Faith vs. Feminism, or Faith AND Feminism?, Part 6: What's Sex Got To Do With It?

My body is mine, and mine alone. 

I can say no, or I can say yes. 

I deserve to experience pleasure.

I am beautiful. 

For a girl (me) who thought it was her duty to give her body to her spouse, no matter how she felt, this new mantra is huge. 

I used to think men’s sexual appetites were so massive that if wives didn’t satisfy them, husbands would have to find something or someone else to satiate their hunger.

This meant that if a husband was addicted to pornography, it was his wife’s fault.

If a man had an affair, it was his wife’s fault.

And if a husband was feeling unloved or sad, it was his wife’s duty to “comfort” him. 

I am sure you can see how patriarchal and stereotypical this way of thinking is.

Not only does this leave women feeling trapped and used, it also shortchanges men: they could have wives who actually enjoy sex instead of wives who are having sex out of duty. 

I grew up when the Evangelical Purity Movement was in full swing. 

Dr. Tina Schermer Sellers, a sex therapist, has spent many years exploring the harmful effects of the purity movement.

She explains that, because the purity movement included elements of shame, silence and fear, people who have been exposed to the movement display the same symptoms as victims of sexual trauma:

“This combination of Fear, Shame, and Silence wrapped in a religious context of 'This is of God' is what produces religious sexual shame that can manifest as symptoms of childhood sexual abuse in adults.

The Purity Movement delivered this in spades … and we have a generation of young adults now trying to heal from levels of shame, depression, anxiety and sexual dysfunction unlike we have seen in recent history.”

The purity movement appears to have begun as a reaction to the sexual revolution of the 60’s, which was a result of the feminist movement. 

As feminists were asserting women's equality in the work place and in politics, they also began advocating for women's sexual equality.

According to a PBS article entitled "The Pill and the Sexual Revolution", “At the core of the sexual revolution was the concept -- radical at the time -- that women, just like men, enjoyed sex and had sexual needs.”

Feminists in the 60’s advocated especially for the sexual empowerment of unmarried women. They advised women to use birth control and be free.

Whereas, prior to this time, society emphasized the importance of “virginity and marriage”, now society celebrated the “single life and sexual exploration”. (https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/pill-and-sexual-revolution/)

You can imagine how terrifying this was for Christians, who were concerned about sexual promiscuity.

Even before the sexual revolution of the 60’s, Christians placed a great deal of emphasis on women’s sexual purity (aka-be a virgin until marriage, be modest, etc).

How then, should they respond to this increased sexual freedom for women? 

Christians apparently felt they needed to affirm sex as pleasurable while also admonishing young people not to engage in sex outside of marriage.

As a teenager, I remember giggling while listening to the song, “I Don’t Want It” by DC Talk.

It was so scandalous; were they really spelling “S-E-X” in a catchy Christian song?!?

Give the song a listen: https://youtu.be/KEpZd6jqmuQ.

Though I enjoyed the song as a teen, now it makes me feel angry:

• It is sung by a group of guys, but addressed to girls.
• The guys are telling someone called “Girl” they don’t want what she’s offering unless she “takes the vow”. 
• "Girl" is the temptress, the bad guy (ha!), in the song. 

A message I received from this song was that girls can really lead guys astray with sexual tempation.

I also understood that good guys ought to stand strong because “God has set his standard higher Purity is his desire”.

My question now is, "What is God's purity standard?" I'm not convinced it is what DC Talk hinted at in that song...

I distinctly remember, after listening to the song, feeling hyper conscious about what I was wearing around guys. Was I unintentionally begging them to have sex with me?

Couched in the words of this song is the promise that if you wait until you are married to have sex, then sex will be really really good: “And trust that God will give us something better if we wait.”

In other words, delay your passion until you are married; it will be worth it.

As a young teenager secretly fantasizing about sex and boys, I took this message to heart.

After all, who wouldn't want fabulous sex?

While Christian singers in the 1990’s and 2000’s were putting out songs emphasizing the glories of sex after marriage and the pitfalls of sex before marriage, numerous Christian organizations were promoting the same messages in a variety of ways: through promise rings, True Love Waits conventions, father-daughter dances and an increasing emphasis on courtship over dating and delaying kissing until marriage (I Kissed Dating Goodbye).

Once again, I feel lucky my parents never encouraged me to become involved in any of these movements.

In spite of that fact, I absorbed its basic tenets: sex outside of marriage was bad; if I waited for marriage, sex would be wonderful; girls ought to be modest lest they lead guys astray.

I remember hearing that if you were sexually promiscuous before marriage, you would bring all of your former partners into the marriage bed with you. 

Joshua Harris is the author of the book I Kissed Dating Goodbye. He now regrets having written the book, and recently participated in a documentary about its impact as well as that of the purity movement.

The opening scene of the documentary (which was also the opening scene of his book) involves a wedding ceremony in which the groom brings all his former girlfriends with him to the ceremony.

If you want to understand both Harris's book and the purity movement in more depth, I highly recommend watching the documentary here. 

I have heard of some youth groups asking girls to chew a piece of gum and then spit it out. After that, the girls were asked, “Would you give this to someone else to chew?”

The message behind this exercise? Don’t have sex with other people before marriage. If you do, you are damaged goods.

And you don’t want to offer “damaged goods” to the man you marry on your wedding day, do you?

What an incredibly shaming message!

Earlier, I shared a quote by Dr. Tina Schermer Sellers in which she shares how the purity movement used “Fear, Shame and Silence wrapped in a religious context” to encourage young people not to engage in sex before marriage.

Writer Linda Kay Klein tells her story and the stories of other women affected by the purity movement in her book PURE.

In this article by VICE, the author shares some of the stories in Klein's book. The stories are maddening. No woman should ever feel this way!

From these examples, can you see the fear, shame and silence invoked by the purity movement?

It is hard for “good Christian girls” who have been told first to dress modestly and then not to be lustful to suddenly become sexual beings once they are married.

For years, I myself felt “naughty” (shameful) after having especially enjoyable sex. 

This leads to a few honest questions:

• In the end, the sexual revolution of the 60's and the Evangelical Purity Movement both hyper-emphasized sex as the be-all-end-all of relationships. I can't help but wonder, though, whether feminism's emphasis on sexual equality and Christianity's focus on loving others as you love yourself would have actually been compatible bedfellows...? 
• How do we, as feminists of faith, embrace a healthy sexual ethic? 
• How do those of us hurt by the purity movement and patriarchy recover our sexuality?

I can't wait to explore these questions next week! 

Do you have personal experience with the purity movement? If so, be sure to leave a comment and tell me about it.

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