Purity Culture

[alchemistdoctor]

Not the tumblr kind.

This article on Bust hit me hard this morning.

I was this kid! I grew up with crazy parents (whole other story) and in a very conservative evangelical circle. I went to the "passport to purity" conference! It's so bizarre to read about my own experience.

And it has had lasting consequences. In my case, I'm somewhere on the ace spectrum, but guilt, shame, and self-consciousness have pervaded my personal life, let alone my sex life. There's so much you internalise about your body: how to present it, which parts are 'dirty' and which parts are 'pure', how you're somehow responsible for the way others look at it. It's a huge, terrifying nightmare of neuroses that I'm working through, constantly.

I don't think evangelicals are the only ones with fucked-up ideas of sex. Even if you're not in the 'purity' group, there's a lot of pain and damage done by media, photoshopping, gossip: I've had plenty of friends who struggle with their own sets of neuroses about their bodies, without having ever grown up in the church.

But recognising the amount of pain done by this 'purity' culture is so healing for me, and so validating. This article was a lot to process but I'm glad it's there.

Comments

[smallhobbit]

Very interesting article - I've come across the idea of purity rings, but knew little about it.

[alchemistdoctor]

They're different depending on the group. For me it was a 'reminder of my pledge to be pure', but for other groups it gets creepier, I.E "a symbol that you belong under your father's leadership until you can be given to your husband," etc, complete with 'purity balls' in which girls dress in white and are given the ring from their father in an elaborate ceremony.

Eugh. Just typing that has wigged me out, I'm going to go read something smutty to clear my head.

[myghostlights]

I know some people who go to a church that literally divides their members into “children/teens”, “young couples” and “married couples”, with different church services for each group. Being able to go to the “married couple” services seems like the biggest achievement of one’s life, as if no one is an adult or finally in the right place with God otherwise. Then some 23 year olds, fresh out of college, with no real job yet, rush to get married, then rush to have children before they turn 25... it’s just so programmed, as if there’s A formula and only that formula for a life that respects the values of Christianity.
And it’s all so fake. Yeah, the women strongly criticize other women, who go to parties or who have pre-marital sex, but then when they’re alone with their girl friends they dance to the same “heretic” music the others are dancing to... 🙄 Purity? Yeah, sure.

[alchemistdoctor]

I call that the LifeScript™️, and if you diverge from the LifeScript™️ you are Not Listening to God and Off Course and everyone is allowed to judge you because it's obviously out of Love and Concern for your best interests.

It's very fake, very strange, and very hard to deprogram out of yourself.

[vienne1196]

I grew up in this too. And am also on the ace spectrum. I had a crisis senior year of college because I wasn't dating anyone and therefore wouldn't get married right after graduation. "Ring by Spring" was real.

[alchemistdoctor]

I got married after swearing I was never gonna get married for most of my childhood. My sisters, who wanted to get married since they were small, had their own crises due to the "Ring by Spring" mentality. It's affected us all in different ways.

[vienne1196]

I think you'd be interested in what I just posted. :)

[alchemistdoctor]

Just went over and took a look!

[lovetincture]

Ugh, dude I feel this so hard. I was raised in a really conservative, sheltered environment too, with a lot of emphasis on sexual purity. It really, really does fuck a person up.

I'm literally all over the internet publicly talking about sex, writing kink erotica, and talking about the ways that both should be destigmatized. I use my real name because I'm so convinced it's a worthwhile cause... and yet I still sometimes deal with shame and guilt surrounding sex. I have moments where I wonder if I'm doing the right thing.

Even if you break free from that kind of social programming, I think it can be the work of a lifetime to continually remind yourself of the fact that they were (are!) wrong about sexuality.

[alchemistdoctor]

Exactly! It's a constant mental battle. It's so difficult finding a healthy space after having your normal meter so thrown off course. For a while, I was flung into hypersexual mode, where I needed to be sexual in order to feel healthy, and then found out that was screwing me up further because I didn't actually experience sexual attraction, I was just pushing myself into it. It's a nightmare to come to terms with your own sexual identity, orientation, and then figure out how you want to express that, when you've been trained that just thinking about sex is somehow wrong.

It's one of the reasons I hate the old jokes about reading slash-fic and such as 'sinning' -- it's only funny if you weren't grown up actually believing it.

[myghostlights]

I didn’t grow up in such a conservative environment, but I came in contact with it in my late teens, when we moved to a conservative city and soon after my parents got divorced.
My mother didn’t take it well and ended up appropriating the spirit of the city and their Church. I understand that she needed God’s guidance during that difficult time in our lives, but the church she joined ended up increasing her guilt over her failed marriage and supposed lack of family structure. Our relationship suffered as well, since suddenly I lost her as a friend to whom I could talk openly about whatever, without being judged over it. She became the first to point a finger and try to censor me over the little things... such as whether or not I could pick up my boyfriend at his house to go out, or if that was too bold for a respectable young woman... Thankfully I was old enough to know when to call bullshit, but the pressure to fit into her expectations still affects me sometimes.

[alchemistdoctor]

I'm sorry you had that experience, but I'm also so grateful you were old enough to question it. The pressure is real and it's damaging.

[roadmagician]

Ouch. Never went into that program or had a ring but I had to read that horrible book as a kid, and my school was batshit crazy fundamentalist.

Still took me decades to even come out to myself, let alone consider the idea of dating, because I somehow blocked it from my mind. The level of brainwashing is unreal.

[alchemistdoctor]

It really goes deep, especially for queer kids. I feel for you.