The Problem with the Purity Culture

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A while back, I wrote an article about my friend Joel.

He longed for affection in his troubled marriage, but his wife was uninterested. A female coworker propositioned him; if Joel wasn’t getting what he needed at home, she would give it to him. He came to me, tormented. He didn’t want to cheat on his wife, but the temptation was strong.

Fast forward a year…

Joel had the affair.

For weeks afterward, he wrestled with how he would tell his wife. But a mutual acquaintance beat him to the punch and told her about the affair through a series of texts. She was devastated and angry. Joel was ashamed and miserable. Today, their marriage of two decades lies in ruins.

Joel and his wife have chosen to attend counseling together to see if there is a way out of the wreckage.

Her family is furious and has basically written him off. Joel moved out of the bedroom and now sleeps at nights on the floor of his study. Their two young children don’t know exactly what happened, but they obviously know something is wrong at home.

In an effort to move forward, Joel severed all ties with his mistress. But he confesses that he still misses her sometimes. He knows what he did was wrong, but he misses having physical affection and someone to talk to on a deep level. Joel loves his wife, but has serious doubts that their marriage will survive the infidelity.

Joel and his wife are both Christians who grew up in the “purity culture” of the 1990’s.

That’s when a lot of Christians were exchanging purity rings and reading books like Joshua Harris’s I Kissed Dating Goodbye. Harris recently renounced some of the views he espoused in his popular book as immature and damaging.

As Christians, we are called to remain sexually chaste. But, unintentionally, the purity culture seemed to put a lot of unhealthy expectations on a whole generation of dating Christians. One young woman was so influenced by the culture that she equated her very identity with being a virgin. When her wedding night arrived, she was unable to have sex because she felt like she was betraying who she was supposed to be: a pure virgin. Joel revealed to me that he and his wife had a similar experience on their honeymoon. Years of discomfort with sexual intimacy followed.

I am not necessarily attacking purity culture or blaming it for the demise of my friend’s marriage. The instinct behind it—to honor God and one another—is good and right. But everyone has a responsibility to grow up, mature, and develop healthy views of sexuality. And everyone is responsible for their own decisions as adults. Joel’s sad situation makes me realize the profound importance of forming a healthy sexual ethic.

Here’s where the Catholic Church enjoys a great advantage.

Catholic teaching holds a healthy, holistic view of sexuality that takes into account the whole person, not just the urge to have an orgasm.

In particular, John Paul II’s teachings on the theology of the body introduced modern audiences to the Church’s vision of human sexuality. George Weigel said that John Paul II’s teaching is a “theological time bomb set to go off with dramatic consequences sometime in the third millennium of the Church…It has barely begun to shape the way the Church understands herself and thinks about herself.” 

Some would laugh at the idea that Catholicism promotes a healthy view of sex. Many people are too familiar with stereotypes of guilt-obsessed penitents, repressed nuns, and abusive priests. But I would argue that’s because most people have not sufficiently studied and explored what the Catholic view of sex really is

Sex is a good thing. When understood and practiced properly, it fosters deep union and love between spouses, respects both parties, provides guilt-free pleasure, and leads to life. I was never taught this. I had to find it out on my own, as an adult, by delving into the writings of John Paul II and other Catholic thinkers. 

This teaching is a game-changer.

In a confused culture that obsesses about purity on one end of the spectrum and sexual abandon on the other, the Catholic sexual ethic may be the Church’s best kept secret.

The more I learn about it, the more I’m grateful for it.

As we prepare for marriage, me and my fiancee are starting to study these teachings more in depth, including the practice of natural family planning. Neither of us grew up with these teachings. We’re doing our best to form ourselves now so we can have a healthy marriage. Better late than never. I’ve made my own mistakes in this area. I’m thankful for God’s forgiveness and healing, and I hope and pray to live a healthier, happier kind of love in the future.

Countless people have been damaged by unhealthy sexual ideas and practices. The result is confusion, frustration, heartache, and shattered marriages and families. My friend Joel realizes this. He is genuinely repentant and knows there’s a long, hard road ahead. I pray for him and his family, and I hope they make it. We’re all just human, struggling to do our best.

Thankfully, God forgives and loves us and provides us a better way filled with hope, if we will seek and accept it.

He says to me and Joel and every other broken person the same thing he said to the woman caught in adultery in John 8:11: “Neither do I condemn you. Go, [and] from now on do not sin any more.”

So let’s go forward, forgiven, knowing God is for us and not against us. Let’s pray for one another in our struggles. And as 1 Peter 4:8 says: “Above all, let your love for one another be intense, because love covers a multitude of sins.”

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