I'm a man, after all, so what I would have to say about it theologically would be asymmetrical. I don't experience this pressure as much as do women. That's because the shame associated with the evangelical purity culture is immense for women, not men. As a man it's not my place to tell that story, or unpack that shame and damage. So let me suggest the powerful "I am Damaged Goods" by Sarah Bessey and "Virginity: New and Improved!" by Elizabeth Esther.
What I can add to this conversation -- and bring to the attention of those who counsel young men and women for "sexual purity" in the Church -- is just how toxic all this talk is. I can point out that we, as a Church, should let go of this very spiritually toxic language. And that's what I want to do here.
Why do I care? Several years ago now -- four, if I remember correctly! -- I participated in a panel discussion at Emory & Henry College on "Sexuality in the Church". At that time, our focus was primarily on homosexuality, but my remarks there were actually more broadly aimed. I wanted to point out that Christians fail to have any adequate theology of sexuality generally, and relationships specifically. We're schizophrenic on the issues. Take, for example, all our emphasis on "pre-martial" sex. As if marriage is only a license for sex. If that's the case, boy, are we missing the boat. Because the NT focuses on so much more than sexuality. (Though it does have quite a bit to say about sexuality. Reading the Song of Songs or even Jesus and Paul on this issue, I can't help but think the Church is missing some golden opportunities. I'm not alone either. Ever read Lauren Winner's Real Sex?) When it comes to sex, we're silent more often than not, because we just don't know what to say.
Purity is another example of this indecisive, schizophrenic theology.
What makes purity so toxic in the Church?
It has to do with the psychology of purity. At root, purity is a food-attribution system, a suite of psychological processes that help us make judgments about whether or not it's safe or healthy to eat something.
One aspect of purity psychology is how we make contamination appraisals. The psychologist Paul Rozin has been a pioneer in naming and describing these appraisals. And one of these appraisals is the judgment of permanence.
To illustrate this Rozin will put, say, a cockroach in a glass of juice and swish it around. He then removes the bug and offers the juice for participants to drink. They, of course, refuse. That's to be expected. But then the interesting part of the experiment begins. Rozin goes on to sterilize the juice in front of the watching participant. He then makes another offer. Participants continue to refuse. This, despite knowing, at a rational level, that the juice has been sanitized. So why refuse? Because at the affective level a judgment of contamination continues to dominate. The juice is judged as unclean. Despite all efforts to purify, sanitize, or rehabilitate.
Rozin's demo illustrates the attribution of permanence, which is a key part of purity psychology. The judgment appears to be "once contaminated, always contaminated". The implication here is that contamination -- a loss of purity -- is a catastrophic judgment creating a state that cannot be rehabilitated. The foodstuff is, as we say, ruined. And if ruined it's only fit for the trash.
As Rozin goes on to point out, what happens when we structure parts of our moral experience with the metaphor of purity we import the psychology of contamination into our moral and spiritual lives. That is, we start to use the attribution of permanence when thinking about moral failure and sin. A loss of purity is understood to be permanent and is unable to be rehabilitated because, well, that's the way purity works.
What's so peculiar about all this to me, is how uneven it is. Most sins don't get the purity metaphor in the Church. Sure, generally understood from a Levitical point-of-view, all sin is a purity issue. But particular sins don't get this language in our churches. Most sins are framed metaphorically -- they're mistake, errors, performance failures. We "stumble" or "fall".
What's important to me is how different those performance failures are from purity ones. Purity failures are catastrophic. Performance failures aren't. You can be rehabilitated from a performance failure; you come to your senses, God picks you up, and off you go to try again. Once you're unclean from a purity failure, though, you're "tainted goods". You're "dirty". Inherent in the logic of most sins is rehabilitation. That rehabilitation doesn't work when it comes to purity sins.
When you violate a purity law, the damage is total.
So, what sins in the Church do we talk about using this purity language? That's right -- just sex! In particular, virginity.
Think about it. I bet the sin most of us will believe we commit is materialism. It's the sin that's killing the Church, in fact. But yet, when was the last time you heard someone talk about "materialism purity"? That's right, you haven't. It just sounds weird. In fact, try tacking "purity" onto any other sin. Fill in the blank: "___ purity". Can you think of any sin -- except "sexual purity" -- that works in the blank? That doesn't sound weird when framed as a purity violation? I can't.
My point is: We treat sexual sins and the loss of virginity very differently from other sins, as a class of sin unto itself. And how do we make that happen? We accomplish this by framing these sins almost exclusively with purity metaphors. And in doing so we recruit a psychological system built upon a food-aversion system, a system driven by disgust, revulsion, and nausea. But instead of directing these feelings toward food we are now directing the feelings of disgust, revulsion and nausea toward human beings. What's more, we teach our children to internalize and direct these feelings toward themselves.
But I think there's an even sharper point to all this.
Based on my experience as a male in the Church, I'd say male sexual sins aren't cast in this purity language. The loss of male virginity still gets the performance failure metaphor. If a boy losses his virginity it's a mistake, a stumbling. Consequently, this is something he can easily rehabilitate. He's not "damaged goods". He can simply resolve to do better going forward. How is this so easy for him? Because his sexuality is being regulated by a performance metaphor.
By contrast -- and this gets back to the point I was making four years ago -- the loss of female virginity is almost exclusively regulated by the purity metaphor. For females, the loss of virginity is a bit more than a performance failure. It's a loss of purity that, because of the way purity works, is catastrophic and beyond rehabilitation. And, because of this, she's got no way to move forward, metaphorically speaking. The game's over. And thus she reaches the only conclusion the purity metaphor makes available to her: She's damaged goods. And all emotions related to that judgment of contamination rush forward as she internalizes all the shame, disgust, revulsion and nausea.
This is the psychology that makes purity language so toxic -- so schizophrenic -- in the Church.
Again, I'm a male, so this isn't my experience to narrate; I'll leave that to other, very capable hands. But it is a concern. I can't count on lots and lots of hands the stories of women whom this language hasn't impacted in very spiritually destructive ways. So those blogs in my reader feed rightly point out -- that tempest rightly disturbs a complacency -- something's got to give. Enough of the purity language already.