I came across Carter Sherman’s recent article “These gen Zers preach ‘chastity before marriage’ at the Jersey shore. What are they so afraid of?” in The Guardian profiling members of Generation Life, a Catholic group advocating for chastity at the Jersey Shore. The headline immediately caught my attention—but so did the ways it misunderstood key concepts. I think this points in some key ways to how our culture approaches relationships, sex, and the human vocation to love.
The headline misuses “chastity” as if it simply means abstinence. But chastity is a virtue, not just avoidance—it’s a lifelong integration of love and truth according to one’s state in life. These Gen Zers aren’t afraid—they’re embracing dignity, identity, and countercultural joy rooted in spiritual clarity.
� Let’s clarify a few key terms:
- Chastity: A virtue that governs sexual behavior according to one’s state in life. Something we should all strive for.
- Abstinence: The deliberate choice to refrain from indulgence, often temporary or situational. Singles and even married couples may practice this with purpose.
- Celibacy: A typically lifelong commitment to remain unmarried and sexually abstinent, often embraced for religious reasons.
As I read the article, it became clear that the students from Generation Life had a remarkably mature and nuanced grasp of chastity—one deeply rooted in theological virtue and relational integrity. Unfortunately, Carter Sherman’s piece often conflated terms and subtly misrepresented the concept. Even when she acknowledged distinctions, her framing leaned heavily on the assumption that chastity is about sexual context, missing the deeper truth: chastity simply isn’t about limiting sex within the right certifications or sacraments (i.e. Marriage) but about presence, reverence, and intentional love.
To her credit, Sherman did seem open-hearted, and I appreciated her effort to connect with the group. Her reflection on love as “trying to no longer keep score” was honest, but also telling. It’s a start—but it frames love as transactional, even if benevolently so. Her definition implies avoiding harm—rather than living out the beautiful, creative actions that true love calls forth. Love isn’t about ceasing damage—it’s about choosing sacrifice, tenderness, and fidelity
It’s not an uncommon view. Consider the following excerpt from the Article:
Their activists are growing up in an age when, despite the sex recession, a record 77% of 18- to 34-year-old Americans believe that sex before marriage is “not wrong at all” – and when the average age of marriage is, at nearly 30, higher than ever.
We live in a culture starving for love. Our hearts and lives were made for it, yet many today experience love as something sorely lacking. Too often, it’s approached as fundamentally transactional—a currency exchanged between people, an effort to balance the scales of give and receive. Within this framework, love becomes a posture of increasingly generous exchange, but it still hinges on reciprocity.
Yet the path to growing in love isn’t found in balancing interactions—it’s found in participating in the eternal outpouring of Love given by God. The love we were made for has its origin in God’s gift, and its destination is unity with God through that very act of love. We love God most fully when we’re shaped into the image of divine love, uniquely embodied in our lives and expressed toward the particular people God sends us to.
I’m truly encouraged by the witness of this group—their work offers a critical lens into how love and dignity can be reclaimed in a culture often confused about both. So many people ache for connection and unknowingly pursue it through sexual encounters that promise intimacy but leave deeper wounds. A chaste heart resists that misuse—it calls us back to reverence, seeing others not as means to gratification but as persons worthy of love rightly ordered.
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