Catholic Sex Ed: “all a guy really wants from you is sex”

I recently received the following email:

Dear Libby Anne,

Hi I’m Kim, a student at a all-girls Catholic school (though I am from an Evangelical family), and recently we have had a very popular Catholic chastity/purity speaker come speak at our school by the name of Jason Evert. When I was younger, my older sister rejected a guy after reading Harris’ book I Kissed Dating Goodbye, and I secretly read it and realized how wrong the purity culture of Evangelicals, even at that age. But until recently, I hadn’t seen the problem with the Catholic purity movement.

Basically during this seminar, Evert said he wasn’t going to try to scare us, but convince us that “real love” is better. However in the end he left me with the overwhelming feeling that all a guy really wants from you is sex. If a guy says he loves you he just wants sex, and basically the only way tell if a guy loves you is if he wants until marriage. That’s it. He says lots of other stuff like you become completely attached to everyone you have sex with. Also he states that the only way to get respect out of a guys is to dress modesty.

I know you’ve talked a lot about the purity culture with evangelicals, but not with Catholics (as far as I know), and I think it’s important. Its very similar to evangelical purity culture, but yet different enough to make it seem all good and “perfect”

Much Thanks,

Kim

There is a lot of overlap between evangelical and Catholic ideas about sex and marriage. Catholics, of course, tend to use the word “chastity” while evangelicals tend to use the term “purity.” For a brief period in college and early graduate school, I became Catholic. I went through the official conversion process, and I found many Catholic teachings much more relatable and compassionate than their evangelical counterparts. And while some absolutely are this—see Catholic social teaching, for instance—others present the same basic concepts wrapped in slightly more appealing packaging.

This is not to diss any Catholics in my readership. I understand the reasons people stay and work to reform their tradition from within. I no longer identify as Catholic because I gradually stopped believing in God, though I have since come to have serious problems with a number of the church’s positions, including its fight against lengthening the statute of limitations for sexual abuse victims and its position on birth control. Before we get off track, though, let’s return to the issues Kim raised—the problems with Catholic teachings about chastity a la those she heard at her Catholic high school.

Let’s start with Kim’s description. She states:

. . . he left me with the overwhelming feeling that all a guy really wants from you is sex. If a guy says he loves you he just wants sex, and basically the only way tell if a guy loves you is if he wants until marriage. That’s it. He says lots of other stuff like you become completely attached to everyone you have sex with. Also he states that the only way to get respect out of a guys is to dress modesty.

Let’s go down these point by point.

First, I remember being told that guys “only want one thing” before I knew what that one thing was. I just knew it was bad, from the way it was talked about, and that this made me extremely uncomfortable around boys my own age. More than uncomfortable—I was afraid of guys my own age. Needless to say, this was not a good thing. It made me see guys as a dangerous other rather than as people like me, individuals just as likely to be kind and caring, or selfish and bullying, as anyone else.

But let’s get down to the actual argument here. The real issue is whether a guy is willing to respect a woman’s boundaries, not whether he wants to wait until marriage to have sex. (And for the record, this should go both ways.) In other words, if you’re dating a guy and you’re not ready to take any clothes off yet, you’d prefer to make out while still clothed, and he badgers you and badgers you and whines and tries to get you to take your clothes off, that should be a very definite red flag. But if you’re into it and he’s into it and you both want to go all the way? That’s not a red flag.

I would be remiss if I didn’t address the most unfortunate side effect of this teaching, though—I have watched couples rush into marriage because they want to have sex and believe they have to wait until marriage. This is only compounded by further problems. For example, the claim that if you truly love each other you will wait until marriage to have sex can lead couples to mistake a desire to wait for love. And similarly, this focus on sex can detract from a focus on actual compatibility. Altogether, you have a recipe for disaster.

New let’s move on to the next point—re. becoming completely attached to everyone you have sex with, there are lots of things we do that release oxytocin. It is by no means limited to sex. And you know what? I’ve seen this idea that you have got to stay with the first person you have sex with make women stay with boyfriends who raped them, because they figured since they’d had sex with them, they couldn’t exactly leave. This is what happens when we tell people they’ve got to stay with the first person they have sex with or else they’ve messed up their lives. This is what happens when we elevate sex this high in importance. You know what? Lots of people date (and have sex with) multiple guys before finding someone they feel compatible with and marrying them, and they do just fine. I promise.

Third, modesty. It’s true that there are guys who only “respect” women who are dressed “modestly.” And do you know why? Because that’s what they were taught to do by speakers and religious leaders like this guy. In other words, it’s true that sexist guys only respect women who are dressed in a certain way. But you know what? This is only an issue for women who want to date (or marry) sexist men. Actually, I take that back. It’s an issue for everyone because it’s freaking dangerous to teach young men to de facto devalue and disrespect women who don’t dress this way or that. Sexist men don’t simply leave “immodest” women alone, they too often assume they’re there for the taking and the using. And that’s wrong, and disgusting, and, frankly, dangerous.

I’d like to finish by inviting anyone interested to share their own experiences with Catholic sex education. Tomorrow I will look in more depth at the particular speaker Kim heard, and at his ministry. I’m interested in drawing some comparisons between Catholic and evangelical sex education, because the above points raised by Kim are all things I’ve experienced in evangelical purity teachings as well. For the moment though, I’m interested in hearing my readers’ experiences with Catholic sex education and comparisons between it and evangelical versions. Do share!