{"id":8908,"date":"2012-09-22T10:50:10","date_gmt":"2012-09-22T14:50:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/?p=8908"},"modified":"2012-10-05T16:46:26","modified_gmt":"2012-10-05T20:46:26","slug":"the-purity-culture-and-sex-is-beautiful","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2012\/09\/the-purity-culture-and-sex-is-beautiful.html","title":{"rendered":"The Purity Culture and “Sex Is Beautiful”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Did you know that Michael Pearl wrote a book called \u201cHoly Sex\u201d? Yes, he wrote a book about how awesome sex is. It\u2019s not just Mark Driscoll. There are lots of evangelicals and fundamentalists who have hopped on the sex bandwagon. They see themselves as \u201csex positive\u201d and believe that it is depraved modern culture that is actually \u201csex negative.\u201d And it\u2019s true that I was taught to view sex as a beautiful, sacred thing (within marriage) and that I was taught that once married I would find sex so pleasurable and amazing that it would be well worth the wait.<\/p>\n

But. These rosy ideas have a dark underbelly. This<\/em> is why I write about the problems of the purity culture.<\/p>\n

Premarital Sex Makes You Impure<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you\u2019re taught that premarital sex is something that is unholy and sinful, and if you spend years believing that if you have sex right then you\u2019ll suddenly become \u201cimpure,\u201d well, switching gears when you hit marriage can be wrenching. After years of saying \u201cno, no, no\u201d switching to saying \u201cyes, yes, yes\u201d isn\u2019t as simple as one might think<\/a>. It\u2019s almost like the message is \u201csex is dirty until you\u2019re married, and then it\u2019s beautiful.\u201d The thing is, there\u2019s no physical difference between premarital sex and marital sex, which makes this dichotomy\u2026confusing. You\u2019re told \u201csex makes you impure\u201d and then suddenly, overnight, it changes to \u201csex is<\/em> pure.\u201d After years of pushing away every sexual thought as polluting, you\u2019re suddenly supposed to see sex as something that is holy. That didn\u2019t work for me.<\/p>\n

The Amazingly Awesome Vanilla Sex<\/strong><\/p>\n

I was given the impression that when I got married sex would automatically be AWESOME. Without, you know, even talking about things like sexual preferences beforehand. I was woefully uneducated about sex (largely because, you know, all that mattered as a single was abstinence, so that\u2019s all I needed to know about). I totally didn\u2019t get why people said you should have sex before marriage to make sure you\u2019re sexually compatible because, well, I thought sex was just\u2026sex. I didn\u2019t realize there were different preferences or different types of sex. I didn\u2019t know there were different sex positions. I didn\u2019t even know it was something that took practice! This does not make for a healthy sex life!<\/a> <\/em><\/p>\n

Now, there are more and more evangelicals and fundamentalists out there preaching about how to have a healthy sex life (within marriage), and they do talk about things like oral sex and the ins and outs and how tos of pleasure. But this stuff isn\u2019t for singles! Presumably it\u2019s for the disillusioned married couples who are wondering about that magically awesome sex they were expecting that didn\u2019t suddenly appear on the wedding night.<\/p>\n

Sex as Profoundly Gendered<\/strong><\/p>\n

Next, evangelicals and fundamentalists talk about sex in an unbalanced and gendered way. Sure, I was told that sex would be pleasurable and amazing for me, but I also got the message that men *need* sex while women don\u2019t. That men can\u2019t live without sex but women can. That guys have a hard time controlling themselves and that we, as their \u201csisters in Christ,\u201d need to help them out by dressing modestly (nothing about men dressing modestly because, again, there is next to no acknowledgement of the female sex drive). That if a husband goes for too long without having sex, he\u2019ll be tempted to cheat, and that it\u2019s the wife\u2019s duty to make sure that doesn\u2019t happen<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And I want to be clear that it\u2019s not just Debi Pearl who says things like this. Here\u2019s an excerpt from a sermon<\/a> by Mark Driscoll in which he recounted a conversation with a female parishioner, a conversation that eventually resulted in this parishioner\u2019s husband joining Driscoll\u2019s church:<\/p>\n

She [the wife] says, \u201cI\u2019ve never performed oral sex on my husband. I\u2019ve refused to.\u201d I said, \u201cYou need to go home and tell your husband that you\u2019ve met Jesus and you\u2019ve been studying the Bible, and that you\u2019re convicted of a terrible sin in your life. And then you need to drop his trousers, and you need to serve your husband. And when he asks why, say, \u2018Because I\u2019m a repentant woman. God has changed my heart and I\u2019m supposed to be a biblical wife.\u2019\u201d She says, \u201cReally?\u201d I said, \u201cYeah. First Peter 3 says if your husband is an unbeliever to serve him with deeds of kindness.\u201d [Laughter from audience] How many men would agree, that is a deed of kindness. He doesn\u2019t want tracts. Those won\u2019t do anything. What we\u2019re talking about here could really help.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sex is spoken of as a way a wife can serve her husband again and again in evangelical and fundamentalist marriage manuals and advice books. This means that no matter how often these manuals emphasize that sex will be wonderful and awesome for women too, it\u2019s always going to be slightly more about the man than about the woman.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s All about Sex<\/strong><\/p>\n

When I was growing up, so much emphasis was placed on the idea that being a virgin on your wedding night will ensure that you have a perfect marriage that, well, that\u2019s basically the only thing I was taught about how to have a good relationship<\/a>. (Well, that and \u201cpractice wifely submission.\u201d) For people who claim to be appalled with modern culture\u2019s \u201cobsession with sex,\u201d evangelicals and fundamentalists do a very good job of reducing everything to sex on their own. How do you have a good dating or courting relationship? Don\u2019t have sex. (Also, have the guy ask the girl\u2019s father\u2019s permission to date her.) How do you have a good marriage relationship? Have regular sex. (Also, the wife should submit to her husband\u2019s leadership.)<\/p>\n

I never heard the terms \u201chealthy relationship\u201d or \u201cunhealthy relationship.\u201d I was not taught anything about the importance of communication. Or cooperation. Or compromise. The emphasis when looking at a guy-girl relationship is not \u201cis this a healthy relationship\u201d or \u201care they practicing good communication skills.\u201d No. It\u2019s \u201care they having sex? no? are they french kissing? because that\u2019s dangerous territory to enter.\u201d It\u2019s all about staying pure, and if you do that, you\u2019re set. It\u2019s easy to become so fixated on purity, on whether or not you\u2019re having sex, that things like how to have a healthy relationship takes second place or becomes pushed under the carpet entirely!<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n

This list is not meant to be exhaustive, but it\u2019s easy to see that while many evangelicals and fundamentalists see themselves as \u201csex positive\u201d and laugh in the face of claims to the contrary, their attitude and approach toward sex is actually highly problematic and not at all healthy. Of course, evangelicals or fundamentalists would likely respond to this by saying that \u201cthe mainstream view of sex, with young women coerced into sex by their boyfriends and young teens with low self esteem sleeping around to find love is highly problematic and not at all healthy \u2013 it\u2019s God\u2019s<\/em> way that is<\/em> healthy.\u201d The thing is, abusive sexual relationships, well perhaps common, are not the alternative people like me want offer to evangelical and fundamentalist sexuality.<\/p>\n

The alternative is to teach young people to respect themselves and their bodies, to think about their actions and weigh the potential consequences of their actions, to know how to carry on a healthy relationship and how to leave an unhealthy one, and how to make their own decisions. The alternative is to teach young people to find their value not in whether or not they\u2019ve had sex but rather in themselves and their own beliefs, values, and dreams, and to value others in the same way. The alternative is to see sex as a normal part of life and to educate young people about it, and how to make sexual choices responsibly and ethically. That<\/em> is the alternative.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Did you know that Michael Pearl wrote a book called “Holy Sex”? Lots of evangelicals and fundamentalists who have hopped on the sex bandwagon. They see themselves as “sex positive” and believe that it is depraved modern culture that is actually “sex negative.” And it’s true that I was taught to view sex as a beautiful, sacred thing (within marriage) and that I was taught that once married I would find sex so pleasurable and amazing that it would be well worth the wait. But. These rosy ideas have a dark underbelly. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":845,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,12],"tags":[106,105,244],"class_list":["post-8908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-evangelicalism-fundamentalism","category-purity","tag-marriage-2","tag-sex-2","tag-women"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Purity Culture and "Sex Is Beautiful"<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Did you know that Michael Pearl wrote a book called "Holy Sex"? Lots of evangelicals and fundamentalists who have hopped on the sex bandwagon. They see themselves as "sex positive" and believe that it is depraved modern culture that is actually "sex negative." 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