Purity rings, abstinence pledges, courting— Evangelical Christianity has a particular and peculiar stance on human sexuality. If you’re like me, you grew up surrounded by this “Purity Culture,” which relies on poorly sourced data, psychologically harmful misinformation, and carefully prooftexted bible verses. The effects of Purity Culture have been almost universally negative, and I wonder what it would look like for Christians to talk about sex more healthily. In each post in this series, I’ll give a misconception I heard growing up and offer a healthier counterpoint.

This week’s Purity Culture misconception:
“Your reward for abstinence will be the most phenomenal sex ever on your wedding night and equally mind-blowing sex three times a day from that point on.”

Ah yes, the “three times a day” thing— the portion of the abstinence-only sales pitch where we really see purity culture’s true colors. At no point do these programs ask the obvious follow-up question: “But what if my partner doesn’t want sex three times a day? Hell, what if I don’t want sex three times a day?” The three-times-a-day pitch sets a bizarre expectation for married sex and gets to one of purity culture’s most harmful consequences: when you follow purity culture’s logic, sex is a reward for good behavior rather than a natural part of romantic relationships to be explored together. At no point did any of these programs address the issue of consent (which should never be assumed, even within marriage); they were too busy putting sex on a pedestal and making it a trophy for teenage boys to quest after. As such, purity culture flagrantly does something it claims to despise: purity culture commodifies sex. For all the Evangelical talk about the “sanctity of marriage,” I can’t think of a better way to undermine marriage than to make it primarily about sex (and, consequently, to make sex solely about male pleasure).

So yeah, the painful irony of the whole purity culture movement is the way it has cheapened sex and marriage while also claiming to keep these things sacred. The movement has made sex taboo while also enshrining it as the greatest thing a teenage boy can ever achieve. Purity culture steamrolls over issues of consent and communication and focuses exclusively on male pleasure, and none of this is okay. So hear me loud and clear on this:

When you promise teenage boys that sex will be the greatest thing they can experience,
and then tell them they can have as much as they want if they just stay abstinent,
you are setting them up for disappointment.
Worse still, you are creating roadblocks for their relationships and marriages,
you are instilling a sense of sexual entitlement which will breed abusers,
and you are perpetuating sexism and harmful myths about masculinity and femininity.
There is simply no winning in this ideology.
Purity culture cheapens sex and marriage.
And look, for so much of this series, I’ve looked for ways to tweak purity culture arguments and make them healthier and holier, but now I’m going to go ahead and say what a lot of us who grew up in this movement have been thinking all along:
It’s time for purity culture to die.

So, maybe instead of the harmful and disingenuous “sex three times a day” abstinence sales pitch, we should say…
Look, sex will be an aspect of most romantic relationships, but it’s only ONE aspect and not even the most important one. If you’re basing a relationship (especially a marriage) around sex, you need to reconsider your priorities.

Rather than programming young people with these ideas about sex, let’s help them to explore and talk about their desires openly. Let’s teach young people to listen to one another and not walk into relationships with assumptions about sex. Let’s discourage attitudes of entitlement and promote healthy communication. Let’s acknowledge that sex isn’t always “mind-blowingly awesome” like the abstinence-only curricula teach; sex is sometimes awkward or even uncomfortable, and that’s why people should talk about it.

When you make sex an idol, enshrine it behind taboos and make it an object of worship,
you ultimately cheapen it.
Sex shouldn’t be a reward for abstinence,
it shouldn’t be the goal of marriage,
and it should never ever be an entitlement.
While it’s certainly a big deal, sex is still only one part of how people interact with one another,
so take sex off the pedestal,
and let sex be sex.