed its belief in these hierarchies that require a men constantly be dominant over a woman. So while purity culture's influence still lingers in conservative spaces, younger Christians called the exvangelicals, which is the space I work in and other spiritual seekers like myself are turning to sex positive theology, trauma, informed pastoral care, and feminist interpretations of scripture. Why? Because we understand that purity culture is still being taught in Christian nationalist circles, in Christian fundamentalism, and that young women, if they choose to be Christians, which is their choice, should still understand consent, sexual agency sex education and also be protected from abuse. This is another reason that while the church screams about the LGBTQ grooming children or sex education is grooming children, it's not. It's protecting their daughters. But they're not interested in that because much like the Old Testament, most of the church that stays in these purity culture settings in this Christian nationalism, in this fundamentalism, doesn't, at its core, see women as people. They see women as property, as livestock, whose purpose is to fill their pews with new children that they can exploit for the rest of their life. Women have carried enough of this damage moving forward, and it is changing in certain circles, and it's not changing. So it's also important that we're aware of this. Purity culture has a huge impact on the abortion stance of these fundamentalist churches. It is much easier to advocate taking choice away from woman in her pregnancy if you take choice away from her sexuality to begin with. And that's my summary on purity culture. So for those of you that didn't grow up in church, you have a sense of what it is, what it causes. For those of you who grew up in this, I hope that this next segment heals you. I hope that you see that your body is wonderful and lovely. Your sexuality is holy and you are sacred. Your body is not sinful. It is not a stumbling block. Our lust is our own. Each individual person, male or female or anything else, is responsible for their own thoughts and their own actions. And with that, I'm going to welcome to the episode Jubilee Dawn Jubilee. Hi. Thank you for being on Flipping Tables. I'm glad we finally made it work.