The Purity Movement

A summary of Σ Frame’s study of The Purity Movement.

Author’s Note: Written by Jack on 2023/7/12.
Length: 1,000 words
Reading Time: 5 minutes + linked posts

There have been 2 Purity Movements in recent history; one in the mid to late 1990s among late Generation Xers, and a resurgence in the late naughts among Millennials.

These Purity Movements were intended to give young people a Christian alternative to the debased Sexual Marketplace that has prevailed throughout Western culture.  However, for a large number of its adherents, it did more harm than good.

Studies have shown that many young people who participated in these Purity Movements did not, in fact, retain their virginity until marriage.  Longitudinal assessments have revealed that there was a greater incidence of extramarital sex among those participating in the Purity Movement than among those in the wider secular culture.

Every person has their own story to tell, but our study of this topic here at Σ Frame has revealed some common problems.  The reasons why the Purity Movements failed and why its adherents did not achieve their intended goals are as follows.

10 Problems with the Purity Movement

  1. Sexual Purity was transformed into a form of status within the church, leading to status signaling which became a grand distraction from the core issue of sexual innocence.  Thus, lying and social posturing became the norm.
  2. Many young people took vows of chastity, which essentially required them to do all the work of maintaining their own chastity as an effort in the flesh. This excluded them from God’s grace in this matter, and set them up for failure.
  3. Young people were pressured to avoid sexual interactions, but this only compounded the focus on sex and thereby increased their temptation.
  4. Sexual purity was recast as an “all or nothing” ideal, in which the overriding goal was to avoid sexual intercourse as an end in itself.  Less emphasis was placed on identifying suitable partners for individuals and preparing them for marriage.
  5. Many young people responded to these “rules” by engaging in other forms of sex (cunnilingus, fellatio, hand jobs, heavy petting, etc.) all the while avoiding coital intercourse.  In fact, they did so with less fear of sexual sin and temptation, thinking themselves to still be “pure”.  As a result, many of them succumbed to the temptation to go further, thus creating a Black Swan event in their individual sex lives.
  6. Teachings on dating, marriage, and sex were very Blue Pilled, filled with gynocentric notions of Chivalry, equality, etc., and placed romantic love as the pinnacle of personal and spiritual fulfillment.  That is, instead of seeing marriage as the moral context to pursue romantic love and sex, romantic love was seen as the moral place to experience marriage and sex.  Within this paradigm, young people sought to become lovestruck before they would entertain any notions of marrying a person.  Because of this, many young people pursued relationships with individuals who were unsuitable for marriage, while for many others, the waiting period lasted for years, thereby preventing them from entering into marriage in a timely manner such to avoid an extended period of burning temptation.
  7. The Purity Movement built up hope surrounding the ideas of love, romance, sex, and marriage, but offered no reliable vehicle for young people to enter into marriage.  For many young people, this hope gradually morphed into disappointment and regret.
  8. The purpose and value of purity (juxtaposed with the sinful nature) was never adequately explained.  (The purpose is to ensure holiness as a single person, and to facilitate marital sanctification as a married person.)
  9. Young people were not informed of the nature of sanctification, sexual bonding, the nature of temptation and how it occurs, and the spiritual consequences of illicit sex (other than shame). (This was before the advent of the Red Pill lore concerning male and female sexuality.)
  10. Young people who fell to sexual temptation were faced with three choices, all involving shame: (1) a shotgun marriage, (2) continuing to attend church as a social pariah, or else (3) leaving the church.  As such, marriage in the case of (1), or social rejection in (2) or (3) became a punishment (either external or self-imposed), and not a choice.  This discouraged offenders from seeking either repentance or marriage, and motivated many to submerge themselves in the Sexual Marketplace of the surrounding culture and abandon church and religion altogether.

In summary, the proponents of the Purity Movement did not give young people a true choice of either (1) pioneering their own path in life (in or outside of the church), or (2) submitting themselves to God.  Either choice might find redemption through God’s grace, but instead, the choice was legalistically presented as a dualistic “All or Nothing” depending on one’s socio-sexual status, which excluded the possibility of discovering God’s grace.

In effect, the Purity Movement, as it was imposed by Christian sub-cultures in the West, was experienced by young people as a frustrating, grueling, and hope-shattering exercise in legalism.

Posts in this Series

  1. Σ Frame: The Sin of Prioritizing Purity above Marriage (2020/1/17)
  2. Σ Frame: Picking through the fruit of the Purity Movement (2020/4/20)
  3. Σ Frame: On the Definition of Virginity (2020/4/22)
  4. Σ Frame: On the Concept of Sin and the need for Marriage (2020/4/24)
  5. Σ Frame: A New Patch on Old Cloth (2020/4/29)
  6. Σ Frame: Pseudo-Sex and Technical-Virginity (2020/5/11)
  7. Σ Frame: The need for Marriage Education (2020/5/15)
  8. Σ Frame: The Elimination of the Church (2020/5/29)
  9. Σ Frame: Satan’s Secret Recipe for a Heretical Purity Movement (2020/6/15)
  10. Σ Frame: Coram Mundo vs. Coram Deo (2020/9/7)
  11. Σ Frame: Patheological Weddingsday – Did Purity Culture Undermine Christian Identity? (2020/9/9)
  12. Σ Frame: Patheological Weddingsday – What is Purity Actually About? (2020/9/23)
  13. Σ Frame: Patheological Weddingsday – When wanton treachery brings shame, not honor. (2020/10/14)
  14. Σ Frame: Patheological Weddingsday – Leithart’s Myths of Purity (2020/10/28)
  15. Σ Frame: Patheological Weddingsday – Leithart on Purity and Holiness (2020/11/11)
  16. Σ Frame: Revisiting the Beauty of Purity (2021/4/9)

Note: The first 8 posts of this series provoked a multi-post response from at least three authors at Patheos, Peter Leithart, Susan Titkemeyer, and Jackson Wu.  The above posts entitled “Patheological Weddingsday” are responses to these articles.

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