Lynn Beisner looks at the ways in which Christianity’s obsession with “purity” may be harming men as well as women.
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One controversial story making the rounds on the Internet is that of a 17-year-old girl, Clare, who was forced to leave a Homeschool Prom in Richmond, Va. Although her dress complied with the event’s dress code, a prom organizer objected to its length but allowed Clare to enter the ballroom. The prom had many chaperones, including a group of fathers who watched from the balcony above. Within 15 minutes, Clare was asked to leave because one or more of the fathers complained that her dress and dancing were overtly sexual. Clare and her friends were escorted out by security
Clare’s story originally appeared on her sister Hännah’s blog. Clare and Hännah are two of nine siblings whose parents were members of the Quiverfull movement, a Christian homeschooling subculture which encourages families to have many children (“arrows”) so they may shoot them out into the world to win converts and maximize the number of Christian voters.
The prom in Richmond was held at a church, but it was not officially a Christian event. Not all homeschooling parents are religious. The majority of parents, however, still cite “a desire to provide religious instruction” or “a desire to provide moral instruction” as reasons for their choice. About half of Virginia homeschooling families received religious exemptions for the 2012-2013 school year.
Reflexively blaming men’s sexual desires is a mistake.
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Many girls and women encounter problems similar to Clare’s every day in one form or another, with or without religious undertones. If a woman is perceived as looking “too sexy,” she is judged for drawing attention to herself. I was once kicked out of a class for having a slit in my skirt that a professor found unseemly. I felt, as Clare did, that someone should have questioned the man to determine if perhaps the problem was his rather than mine.
While I’m encouraged to see the prom story getting attention, I am disappointed with the direction the conversation has taken. Most people have focused on the superficial and obvious problem—the outcome—rather than digging deeper to examine the underlying causes.
First, this conversation assumes that the fathers’ lustful feelings caused them to complain. But what if it wasn’t lust they felt? What if they felt a fear of lust or even revulsion because they assumed the girl was trying to create lust? Reflexively blaming men’s sexual desires is a mistake. It is too simple. Men are humans and therefore far more complex than their most basic urges.
If we do believe this situation was caused solely by lust, how do we explain those dads’ reactions? Many men would have stood quietly, storing away images for later, but these men complained. If we assume simple lust was the culprit, the men would have 1) seen a girl looking overtly sexy, 2) felt lust for the girl, 3) felt guilty about their lust, and 4) decided the girl must go.
That is so shallow and illogical, one can picture a thought bubble above the head of a caveman named Thog. I don’t know many people, men included, who operate in such simplistic ways. The problem lies not in the outcome of this logic, but in the premise upon which it is based, which is fairly nebulous and crude. It makes knee-jerk criticism too easy, and easier still for the object of that criticism to brush it off. Any father at the event would think to himself, “I was not lusting after that young woman! How dare they assume that I would lust, simply because their secular perversity would cause them to lust?
When we assume we know these fathers’ motivations, we abandon our curiosity and our desire to understand the bigger picture. I cannot know what was going on in those fathers’ heads, but I have spent a great deal of time both living in and researching the culture of highly conservative Evangelical Christians. So I can shed some light on the logic of the Evangelical purity movement both as it applies to women and to men. It looks something like this:
The more complicated truth is that these men may not have been lusting. Rather, they have been conditioned to think a woman who looks sexy is dangerous to them, to other men, to their sons, and to herself. So the story of the young woman kicked out of the prom must be contextualized within the Evangelical doctrine.
Evangelicals take their lead from a passage in the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus tells his followers that if they hate someone, curse a person, or call the person a fool, they have committed murder in their heart. Few Evangelicals take that seriously. What they do take seriously is Matthew 5:27-30, which states that if a man (and it is quite clear about gender here) looks at a woman and feels lust, he has committed adultery in his heart.
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.”
Most non-Evangelical scholars of the Bible insist that Jesus did not intend us to police our thoughts so rigidly. Instead, he was calling out people who reveled in self-righteousness. Yet Evangelicals have taken this passage at face value, creating a purity culture that is blatantly oppressive—to men.
Despite the fact that a huge emphasis is placed on male purity in Evangelical culture, it has been almost entirely ignored by the press and by the culture’s critics. One of the better selling books in Evangelical culture in the last several years has been Every Man’s Battle: Winning the War on Sexual Temptation One Victory at a Time by Stephen Arterburn. The title reflects the belief that all men struggle with lust, and it deals with the issue head-on. It calls on men to be accountable for every sexual thought, every episode of masturbation, every time they orgasm in their sleep.
These men are not taught to simply feel guilty for these transgressions. They are also required to confess them, either to a small group of men or to an “accountability partner.” In one sociological study of Evangelical men’s communities [1], a man talked about how difficult it was for him to deal with female customers in his auto repair shop because of the danger that he might look at their breasts, and that thoughts of them would recur throughout the day. Yet it wasn’t God frowning down upon him that frightened him. He feared having to confess his thoughts to his accountability partner.
The culture takes as truth that any thought can enter your head, but entertaining the thought is a sin. Many have adopted the arbitrary standard that any sexual thought lasting longer than six seconds is voluntary. (This is taken from 12-step groups for sex addicts.) Even if a man has a sexually impure dream, he must assume that it came from his latent sinfulness, and therefore confess the dream. This sets the bar pretty high, even for the most devout man.
My husband once participated in this culture. He went on a mission trip to Fort Lauderdale on spring break with a group of young men. Every time a sexily-dressed woman walked by, a member of his group called out, “Boat check!” That was a cue for everyone to look out at the ocean so none of them would be tempted by the sin of lust should they catch sight of a pretty woman.
That is how frightened these men are of lust, and this is the context in which the incident at the Richmond prom occurred. In an environment in which men are terrified of having anything more than a fleeting thought of sex, the problem is not their raging libidos, but a fear of natural human sexuality. And this environment doesn’t create unreasonable standards just for women’s modesty or purity. It also perpetuates unreasonably high expectations of men and their ability to achieve sexual repression.
Another concern about the discussion of the Richmond prom incident is that those of us in mainstream, liberal, or secular communities speak of it as if we are never guilty of similar behavior. We hypocritically perpetuate our own version of a purity culture with denouncements of sexual behavior that is none of our business.
Many people take pride in their liberal stance on LGBT issues. Yet our willingness to accept other people’s sexuality often does not extend to heterosexual men who eschew monogamy. We use pejoratives such as “promiscuous” or even “man-whore” to describe them. Men who monogamously date but don’t marry don’t fare much better. They are portrayed as flawed in some integral way. Even George Clooney, a man respected for his social justice work, came under scrutiny for his years as a bachelor.
When John Edwards and Bill Clinton were discovered having consensual sexual relations with women other than their wives, we joined the chorus of their critics while clutching our pearls. I wonder why it never occurred to us that either of them might have had a consensually non-monogamous marriage. Neither could have defended himself by admitting that publicly. Telling the truth would not have exonerated them; it would have simply spread the shame to their wives. We adopted conservative assumptions that their marriages were monogamous, and that their sex lives outside of it were our business.
I don’t believe we are willfully hypocritical. Instead, we react out of vicarious pain, or maybe morbid fascination. Many people felt sympathy for Clinton’s and Edwards’ wives. Either through personal experience or the experiences of friends and family, we know what it feels like when a partner is unfaithful. Here, we have allowed ourselves to be pushed by the religious right into condemning non-traditional forms of male sexuality, and that cannot continue. If we believe it is not our job to police other’s consensual sex, we need to be consistent in applying that standard. The principle we teach women to protect themselves from slut-shaming should apply to men as well: One’s sex life is no one else’s business as long as it is consensual.
If we believe it is not our job to police other’s consensual sex, we need to be consistent in applying that standard.
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The culture of judgment plays out in private lives as well as public. I have a friend, a man I have known for more than 15 years. He occasionally talks about how uncomfortable he feels when he sees his friends’ teenage daughters—girls he knew as toddlers—all grown up and running around in bikinis. Whenever the topic comes up, I think to myself, “Oh God, please stop talking.” I react that way because I assume he has sexual feelings toward these young women. In reality, he’s an open guy who is able to acknowledge his discomfort in awkward situations. But discomfort and awkwardness do not imply sexual desire. In fact, I liken it to my husband’s difficulty in knowing how to cope with our daughter growing into a very beautiful young woman. That discomfort is a result of witnessing the transition from gangly tween to a young woman coming into her sexuality, complete with breasts and hips and revealing clothes. It’s paternal, protective.
The purity culture that has permeated America is not just oppressive to women. It damages men as well by shaming them for natural and healthy thoughts and feelings. While this phenomenon is most prevalent in conservative Christianity, it is found also in liberal and secular circles. And the shame heterosexual men feel is then projected onto its proximate cause—the women who aroused uncomfortable feelings.
Should women be held responsible for feelings they arouse in men? Of course not. Are there countless men who disagree with that? Absolutely. But should we assume that all men’s feelings are sexual in nature? Could some men—even the fathers at the Richmond prom—experience feelings that are more protective than sexual? Should we condemn a religious culture that informs not just its followers’ actions, but also the behavior of non-religious men and women, people who should know they can’t control their feelings, only their actions? Have we really become such a country of prudes?
A culture that shames people for consensual sex hurts everyone, not just young women in sexy prom dresses. If we want men to start accepting women’s sexuality, we would do well to start encouraging them to accept their own. We should consider the possibility that if men were not overwhelmed with shame every time they felt a twitch in their pants or a twinge of discomfort, they might stop blaming women.
It is time to make our message clear: The only sex truly worthy of shame and scandal is that which is non-consensual.
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Originally appeared at STIR Journal
[1] Armato, M. and Marsiglio, W. (2002), Self-Structure, Identity, and Commitment: Promise Keepers’ Godly Man Project. Symbolic Interaction, 25: 41–65. doi: 10.1525/si.2002.25.1.41
Photo: FLickr/Sean McGrath
A minor point, but one that seems to be missed in the Clinton sex scandal, is that there was a significant power differential at play. Yes, Monica was an adult, but she was an intern. Could she realistically have said no, if she had wanted to, without fear of consequences?
Interesting article. As an agnostic, it may seem like secular superiority for me to say, but I couldn’t help thinking that maybe there was a bit of overthinking in the article. I’ve just encountered too many stupid people in my day: people who don’t think as deeply or logically as the author might suggest. To them they operate on knee-jerk level: in other words, sex = dirty = immoral = hell ( = secular = liberal = Hollywood…). I don’t even know that their own lust even occurs to them at a philosophical level of reasoning; I think they just… Read more »
1. Clare does not describe awkward or avoidance strategies by the men. She describes them as ogling. There are a wide range of reactions from men of these fundamentalist-evangelical-literalist cultures. Shame and avoidance are not always present. Clare does not appear to have experienced the shame/avoidance/awkward/anxious responses. 2. Men and women’s responses to sexual oppression are different, because they have been treated differently throughout history. Women’s sexuality is disciplined and contained — by both men and women — much differently than men’s sexuality is disciplined and contained. Both are oppressive. Men still have a stronger position, culturally and socially. (Very… Read more »
There’s something about all this that I do not understand. We say that female sexuality has been repressed for most of history, and that this explains a lot of weird observations: That so many heterosexual women claim to find women more attractive than men; that measurements of physical arousal show women to be more aroused by naked female bodies, or even monkeys, than of naked men; that women claim to be able to go without sex for years without missing anything; that they do not know what turns them on and how to get an orgasm; and so on. But… Read more »
Brilliant observation/question. I suppose some might say that there is a certain “boys will be boys” permissiveness that accompanies the repressed male sexuality which doesn’t really exist for girls: like society is saying to boys, “don’t be promiscuous,” while at the same time smiling and winking at them. Of course, that’s no good, either. It makes men all screwed up like HAL9000 in 2001: A Space Oddysey. I think the difference tends to be in the relative difference in the libidos of men and women. Some people insist that women are just as horny as men, but I think the… Read more »
So what if they were having lustful thoughts and feelings? When I see a scantily clad sexually mature female doing sexy dancing I definitely experience lustful thoughts and feelings, its called human nature. Their lust isn’t the perversion here, the moral code that has them reject and deny it is the perversion. Whether that has a christian (sex is wrong) or a feminist (male lust is objectification of women) origin is irrelevant, its a perverse imposition on what that which is natural.
I strongly disagree with OirishM’s caricature of feminists. Most feminists do not think it is unacceptable for men to look at a woman they are attracted to. They just want men to respect a woman’s full humanity.
And treating looking as “objectification” is what? It is the sort of demonising I am referring to. In addition, very often subjective standards are appealed to when discussing things like looking at women you are attracted to, like “don’t make her uncomfortable”. This is like saying “don’t offend anyone” – it’s gonna happen sometimes and is just a fact of life.
I would recommend men not only ignore Christian advice on sex, I would also recommend they ignore the advice from feminists on sex – the bottom line is shaming, be it “don’t rape” or “sex before marriage is sinful”.
It is the same thing as with “the better qualified person gets the job”: Feminists don’t demand that the woman gets the job always and the men never. Only when she is better qualified. Good in theory. But when the subtle differences in qualification are not immediately discernible from an outside perspective, the only way for an employer to be believed that they favor the better person regardless of gender is to always give the job to the woman. The same applies here. A man may respect a woman’s full humanity while looking at her attractiveness, but the only way… Read more »
Schrodinger’s Creep-shamer
Look at the blog photos of this particular Richmond-home-schooled-Prom-ster………AND her date.
Every Prom looks like 27-year-old women and dating pre-teen boys.
Many Prom dresses are tight, short, or low cut.
LOOK AT THE BLOG PHOTOS OF THIS YOUNG LADY>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>AND HER DATE!!!
What if she wore yoga pants to the prom? Would she have been kicked out for that outfit, too?
I think any culture that views recreational sex as sinful or dirty will ultimately create misogyny, misandry and homophobia. The whole “you shouldn’t be looking”, “you shouldn’t be showing” tit for tat arguments between men and women is basically a game of pass the shame – for the game to begin both parties have to accept there is shame to be had. Men are filthy, say the girls; but you make us filthy say the boys. The shaming of each sex by the other is either the direct result of, or exaserpated by, sex negativity IMHO. Homosexuality of course by… Read more »
Brilliant.
Well said
Agreed. Well said.
One of the better selling books in Evangelical culture in the last several years has been Every Man’s Battle: Winning the War on Sexual Temptation One Victory at a Time by Stephen Arterburn. The title reflects the belief that all men struggle with lust, and it deals with the issue head-on. It calls on men to be accountable for every sexual thought, every episode of masturbation, every time they orgasm in their sleep. Urgh, that fucking piece of shit book. I’m pretty sure I picked up a lot of unhelpful ideas for that one, in particular some of the gendered… Read more »
Puritanism is always part of the picture if you wish to set yourself up as the moral authority of a society. You have to get people to reject their own instincts, feelings and desires,and sexual desire is pretty resistant to control. Puritanism is one of the many similarities that modern feminism shares with the patriarchal churches – ‘born male’ is the new original sin.
Thank you for bringing up those points, Patty. Let me answer them individually: 1) Cheating is not okay. I have been on the receiving end of it is pretty horrible. But I think that people can enforce the rules of their relationships just fine and without our help. Sex lives are none of our business because it is a slippery slope. What if a woman had been impeached or tried based on an affair. How would we feel? 2) I am sorry that I didn’t explain the train of logic enough. Any paternal feelings would have been over-ridden by their… Read more »
I read Lynn’s article with great interest. I do have some points I would like to make as well: 1. “The principle we teach women to protect themselves from slut-shaming should apply to men as well: One’s sex life is no one else’s business as long as it is consensual.” I would just add that when the ‘consensual sex’ is between two, one of whom is lied to about the marital status of the other and/or the spouse of a cheater is NOT consensual about polyamory in the relationship…the ‘consent’ is questionable. Sometimes the broader public IS made aware of… Read more »
Slut shaming only applies to the “little people. This is a class and ideological problem. Notice alpha females and males are not effected. This also causes great problems in higher education as women who are conditioned to say no as a matter of course are crippled when they want to say yes. Such a female would have conflicting programs running and this is one of the causes of sexual communication problems in colleges. IMO many of the “sexual assault” cases are actually the result of these conflicts.
At heart it boils down to denying that your own thoughts and feelings are valid. That always works in a healthy way (not!!)
Luke, I think that you have misunderstood or that I as unclear. Your feelings are never right or wrong – they are just feelings. How you choose to act based on them is what you are accountable for. I am not by any means saying that all forms of consensual sexuality are a good idea. Many are destructive and hurtful. But they are not the concern of the general public.
Here’s something that I’ve had in mind for a while.
Women are considered “pure” and “clean” until they have sex with men at which time they considered “dirty”.
That’s pretty much saying that men are dirty from the get go and we are just going around and spreading our dirt and filth to women by having sex with them.
If your religion considers you and your sexuality dirty then that’s just not cool.
Totally. Also, it seems like the religion expects SO little of men. I mean, they don’t expect sons to pledge their virginity to their moms.. Because if a guy has sex, it’s natural, he has no self control, right??? It had to be the girl’s fault for tempting him, since he’s basically a child or an animal.
This is more than expecting little of men (because that makes it sound like its an offshoot of the expectations heaped on women instead of the parallel issue that it really is). Considering men to be dirt is outright insulting to men. Its not as if the bar for men/boys is low. Its actually pretty high in its own regard. To be expected to dispell your virginity as if it were a curse is pretty messed up. “Get out there and have sex any way possible.” is not a low expectation. That’s why there is no pledging it to mother… Read more »
Personally, I’m stuck with the title … “Does Christian ‘Purity Culture’ Set The Bar Too High For Men?” Too high for men? Are we saying that men don’t have the ability to reach and maintain a “high bar?” It’s sad. The bar for my son is the same bar I had for my daughter and to date, it appears that both achieved what I’d hope they would. We see articles about bullying and I have to tell you one segment of society that is openly bullied are those who have chosen abstinence. Joanne, I’m not sure which faith you’re referring… Read more »
Tom, I think the bar set too high is not referring to abstinence outside of marriage, but avoiding all feelings, however fleeting, of sexual attraction. Being shamed for having feelings, which are beyond our control and are neither right nor wrong in and of themselves, is demanding something which is not possible or healthy. People can choose how to act, including whether to fantasize or expand on a feeling, but we can’t choose not to feel and remain healthy.