{"id":1407,"date":"2013-05-29T12:03:00","date_gmt":"2013-05-29T12:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2013\/05\/why-some-evangelicals-are-trying-to-stop-obsessing-over-pre-marital-sex.html"},"modified":"2013-05-29T12:03:00","modified_gmt":"2013-05-29T12:03:00","slug":"why-some-evangelicals-are-trying-to-stop-obsessing-over-pre-marital-sex","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2013\/05\/why-some-evangelicals-are-trying-to-stop-obsessing-over-pre-marital-sex.html","title":{"rendered":"Why Some Evangelicals Are Trying to Stop Obsessing Over Pre-Marital Sex"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
In a recent summit on human trafficking at Johns Hopkins University, kidnapping survivor Elizabeth Smart made some\u00a0surprising remarks<\/a>\u00a0about why victims of rape may not try to escape their captors. Her conclusion? They, like she, may have been raised in a culture that says a woman\u2019s worth in rooted in her sexual purity. Recounting an anecdote from a childhood teacher who compared having sex to being chewed like a piece of gum, Smart, a Mormon, tells her audience that she \u201cfelt crushed\u201d after being raped: \u201cWho could want me now? I felt so dirty and so filthy. I understand, so easily, all too well, why someone wouldn\u2019t run.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n

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Smart might be the most famous figure to speak out against her conservative religious culture\u2019s sexual ethos, but she\u2019s not alone. Increasingly in recent weeks, prominent evangelical writers and bloggers have also decried the emphasis placed on sexual purity in conservative Christianity. While expos\u00e9s of evangelical purity culture are hardly new (see, for one, Andy Kopsa\u2019s\u00a0recent article<\/a>\u00a0in\u00a0The Atlantic<\/i>), what\u00a0is<\/i>\u00a0noteworthy is that these criticisms are beginning to emerge from within conservative religious circles themselves.<\/span><\/div>\n

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The central thrust of these evangelical critiques is a rejection of the \u201cdamaged goods\u201d metaphor. On her high-profile\u00a0website<\/a>,\u00a0New York Times<\/i>\u00a0bestselling author\u00a0Rachel Held Evans<\/a>\u00a0calls out the \u201chorrific object lessons,\u201d like the one described by Smart, which aim to convince young people that \u201cpremarital sex ruins a person for good.\u201d Sarah Bessey, author of the forthcoming book\u00a0Jesus Feminist<\/i>,\u00a0shares her own story<\/a>\u00a0of feeling condemned by the \u201ctrue love waits\u201d rhetoric of her church, which conveyed the message that she, as a non-virgin, was now \u201cdisqualified from true love.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n

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Read the rest here<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a recent summit on human trafficking at Johns Hopkins University, kidnapping survivor Elizabeth Smart made some\u00a0surprising remarks\u00a0about why victims of rape may not try to escape their captors. Her conclusion? They, like she, may have been raised in a culture that says a woman\u2019s worth in rooted in her sexual purity. Recounting an anecdote […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2251,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nWhy Some Evangelicals Are Trying to Stop Obsessing Over Pre-Marital Sex<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In a recent summit on human trafficking at Johns Hopkins University, kidnapping survivor Elizabeth Smart made some surprising remarks about why\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2013\/05\/why-some-evangelicals-are-trying-to-stop-obsessing-over-pre-marital-sex.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why Some Evangelicals Are Trying to Stop Obsessing Over Pre-Marital Sex\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In a recent summit on human trafficking at Johns Hopkins University, kidnapping survivor Elizabeth Smart made some surprising remarks about why\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2013\/05\/why-some-evangelicals-are-trying-to-stop-obsessing-over-pre-marital-sex.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Rhetoric Race and Religion\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-05-29T12:03:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Andre E. 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