How Purity Culture Ruins a Fun Christmas Song

Here’s how I ruin a perfectly fun Christmas song. Or, rather, how purity culture ruins a good song, and I point it out.

In my house, the Christmas music comes on right after Halloween. I’ve lost Whamageddon every year, long before the season even really starts. But that’s not the song that gets me jamming, laughing, and wincing all at the same time. Every year, I forget my beef with this song until the chorus hits. I hear the early-2000s guitar riff, and my head starts bopping. It’s Tenth Avenue North’s funny “Mistletoe (The Christmas Sweater Song).”

“Don’t Be Cynical”

The setup is adorable. The singer is in his Christmas sweater, convinced he “could not look any better.” He’s enjoying his eggnog, waiting for his wife to arrive at the party, feeling like Cousin Eddie with his moose mug. It’s humorously self-conscious, and honestly kind of beautiful. It’s married people still flirting, still excited to see each other, still making a big deal out of a kiss under the mistletoe. I have no complaints about this song up to this point—just respect.

Heck…I’ve hung up mistletoe in two doorways at home, just to make the most of the season.

Then comes the chorus.

He’s “hanging ’round the mistletoe, all night, all night long,” thinking about his wife. Then something switches in his brain—maybe it’s the side-eye he gets from the judgy church crowd. He says, “Don’t be cynical. It’s biblical. We’re married, did you know?”

Okay—maybe I am a little cynical. But not the way he thinks. Because there it is. Lit up along with the Christmas tree are those alarm lights and sirens—the ones that scream, “Danger—purity culture!” Suddenly, the song that made me dance now makes me flinch.

Because here’s the work that this little song is doing: It’s saying that public affection is okay, not because the one kissed under the mistletoe consents or because of mutual delight, but because “it’s biblical.” And what makes this kiss “biblical” is that they’re married. (Because that’s somewhere in Scripture???)

That is classic purity culture.

Purity Culture

In case you (hopefully) missed it, purity culture is a Christian movement that peaked in the 1990s and 2000s. At its height, purity culture tried to enforce sexual abstinence before marriage with pledges, rings, books, rallies, and awkward father-daughter “purity” events. It didn’t just say “wait for sex.” It wrapped your entire spiritual worth (especially if you were a girl) around your virginity—or renewed purity, if you’d already allowed someone to chew you up and spit you out like a piece of gum. And, iIt simultaneously idolized and demonized girls’ reproductive parts, making them responsible not only for their own behavior but also for the desires of others.

Purity culture said that marriage equals pure and blessed sexuality. The equation was also true in the negative: anything before marriage equals dirty and sinful. This interpretation of “biblical” sexuality ignored the actual complexity of bodies, desire, consent, trauma, orientation, and power. In purity culture, sin and righteousness came in black and white.

So…back to the song.

“It’s Biblical—We’re Married”

I have nothing but admiration for this depiction of marital love—more couples should live out their romance this way. They’re married and still head-over-heels in love with each other. They get a sitter. She shows up late. Their eyes meet across the room. And, like a Hallmark Christmas movie—it’s on (Rated G-style)!

But notice how he feels he has to explain himself to the imaginary church folks giving him dirty looks: “Don’t be cynical. It’s biblical. We’re married.” They’re not at a religious function—but purity culture makes it so that you always feel hyper-scrutinized and defensive. Affection becomes a theological argument. The kiss has to be defended, legitimized, and justified. Just so you don’t get the wrong idea.

This is what purity culture does to your imagination. If you’re a girl, every piece of clothing becomes a question of whether it might cause a boy to sin. If you’re a boy, you have to “police your eyes,” lest you have an impure thought. And every physical touch falls somewhere on a moral barometer that tries to determine whether it causes too much pressure. In this atmosphere, everything must be explained.

“It’s Not Wrong—We’re Married.”

Purity culture pretends that its rules end at marriage, but that isn’t really true, either. Instead of, “I love this woman, and I don’t care who knows because love is good,” we hear, “I don’t care who knows because it’s not wrong; we’re married. Therefore, please withhold your judgment and grant your doctrinal permission.” In this Christmas love song, the point isn’t their romance—it’s their compliance.

Think I’m exaggerating? Ask yourself what the song would sound like if the couple weren’t married. Picture the same scenario—two adults, mutually attracted, under the mistletoe. As written, the lyrics tell you that their unmarried kiss would be “wrong.” Church and state have the power to rubber-stamp your relationship and make it blessed. This turns covenant relationship into a moral performance where your grade depends on paperwork.

Purity culture says that the ethics of this situation are entirely based on whether or not the couple is married. If they’re not, then they need to repress their desire until the blessed day. But once the papers are signed, we can ignore the important parts of love because the church has signed off on it. Never mind the shame, secrecy, ignorance about bodies, marital and sexual dysfunction that purity culture creates in marriages—the song implies if you do it “right,” you end up in a Christmas sweater with a moose mug, and everything works out fine.

Biblical Sexuality

When Evangelical culture uses the word “biblical,” I want to quote Inigo Montoya, who said, “You keep using that word—I do not think it means what you think it means.” In my article, “What Does Biblical Marriage REALLY Look Like?” I unpack what a real biblical perspective on sex actually looked like—and it’s nothing like conservative Christianity’s version. “Biblical” sexuality looked like:

• Arranged marriages (no consent)
• Bride prices (human trafficking)
• Prisoner brides (more human trafficking)
• Child brides (pedophilia)
• Virgin brides (purity culture’s obsession)
• Death penalty for adultery (overkill much?)
• Polygamy (the more, the holier—apparently)
• Marrying your in-laws (Ick!)
• The old marry-your-rapist trick (Whaaat???)

The thing is, this Christmas song subtext doesn’t really look like real “biblical” sexuality. It’s sweet, funny, flirty, and genuinely wholesome—except for its assertion that marriage is what makes a kiss okay (which is something that purity culture, not the Bible, invented). This song drinks purity culture’s poisoned Christmas punch that says your amorous expression is only blessed if it follows an arbitrary extra-biblical script about gender and sexuality.

Can’t Un-Hear the Subtext

So, yes, I still tap my foot when the song comes on. I still play air-guitar when I hear the grunge riff and head-bang like the middle-aged man I am. And I try to pull my wife under the mistletoe during the holidays.

But then that one phrase comes up, and I just can’t un-hear the subtext anymore:

• Kissing is good—but only if it’s “not wrong.”
• Desire is good—but only when it’s “biblical.”
• Christmas-sweater sexy magic is good—but only once purity culture says so.

And that, my friends, is how I turn a perfectly fun Christmas sweater song into a rant about evangelical sexual ethics. Merry Christmas, and you’re welcome.