Purity Culture: When Policing Purity Becomes More Important Than Protecting People

It was a Sunday night, the fall semester of my freshman year of high school. I attended a youth Bible seminar with my best friend, because growing up in the Bible Belt of the South, that’s what you did to socialize. We sat in the back row with a couple of our guy friends, chatting about our plans to get fries and shakes from the local Whataburger after the talk. The youth pastor stepped on stage and voices around the room quieted. He said, “Tonight is a big deal guys. Tonight we are going to talk about purity.”

After the talk ended, the youth pastor wore a look of smug satisfaction. He had compared each person in his young audience to a cookie, declaring that every time we gave ourselves away to ‘lust’ it was like someone taking a bite of our cookie. For that reason, we needed each to stay pure so that there would be a ‘whole cookie’ left for our future spouse. The pastor was quite proud of himself for this metaphor, and deemed it effective at keeping the youth ‘pure’ and free of sexual deviance.

What the pastor didn’t know, however, was the impact that this metaphor was having on one young woman sitting in his audience: my best friend. She was tearing up. She had been in a relationship a few months prior where she was pressured and coerced into having unwanted sex with her partner. Rather than recognizing that she had faced sexual violence in her relationship, she internalized shame over ‘giving away bites of her cookie.’ She felt blamed, impure, and sinful rather than seen and heard as a victim of harm. She had been unintentionally told to believe the myth: the harm I experienced was my fault. 

Religiosity, or strong religious belief, is often heavily tied to purity culture across most religions, denominations, and congregations. And while religion itself is never a bad thing, some of the beliefs that mainstream religious culture regularly edifies may subliminally affect how people view sexual violence. It is often taught to the adolescent and budding pubescent youth affiliated with religious organizations that sex before marriage is a sin. That is not always a harmful belief, but what is frequently accepted in religious communities about what is required for abstaining from sex may be.

Research shows that religiosity is generally associated with three things that affect how people experience and view sexual and relationship violence: purity culture, authoritarianism, and patriarchal norms. I will primarily focus on purity culture in this narrative, but all these aspects of religiosity ultimately lead to higher rape myth acceptance, or false beliefs about sexual violence and harm, across religious populations (Barnett et. al., 2018, Ensz & Jankowski, 2020). As someone who has identified as religious across my lifespan, rape myths tied to my cultural religious beliefs are something that I have had to personally unlearn, especially as it applies to purity culture. 

So, what do I mean when I say purity culture? Purity culture is broadly the belief that abstinence from sexual interaction before marriage keeps people holy while in the service of a holy God. That alone is not a harmful belief, but when it is applied,  it becomes everyone in the community’s job to ensure the sexual purity of themselves AND the others around them. This often includes encouraging physical modesty for women and girls, and discouraging dating culture and the teaching of safe sex practices. 

Purity culture primarily places the burden of keeping others sexually pure on oneself, rather than emphasizing personal responsibility to not cause sexual harm to others. This reality of purity culture creates several harmful rape myths. 

The first of these myths is:  “I am to blame when sexual harm befalls me,” and/or  “I am not to blame when I harm someone else.” While the majority of people will agree that the victim is never to blame in instances of forcible rape, many who subscribe to purity culture risk removing nuance when it comes to instances of unwanted sex or coercion. Teaching people, especially from a young age, that it is their job to keep others away from lust, unintentionally conditions those same people to believe that it is their fault when they face sexual harm, especially when that harm comes in forms that they are taught by purity culture to be ashamed of. If someone has been taught that their body is a source of temptation that they must protect others from, then any sexual boundary violation can feel like a result of their own moral failing rather than an act of harm committed against them. As a result of this belief, those who have faced harm,  like my friend, may internalize shame or self-loathing instead of recognizing that they’ve experienced an injustice (Navarro & Tewksbury, 2017).  

Purity culture may also take away feelings of personal responsibility for those who are causing harm, as it can lead people to hold several implied beliefs. One of these beliefs is that, “I am not as responsible for committing harm against another person because it was equally their job to keep me pure.” People who subscribe to purity culture may have a more flippant attitude towards the nuance of others’ experiences with harm, resulting in a lack of empathy. Purity culture may also cause those same people to minimize or excuse their actions against others due to the belief that committing sexual harm is primarily a lapse in personal holiness rather than a violation of another person’s bodily autonomy. What purity culture teaches is that abstaining from sex protects you from sin. What it does not teach is that you have a personal responsibility to not cause harm to your peers because they are humans with bodily rights. This framework for thinking causes sexual harm to become a matter of individual impurity rather than issues associated with coercion, power, and consent, which may lead to victim blaming and the disregard for others’ sexual boundaries, especially in long-term committed relationships like marriage (Barnett et. al., 2018, Ensz & Jankowski, 2020).    

Research consistently shows that religiosity associated with purity culture is linked to higher acceptance of rape myths and a more limited understanding of sexual harm (Navarro & Tewksbury, 2017). Recognizing that this connection exists, especially on a campus within a state with a highly religious culture, is a first step towards change. Religious communities and individuals who are religious, like myself, should become more aware of how well-intentioned teachings can perpetuate shame, victim-blaming, and misunderstanding about sexual violence. We should also use that awareness to frame newer and healthier beliefs about sexual harm. Shifting our culture from belief in purity, to one where preventing sexual violence is rooted in respecting others’ boundaries keeps us from policing bodies, clothing, and desires, and allows us to create a community where people are believed and supported (Vanderwoerd, 2017)! 

References

Navarro, J. C., & Tewksbury, R. (2017). Mythbusters: Examining rape myth acceptance among U.S. Division I university students. Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice, 54(4), 343-356. https://doi.org/10.1080/19496591.2017.1289094

Barnett, M. D., Sligar, K. B., & Wang, C. D. C. (2018). Religious affiliation, religiosity, gender, and rape myth acceptance: Feminist theory and rape culture. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 33(8), 1219-1235. https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260516665110

Ensz, S., & Jankowski, P. J. (2020). Religiousness and rape myth acceptance: Risk and protective effects. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 35(7-8), 1671-1693. https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260517698281

Vanderwoerd, J. R. (2017). Sexual violence on religious campuses. Canadian Journal of Higher Education

[See our Instagram page (@uofucvp) to view this information in a different format and to learn more.]