Reject Unfulfilling Sexual Dogmas Beyond Purity Culture
Liberals and conservatives disagree about many things, but perhaps no topic is more contentious than sex. That’s why we were pleased to find an island of common ground in this ocean of disagreement: both sides adamantly reject “purity culture.” Though not everyone agrees on exactly what this term means, the basic idea refers to a strand of thinking in Evangelical Christianity which holds that sexual sin is uniquely degrading and defining, that one can never become truly clean or whole after sexual transgression, and that women are sources of temptation who are responsible for managing men’s sexual desire.
After the recent horrific mass shooting in Atlanta, writers left, right, and center denounced purity culture, and rightly so. The idea that women are responsible for managing men’s sexual desire places unfair and impossible burdens on women and undermines men’s accountability and integrity. Christians also have good reason to reject the idea that sexual transgression is uniquely defiling – this contradicts the central redemptive message of Christianity, namely that through Christ there is hope and opportunity for fundamental change.
But, unfortunately, this common rejection of purity culture fails to point us towards sexual integrity and fulfillment. The dominant secular alternatives to sex advance a different set of false beliefs, thereby substituting one extreme for another. The main themes in popular culture are pleasure and consent, making other people (and more to the point, a particular beloved person) strangely expendable to sexual satisfaction. Far from the inhibitions of purity culture, mainstream approaches to sex open the door wide to a meaningless, obsessive focus on sex – one that is disconnected from anything beyond pleasure and self-fulfillment.
Indeed, this alternative approach might be called “disconnected sex,” for it conceptualizes sex as fundamentally disconnected from love, commitment, friendship, enduring responsibility, marriage, children, true self-disclosure, relationality, and vulnerability. Pornography is perhaps the ultimate example here – impersonal, detached, insatiable, self-centered, and risk-free (though perhaps it would be more accurate to say “allegedly risk-free,” for pornography poses the great risk that we stop seeing sex as a way of connecting with another real, embodied person). The consent of other people must be secured in this view, but making sure they have consented to the sexual act is the end of one’s obligation toward a sexual partner, which means they can be used and discarded without compunction. It is a vision of sex which excises the fundamentally unitive aspiration of sex, leaving us alone even when we are together.
This alternative has become so deeply entrenched in our culture that it is taken as self-evident by many who subscribe to it. A New York Times article on the Atlanta shootings quotes one psychologist as saying that an approach to sex which emphasizes abstinence outside of marriage doesn’t “take into account that humans are creatures with a drive for sex.” But despite its familiarity, a condescending comment like this fails to address the central issues. The Times would never accept a response like this from someone accused of violating sexual norms its editors believed to be true (e.g., the importance of consent). Pointing out that humans have “a drive for sex” tells us nothing about which sexual actions are moral or what true sexual fulfillment looks like.
Paradoxically, purity culture and disconnected sex seem to be two sides of a coin that fundamentally misapprehend how sex fits into human life. Many individuals have either the extreme of strong sexual inhibitions or an obsessive sexual passion divorced from meaningful relationships or life goals. Some people, including the recent perpetrator in the Atlanta mass shooting, seem to fluctuate back and forth between both extremes.
A better approach begins with the recognition that sex is fundamentally interpersonal. Despite a good deal of propaganda to the contrary, sexual desire is not primarily a desire for a certain kind of intense sensation, localized in the genital area. Rather, it is a desire for another embodied person, a person with a unique history, personality, and name. Sex is about interpersonal connection, and the connection it suggests is more than physical connection. It includes emotional, intellectual, and spiritual connection – indeed, a comprehensive sharing of lives.
In addition to philosophical reflection, empirical research gives us reasons to doubt the extremes of purity culture and disconnected sex. This research suggests that humans across cultures have the same three basic needs of developing competence, having meaningful relationships, and exercising autonomous choices. Self-determination theory emphasizes how values that are imposed through pressure, guilt, and shame (like those in purity cultures) are likely to lead to difficulties with regulating behavior.
At the same time, a single-minded focus on autonomy (or consent) in sexual decisions will not result in individual or relational flourishing. As noted above, we not only need autonomy, but also competence and connection. Evidence for this idea comes from the concept of “harmonious passion,” an area of research which investigates people who have a strong passion for music, athletics, or work. Researchers have found that unless passions are made harmonious with other aspects of life, the passion will not lead to flourishing and may even undermine the person’s well-being or happiness.
An over-inhibited approach to sexuality can result in obsessive binges that then create more guilt and shame and higher levels of inhibition leading to the next binge. In contrast, those who work at developing harmonious sexual passion in their marriages find ways to consistently express their sexual passion so that it is integrated into the rest of their life, building relationship connection and individual feelings of sexual competence.
Daniel Frost and Dean Busby teach in the School of Family Life at BYU. Their views are their own.
