Virginity is a socially constructed concept used to define someone who hasn't engaged in sexual intercourse. It has been heavily enforced by purity culture, especially in the context of waiting until heterosexual marriage before losing it.
Purity culture dates back to the 1990s. It was born during the
Since its inception, mothers have been tasked as the foot soldiers of purity culture—expected to raise the next generation and to propagate its ideals to them. But they only pass down the lessons of “sexual purity” to their daughters, who in turn pass it to their own daughters, when they become mothers.”
This is where the disconnect lies: purity culture was created to promote abstinence before marriage, yet it's only enforced on women and girls. It makes you wonder how it's supposed to work—considering it takes both sexes to tango when it comes to losing one’s virginity through heterosexual intercourse.
For so long, this is how it has always been, and everyone went along with it, especially mothers who believed they turned out fine. So, they feel, why can’t their daughters? But mothers need to understand that what may have worked for them didn’t work for everyone else. And even they—who believe it worked—may not fully see how it negatively impacted them.
We really need to come together to understand what purity culture truly means for all of us and how it affects us in negative ways we may not even realize. This is why we're diving into why, as a society—especially mothers—we need to let go of purity culture. Here are four particular reasons why we must do away with it
It enables marital rape
Purity culture teaches that a woman “keeps” her body to give to her husband in marriage—as if her body is not hers, but her husband's. What this sort of teaching does is strip women of autonomy over their own bodies. When women are taught to give their bodies, men are taught to take and take—even forcefully—and this leads to marital rape, because men view it as rightfully theirs.
We need to unlearn that mentality, because sex isn’t something you give or take; it’s something all partners—even women—consensually participate in. “Taking” sex from someone is rape. Women’s bodies are theirs alone, and they alone decide what to do with them.
It places women's worth on their sexual history
Purity culture sells this idea that women are like tape that loses its stickiness the more it’s used. Women are the tape, the “stickiness” is their worth, and they’re being “used” by men. Similar analogies like this dehumanize women by comparing them to non-humans—like a lollipop, flower, or toothbrush—while the men remain human in these same analogies. It interestingly demonizes the women for being “tainted” but never the men who are doing the “tainting”.
The thought process behind believing that two people can have sex yet only one is contaminated is something we need to forgo. Sex is a morally neutral act; even animals engage in it and don’t assign worth to it, so there’s no need to place our human worth on something as natural as sex.
It silences sexual assault survivors
Purity culture places a lot of shame on the topic of “sex”, especially on girls who have engaged in any form of sexual activity, and more so in cases of non-consensual sexual activity. This pushes sexual assault victims away from coming forward, which ultimately protects predators because they bank on silence.
Getting rid of shame when discussing sex is one of the first steps to helping sexual assault survivors speak out. We should be able to talk about sex appropriately and without stigma to educate people on what’s okay and what’s not, so children will not be taken advantage of and left with no one to turn to.
It sets unrealistic expectations
Purity culture has always operated on the assumption that everyone is heterosexual, wants to get married, and have children—promoting the idea that marital, procreative, penile-vaginal intercourse is the only acceptable path. This assumption doomed it to fail from the start, because it didn't take into account the diversity of human beings. It instead created a very rigid binary of good people who live by it and bad people who don't.
Fortunately, sex isn't good or bad as they made it out to be — it just is. The only bad in the equation is rape, which must be condemned in all forms. And we can't fully do that without getting rid of purity culture, because it is inextricable from rape culture.
Conclusion
Purity culture had a purpose to serve, but not only did it fail—since contracting
Rather than clinging to purity culture, mothers can choose a better path: teaching their children, not just girls, age-appropriate sex education, enlightening them about consent, and helping them understand their autonomy over their own bodies.
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