September 14, 2023 • 28 mins
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Ever wondered how purity culture, a phenomenon that traces its roots back to the Victorian era, continues to influence society and women's sexuality today? Join me as we pull back the curtains on this complex and shadowed aspect of our society. We'll trace back its origins, from the Victorian era's suppression of female sexuality, to the advent of abstinence-based purity culture that emerged in reaction to the sexual revolution of the 1960s. We'll critically examine the roles of the White Cross Society, the American Purity Alliance, and authors like Joshua Harris in propagating purity culture within Christianity.
Imagine growing up in a world where you, as a woman, constantly feel the burden of responsibility for the sins of men, and how you express yourself, even in the slightest, can be judged harshly. That's the reality for many impacted by the damaging effects of modesty culture, an experience I too have lived. We'll dig deep into this culture, exploring how it places undue responsibility on women, leading to a distorted understanding of modesty and policing of women's bodies and behavior. The impact of this restrictive culture doesn't stop there, often leaving a profound impact on mental health and self-image.
Purity culture doesn't stop at affecting personal experiences; its ripple effects can be seen in how it hypersexualizes women and contributes to feelings of shame and guilt. Join me as we delve into how unrealistic expectations of purity and insufficient sex education within traditionalist circles lead to distorted views of sexuality. This is an open, honest, and enlightening conversation, aimed at understanding and healing from the harmful effects of purity culture. Get ready to question, reflect, and engage as we attempt to untangle all our little messes.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hello and welcome to All Our Little Messes, a podcast
focused on healing throughintentional conversations about
parenting, relationships,religion and more.
I am your host, veronica Winrod, and I'm so happy to have you
here listening in on my thoughtstoday.
I hope you enjoy this episode.
Hello and welcome back to AllOur Little Messes.
(00:32):
This is episode number eightand today we're going to be
talking about the origins ofpurity culture and its impacts
on society over the past century.
So we're going to start withbasically the mentality of where
it started and, as far as I cantell with the research I've
done, it looks like really theorigin of the movement started
(00:59):
in the Victorian era and whenpeople think of the Victorian
era they think of the tiny waist, big skirt dress that Queen
Victoria made popular back then,which the era itself started in
like I think it was the 1870s,and extended into oh goodness, I
(01:24):
think it was as far as like the1910s, 1920s, I think, is when,
like typically they talk aboutthe period that the Victorian
era extending Anyways, but yeah,that was when the movement
itself kind of started and itwas definitely.
(01:47):
It was a definitely adevelopment of moral standards
more than anything else, and thebiggest thing was the
suppression, I guess you couldsay, of female sexuality, where
(02:08):
even things like pregnancy werehidden, so like the term
confinement.
When they talked about womengoing into labor or giving birth
.
They didn't talk about birthand giving you know going into
labor, they talked about a womangoing into her confinement,
she's going into her confinementand everybody kind of knew what
(02:29):
that meant but nobody wouldactually talk about it because
you know, a woman going intolabor and having a child, you
know, meant that she had had asexual relationship with a man.
So and you know that was notsomething that was ever talked
about because it, you know,again, it was a very, it was a
very prudish area era.
So nobody ever talked aboutthat and it was never a
(02:54):
knowledge thing, especially forwomen.
Like with a man it was kind ofit was acknowledged a man had
relationships even outside ofmarriage and it was just a
generally accepted thing.
But women just didn't, like itwas a very, very limited
attitude towards the sexualrelationship with the marriage.
(03:17):
It was a taboo subject, likeyou just do not discuss it.
And so that was kind of theorigins of peer purity culture
because like they had this, thisimage in their mind of what a
perfectly virtuous woman was.
And it was this, this idea ofyou know innocence, and you know
(03:40):
she of course remained a virginuntil marriage.
But then, even after marriage,she was still perfect and, you
know, perfectly chased,perfectly pure, perfectly
innocent, which you know kind offeeds into the whole she's
going into confinement thing.
We don't discuss the fact thatyou know she's having a child or
(04:00):
she's even pregnant, like womenhad to hide their pregnancies
because and if once you got upto a certain size, most women
didn't even really leave thehouse because you don't show
that you're pregnant, and ifwomen did did go out in public,
like there are I've read acouple biographies and stuff
where they would talk about thefact that women and other people
(04:26):
would look away from them inpublic if it was noticeable that
they were pregnant.
Like it was such a taboo thingthat you couldn't even
acknowledge the fact that youwere brought to bring life into
this world.
So the fact that so they hadthis, this movement in society
(04:50):
basically of treating sex as ataboo subject like sexuality,
was taboo.
You do not acknowledge it, itdoes not exist, we don't talk
about it, and it was mainlygeared towards women, like I
said so that those, those moralvalues, I guess you could call
them kind of made their way intolike the big revival movements
(05:18):
in in the 19th century,especially during the 1960s.
And, like you know, everybodytalks about the big 10 revivals,
right like where they would setup the big 10.
So, you know, people will comefrom miles around to to worship
and hear these pastors, thesespeakers, speak, and like.
This kind of movement started inlike I think it was the late
(05:43):
1870s, 1880s, and they becameextremely popular after, like,
during and after the 1960s,after the big sexual revolution
that mainly occurred in theUnited States, from what I can
tell.
You know everybody talks aboutthe hippie era, but mainly after
the 1960s, during the big, youknow, sexual revolution.
(06:05):
There was this huge reaction tothat movement and part of that
was a the emergence, basically,of an actual official platform
for purity culture, because alot of these people in the 20th
(06:27):
century started promoting, youknow, purity culture as as
something that women needed toaspire to and so it became
popular with, with people thatwere like.
They were organizations thatstarted popping up in the 20th
century, like the white crosssociety, american purity
(06:48):
alliance.
You had authors like JoshuaHarris, organizations like true
love weights, and you knowgroups and people like that,
authors who started promotingthis idea of, you know, sexual
abstinence until marriage andjust the general importance of,
of purity within likeChristianity.
(07:10):
And so also because of likethis huge cultural shift where,
like they had this big sexualrevolution, where people just
and I mean in my opinion the1960s were just crazy and I
think anybody will agree to thatthere was this huge cultural
shift and in my opinion it waslike a general decline of morals
(07:32):
and a result of that was purityculture starting to gain
momentum within, especiallywithin the United States, and
Christian, various Christiandenominations like latched on to
it and there were actually acouple of not even just
denominations but more of justgroups like Bill Gother and the
(07:54):
IVLP kind of emerged out of.
They were like a reaction ofthe sexual evolution in the
1960s in the feminist movementand groups like that, people
like him, various denominations,christian denominations they
started promoting thisabstinence based purity culture
(08:17):
and part of that was extrememodesty and to these people
modesty was the way to achievepurity.
And so you had this hugepopular popularization of like
(08:39):
purity culture and and extrememodesty and it was, it was
basically taught as a way to tofix what had happened in America
in the 1960s and 1970s and so,like a lot of people, they just
absolutely latched on to thatand it became.
(08:59):
It became a way of life for alot of people.
People started raising theirdaughters to follow this, this,
this way of living, and one ofthe things that people started
doing and this is always I meanlooking back, and I did this
when I was younger looking backat it's a very odd thing, but
(09:23):
one of the things people starteddoing, especially in it it was
mainly so mainly started in the1980s, late 1980s, early 1990s
is when it started becomingpopular was the emergence of
purity rings.
The concept of purity rings wasbasically a promise.
Some people actually would takevows, but it was basically a
(09:45):
promise to remain pure andmodest until marriage and the
ring was a like a daily physicalreminder of the promise that
you had made to God and to yourfuture spouse, yourself, to your
friends, your family.
When I, when I made the promise, my mom bought me the purity
(10:08):
ring and I made the promisealong with two others of my
friends and like we both had allof our families there, like
extended family, likegrandparents and stuff.
We were Catholics, so like thepriest kind of overlooked the
entire, the entire process andlike the prayers and everything
(10:30):
in the promise that we had likethese little placards that had
the prayer on them.
And then we had a card that hadthe purity promise typed out on
it and who we were making thepromise to and why, and then we
had to sign our name to it andthen they were laminated and I
(10:52):
kept that until I was in my lateteens and I honestly have no
idea what happened to that cardor the purity ring.
Like I took off the purity ringthe night before I got married.
I took it off and I thought I'dput it inside of one of the
pockets of my suitcase before mywedding night.
(11:14):
And when I went back to get it,because I had this plan, I was
gonna save it, because it waslike this black, sapphire,
silver ring and I had this planthat I was gonna save it for my
oldest daughter when you knowshe became a vage to make that
same promise and I can't find itlike it is just gone, like I
(11:37):
distinctly remember putting itinside that suitcase, but it's
just gone, which is probably forthe best, but anyways, yeah, so
this there was this huge likesurge in popularity when it came
to like purity rings and it wasactually people like like
Joshua Harris and people likehim, authors like him, who they
(11:58):
actually like really encouragedand really pushed people to
commit to purity pledges.
So, yeah, they were like these,these physical reminders of
this promise that we had made toremain sexually pure into a
marriage, and like the conceptbehind remaining sexually pure
until marriage and maintainingchastity and purity is a concept
(12:21):
I stand 100% behind.
I just want to put that outthere.
Okay, I am 100% behind thevirtue of purity.
I think it is extremelyimportant thing and I think our
culture in general, society ingeneral, treats the concept of
sex and everything entails.
I think they treat it entirelytoo flippantly.
(12:43):
I think it is a very sacredunion and should be treated as
such, but hookup culture hascompletely destroyed what sex is
supposed to be about.
So, like I said, I 100% standbehind remaining sexually pure
until marriage.
That being said, purity cultureand the concept behind it I
(13:07):
believe it had good beginnings,but it has.
It has changed into somethingthat is just.
It is very, very sad andextremely damaging and extremely
harming, especially for girls,especially for girls.
I have not met a young girl yetwho has come out of purity
(13:31):
culture with without any likementally damaging ideas or
trauma and like.
Part of that is the fact that inpurity culture and the way, the
way it's been twisted, is thatgirls, because because purity
culture it focuses very heavilyon physical modesty, right.
(13:51):
As a result of that, girlsbasically become the gatekeepers
of everyone's sexual morality.
So, based on how you dress, youaffect, you know, the sexual
morality of the men around youis the premise of this.
So if you wear a skirt that isa little too short, say like
(14:12):
right above your knees, and aman, like, according to most
people, evangelical Christiansand traditionalist Catholics who
embrace this whole concept, youknow, a skirt above your knees
is considered in modest becauseI don't know why, but it's
considered immodest.
So if a man, you know, lustsafter you while you're wearing
(14:37):
the skirt that was above yourknees, you are responsible for
that man's sin.
And so you know, going throughlife being told that you are
responsible for the sin of lustof every man that you know has
ever walked by you and looked atyou and you know thought you
were sexually attractive in anyway like that is so incredibly
(15:00):
damaging and it completelytwists sexuality in a girl's
mind.
Growing up, like from a veryyoung age, I viewed myself as a
sexual object, because I wasalways told I had to dress a
certain way so that men didn'tlust after me, so men weren't
tempted by me, because if theydid, then I was responsible for
(15:23):
their sin.
And so I was constantly likehyper aware of what I wore and
how it was going to affect themen around me, even down to,
like, the way I walked.
Like I had to be hyper aware ofhow I walked, because if I
walked a certain way, if my hipsswung too much, that was also
(15:45):
considered tempting the men.
If I wore a skirt that was, youknow, cut a certain way to
where it hugged my hips a littletoo much, that was also
considered tempting the men.
If I wore a shirt that was alittle too tight on my hip, on
my not my hips my waist or on mybust, that was considered
tempting the men.
I couldn't wear sleeves thatwere shorter than halfway
(16:05):
between my elbow and myshoulders, because, again, that
would be tempting the men aroundme.
And so I was always hyper awareof everything I wore, because
if I wore something that othersdeemed to be immodest and a man
lusted after me because of it intheir mind, then I was, you
know, I was liable for his sin,I was going to be punished for
his sin.
(16:26):
And so going through life withthat twisted concept of
sexuality and modesty because,again, like there was no, there
was no teaching of modesty withimpurity, culture of of like
true biblical modesty, and thatalso is an extremely problematic
thing, like not being taughtwhat true modesty is Without the
(16:50):
Bible.
You look up any quote onmodesty.
There is only one quote thatyou can find that actually talks
about the outward appearance ofsomeone and that is the quote
where they say they talk aboutnot wearing a man's garment and
a man not wearing a woman'sgarment, and that is the only
(17:12):
that is the only quote that Icould ever find talking about
the outward appearance of thewoman.
And beyond, beyond not adorningourselves with the costly
jewelry or gold or pearls or thecostly apparel or something
(17:34):
like that, they always talkedabout a woman who fears the Lord
is to be praised, or abeautiful woman is one with
discretion.
In one Samuel 16, seven, theytalk about the Lord not looking
upon his appearance or theheight of his stature, but the
(17:56):
Lord looking upon the state ofthe man's heart.
They they talk about the womanadorning herself with good works
and self control and godlinessand things like that.
They the only verse, the onlyverse that I could find where it
(18:17):
talks about a woman wearing aspecific type of garment is in
Deuteronomy 22.5, where it saysa woman shall not wear a man's
garment.
No shell, a man put on awoman's cloak, for whoever does
these things is in a combinationto the Lord, your God, and that
is actually generally acceptedto be talking about
transvestites and which, intoday's culture, we'll be
(18:39):
talking about transsexuals.
That is the only verse thatdeals with women putting on a
man's clothes, which, you know,in modesty culture they're
generally talking about womenwearing jeans, women wearing
pants and things like that.
And so, yeah, this whole ideaof modesty being an outward,
(19:09):
being entirely about youroutward appearance has been like
and you being responsible for aman's sin because of it is just
so, so twisted and so damagingand just so hard to grow up with
, because from a very young ageI'm talking like eight or nine
years old this was what wastaught to me, and so you know,
(19:31):
from from as far back as I canremember, like I was always
hyper aware of how I walked andhow I dressed and even how I
spoke to men because, like, eveneven being overly friendly, you
could be accused of beingflirtatious, which would be then
construed to be tempting themen.
And so it was just.
(19:53):
It was difficult to to come fromfrom that to where I am now,
where I'm just like you know,modesty isn't all about what you
put on the outside.
A lot of the most immodestgirls I knew growing up.
You know they had sleeves totheir, you know their, their
(20:14):
wrists and skirts down to theirankles.
Modesty has nothing to do withyour outside appearance and it
has everything to do with thevirtues that you have inside.
Now, the virtues you haveinside, you know, if they're
practiced properly, will beexhibited by your outward
appearance and by how you carryyourself, how you treat others,
(20:36):
and you know how you worship Godand how you, how you speak to
children and how you regulateyour emotions and like.
All of that is that is theoutward appearance of modesty.
That is what modesty is and,like I mentioned earlier, it is.
That is what is talked about inthe Bible.
A beautiful woman is one withdiscretion.
(20:59):
The Lord looks upon our hearts.
You know things like that, likedo not let your adorning be
external.
Like they said, do not let youradorning be external.
We adorn our souls with, withpurity we we adorn our souls
with chasteness and things likethat.
And here's a verse I actuallyreally love is 1 Timothy 2,
(21:22):
verse 8 through 10.
I desire, then, that in everyplace, the men should pray,
lifting holy hands, withoutanger or quarreling.
Likewise, also, that womenshould adorn themselves in
respectable apparel, withmodesty and self-control, not
with braided hair and gold orpearls or costly attire, but
with what is proper for womenwho profess godliness, with good
(21:45):
works.
And so even then it's sayingthat modesty is self-control and
is godliness and is good works.
It is not braided hair, gold,pearls and costly attire.
So it has nothing to do withour outer appearance.
Our outward appearance is aresult of what is inside, and so
(22:05):
purity culture focusing soheavily on, you know, the
outward appearance of modesty asbeing the remedy to the sexual
revolution of the 1960s was just, it was insane.
It was insane because that'snot going to fix it, as we can
see, because evangelicalChristians and traditionalist
(22:25):
Catholics, they will deny thistill they're blue in the face.
But it doesn't take a whole lotof research to see that this is
a problem.
But you know, sexual sin is ahuge thing.
It's very much covered up andswept under the rug, but sexual
sin is huge in these circles.
It's huge because a modestybeing pushed, as you know, an
(22:49):
outward appearance and as theremedy to sexual sin, has
hypersexualized women to such apoint that that's all we're seen
as.
That's all we're seen as.
We're seen as the gatekeepersto a man's sexual morality.
And you know, if a man sexuallysins, then we didn't gatekeep
(23:09):
properly and it's our fault.
So, yeah, it's, it's, it's veryharmful and and and there's a
lot of like shame and guilt thatwomen have to deal with on a
daily basis as a result of this.
And you know another anotherthing that has been a result of
purity culture is and this is,you know, goes back to its
(23:34):
origins in a Victorian,victorian era is the fact that,
you know, we talk about women intempting men, we talk about us
being responsible for a man'ssexual sin and All that stuff,
but we don't actually talk aboutsex.
We never talk about it and, asa result of never talking about
(23:57):
it, like there is a huge lack ofactual sex education within
traditionalist circles, andthat's a problem because so we
already have this unrealisticexpectation of purity, we
already have this hypersexualization of women, and then
(24:17):
you throw on top of that thislack of sex education.
Kids are curious, kids aregonna, they're gonna want to
find out what's happening totheir bodies, why it's happening
, and they're gonna go lookingin places that aren't the best
you know internet.
They're gonna talk to theirfriends, they're gonna, they're
gonna read books they've checkedoff in the library or whatever,
(24:39):
and they're going to, as aresult of all of this, are going
to have a very twisted idea ofwhat sexuality Really is, which
is also going to feed back intothe problem of this hyper
sexualization of girls and womenand this, this unrealistic,
realistic expectation of sex andpurity within, within
(25:02):
fundamentalist andtraditionalist circles.
So this is something that itneeds to be talked about more.
It needs to be worked on likethis is not, this is not a small
problem and it's not going awayAnytime soon unless people
actually start discussing it.
(25:22):
And I'm talking about, I'mtalking about people within
Christianity and withinCatholicism.
Like this has to be talkedabout.
This needs to be discussed.
People need to start being moreopen with their children.
They need to start actuallylooking into what the Bible says
about modesty.
They need to start actuallypracticing true purity and true
(25:42):
modesty within themselves andwithin their families, not just,
you know, forcing unrealisticstandards of dress and modesty
on their children.
This needs to be done like.
People need to actually startliving a true Christian lives.
This is because periodic cultureis not what it's turned into,
is not, is not true Christian,truly Christian.
It is not in any way, shape orform.
(26:03):
Women should not be forced tobe the gatekeepers of a man's
Sexual purity.
It is not our job to make surethat you maintain self-control.
That's not my job.
My job is is my soul.
My job is my sexual purity.
Your job is yours.
(26:24):
And the fact that purityculture Basically forces women
to gatekeep men's sexual purityis just sick and it needs to
stop.
I hope you enjoyed this episodeon Purity culture and its
origins and just a briefintroduction into my experience
(26:44):
with purity culture.
This is basically the start ofa short series I will be doing
on Purity culture and I'll beinterviewing different people
throughout the course of thenext month or two, who have had
experience with purity culture,its impacts on their lives and
what their thoughts are and howthey're trying to break the
(27:04):
cycles of purity culture withintheir families and how they're
introducing like sex educationto their kids, and so on and so
forth.
Like I said before, this issomething that is a huge problem
.
It's a generational problem andit needs to stop, and it starts
with how we introduce Sexualityto our kids and how we are
teaching true purity and modestyto our children.
(27:28):
So I hope you enjoyed thisepisode and I will see you guys
all next week.
Thank you for tuning in to thisepisode of all our little messes
.
Please let us know how much youenjoyed it below and add any
questions you have about thisepisode.
(27:48):
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(28:09):
updates and insights thatmirror podcast topics.
Thank you for listening andwe'll see you next week.
Hello and welcome to All Our Little Messes, a podcast
focused on healing throughintentional conversations about
parenting, relationships,religion and more.
I am your host, veronica Winrod, and I'm so happy to have you
here listening in on my thoughtstoday.
I hope you enjoy this episode.
Hello and welcome back to AllOur Little Messes.
(00:32):
This is episode number eightand today we're going to be
talking about the origins ofpurity culture and its impacts
on society over the past century.
So we're going to start withbasically the mentality of where
it started and, as far as I cantell with the research I've
done, it looks like really theorigin of the movement started
(00:59):
in the Victorian era and whenpeople think of the Victorian
era they think of the tiny waist, big skirt dress that Queen
Victoria made popular back then,which the era itself started in
like I think it was the 1870s,and extended into oh goodness, I
(01:24):
think it was as far as like the1910s, 1920s, I think, is when,
like typically they talk aboutthe period that the Victorian
era extending Anyways, but yeah,that was when the movement
itself kind of started and itwas definitely.
(01:47):
It was a definitely adevelopment of moral standards
more than anything else, and thebiggest thing was the
suppression, I guess you couldsay, of female sexuality, where
(02:08):
even things like pregnancy werehidden, so like the term
confinement.
When they talked about womengoing into labor or giving birth
.
They didn't talk about birthand giving you know going into
labor, they talked about a womangoing into her confinement,
she's going into her confinementand everybody kind of knew what
(02:29):
that meant but nobody wouldactually talk about it because
you know, a woman going intolabor and having a child, you
know, meant that she had had asexual relationship with a man.
So and you know that was notsomething that was ever talked
about because it, you know,again, it was a very, it was a
very prudish area era.
So nobody ever talked aboutthat and it was never a
(02:54):
knowledge thing, especially forwomen.
Like with a man it was kind ofit was acknowledged a man had
relationships even outside ofmarriage and it was just a
generally accepted thing.
But women just didn't, like itwas a very, very limited
attitude towards the sexualrelationship with the marriage.
(03:17):
It was a taboo subject, likeyou just do not discuss it.
And so that was kind of theorigins of peer purity culture
because like they had this, thisimage in their mind of what a
perfectly virtuous woman was.
And it was this, this idea ofyou know innocence, and you know
(03:40):
she of course remained a virginuntil marriage.
But then, even after marriage,she was still perfect and, you
know, perfectly chased,perfectly pure, perfectly
innocent, which you know kind offeeds into the whole she's
going into confinement thing.
We don't discuss the fact thatyou know she's having a child or
(04:00):
she's even pregnant, like womenhad to hide their pregnancies
because and if once you got upto a certain size, most women
didn't even really leave thehouse because you don't show
that you're pregnant, and ifwomen did did go out in public,
like there are I've read acouple biographies and stuff
where they would talk about thefact that women and other people
(04:26):
would look away from them inpublic if it was noticeable that
they were pregnant.
Like it was such a taboo thingthat you couldn't even
acknowledge the fact that youwere brought to bring life into
this world.
So the fact that so they hadthis, this movement in society
(04:50):
basically of treating sex as ataboo subject like sexuality,
was taboo.
You do not acknowledge it, itdoes not exist, we don't talk
about it, and it was mainlygeared towards women, like I
said so that those, those moralvalues, I guess you could call
them kind of made their way intolike the big revival movements
(05:18):
in in the 19th century,especially during the 1960s.
And, like you know, everybodytalks about the big 10 revivals,
right like where they would setup the big 10.
So, you know, people will comefrom miles around to to worship
and hear these pastors, thesespeakers, speak, and like.
This kind of movement started inlike I think it was the late
(05:43):
1870s, 1880s, and they becameextremely popular after, like,
during and after the 1960s,after the big sexual revolution
that mainly occurred in theUnited States, from what I can
tell.
You know everybody talks aboutthe hippie era, but mainly after
the 1960s, during the big, youknow, sexual revolution.
(06:05):
There was this huge reaction tothat movement and part of that
was a the emergence, basically,of an actual official platform
for purity culture, because alot of these people in the 20th
(06:27):
century started promoting, youknow, purity culture as as
something that women needed toaspire to and so it became
popular with, with people thatwere like.
They were organizations thatstarted popping up in the 20th
century, like the white crosssociety, american purity
(06:48):
alliance.
You had authors like JoshuaHarris, organizations like true
love weights, and you knowgroups and people like that,
authors who started promotingthis idea of, you know, sexual
abstinence until marriage andjust the general importance of,
of purity within likeChristianity.
(07:10):
And so also because of likethis huge cultural shift where,
like they had this big sexualrevolution, where people just
and I mean in my opinion the1960s were just crazy and I
think anybody will agree to thatthere was this huge cultural
shift and in my opinion it waslike a general decline of morals
(07:32):
and a result of that was purityculture starting to gain
momentum within, especiallywithin the United States, and
Christian, various Christiandenominations like latched on to
it and there were actually acouple of not even just
denominations but more of justgroups like Bill Gother and the
(07:54):
IVLP kind of emerged out of.
They were like a reaction ofthe sexual evolution in the
1960s in the feminist movementand groups like that, people
like him, various denominations,christian denominations they
started promoting thisabstinence based purity culture
(08:17):
and part of that was extrememodesty and to these people
modesty was the way to achievepurity.
And so you had this hugepopular popularization of like
(08:39):
purity culture and and extrememodesty and it was, it was
basically taught as a way to tofix what had happened in America
in the 1960s and 1970s and so,like a lot of people, they just
absolutely latched on to thatand it became.
(08:59):
It became a way of life for alot of people.
People started raising theirdaughters to follow this, this,
this way of living, and one ofthe things that people started
doing and this is always I meanlooking back, and I did this
when I was younger looking backat it's a very odd thing, but
(09:23):
one of the things people starteddoing, especially in it it was
mainly so mainly started in the1980s, late 1980s, early 1990s
is when it started becomingpopular was the emergence of
purity rings.
The concept of purity rings wasbasically a promise.
Some people actually would takevows, but it was basically a
(09:45):
promise to remain pure andmodest until marriage and the
ring was a like a daily physicalreminder of the promise that
you had made to God and to yourfuture spouse, yourself, to your
friends, your family.
When I, when I made the promise, my mom bought me the purity
(10:08):
ring and I made the promisealong with two others of my
friends and like we both had allof our families there, like
extended family, likegrandparents and stuff.
We were Catholics, so like thepriest kind of overlooked the
entire, the entire process andlike the prayers and everything
(10:30):
in the promise that we had likethese little placards that had
the prayer on them.
And then we had a card that hadthe purity promise typed out on
it and who we were making thepromise to and why, and then we
had to sign our name to it andthen they were laminated and I
(10:52):
kept that until I was in my lateteens and I honestly have no
idea what happened to that cardor the purity ring.
Like I took off the purity ringthe night before I got married.
I took it off and I thought I'dput it inside of one of the
pockets of my suitcase before mywedding night.
(11:14):
And when I went back to get it,because I had this plan, I was
gonna save it, because it waslike this black, sapphire,
silver ring and I had this planthat I was gonna save it for my
oldest daughter when you knowshe became a vage to make that
same promise and I can't find itlike it is just gone, like I
(11:37):
distinctly remember putting itinside that suitcase, but it's
just gone, which is probably forthe best, but anyways, yeah, so
this there was this huge likesurge in popularity when it came
to like purity rings and it wasactually people like like
Joshua Harris and people likehim, authors like him, who they
(11:58):
actually like really encouragedand really pushed people to
commit to purity pledges.
So, yeah, they were like these,these physical reminders of
this promise that we had made toremain sexually pure into a
marriage, and like the conceptbehind remaining sexually pure
until marriage and maintainingchastity and purity is a concept
(12:21):
I stand 100% behind.
I just want to put that outthere.
Okay, I am 100% behind thevirtue of purity.
I think it is extremelyimportant thing and I think our
culture in general, society ingeneral, treats the concept of
sex and everything entails.
I think they treat it entirelytoo flippantly.
(12:43):
I think it is a very sacredunion and should be treated as
such, but hookup culture hascompletely destroyed what sex is
supposed to be about.
So, like I said, I 100% standbehind remaining sexually pure
until marriage.
That being said, purity cultureand the concept behind it I
(13:07):
believe it had good beginnings,but it has.
It has changed into somethingthat is just.
It is very, very sad andextremely damaging and extremely
harming, especially for girls,especially for girls.
I have not met a young girl yetwho has come out of purity
(13:31):
culture with without any likementally damaging ideas or
trauma and like.
Part of that is the fact that inpurity culture and the way, the
way it's been twisted, is thatgirls, because because purity
culture it focuses very heavilyon physical modesty, right.
(13:51):
As a result of that, girlsbasically become the gatekeepers
of everyone's sexual morality.
So, based on how you dress, youaffect, you know, the sexual
morality of the men around youis the premise of this.
So if you wear a skirt that isa little too short, say like
(14:12):
right above your knees, and aman, like, according to most
people, evangelical Christiansand traditionalist Catholics who
embrace this whole concept, youknow, a skirt above your knees
is considered in modest becauseI don't know why, but it's
considered immodest.
So if a man, you know, lustsafter you while you're wearing
(14:37):
the skirt that was above yourknees, you are responsible for
that man's sin.
And so you know, going throughlife being told that you are
responsible for the sin of lustof every man that you know has
ever walked by you and looked atyou and you know thought you
were sexually attractive in anyway like that is so incredibly
(15:00):
damaging and it completelytwists sexuality in a girl's
mind.
Growing up, like from a veryyoung age, I viewed myself as a
sexual object, because I wasalways told I had to dress a
certain way so that men didn'tlust after me, so men weren't
tempted by me, because if theydid, then I was responsible for
(15:23):
their sin.
And so I was constantly likehyper aware of what I wore and
how it was going to affect themen around me, even down to,
like, the way I walked.
Like I had to be hyper aware ofhow I walked, because if I
walked a certain way, if my hipsswung too much, that was also
(15:45):
considered tempting the men.
If I wore a skirt that was, youknow, cut a certain way to
where it hugged my hips a littletoo much, that was also
considered tempting the men.
If I wore a shirt that was alittle too tight on my hip, on
my not my hips my waist or on mybust, that was considered
tempting the men.
I couldn't wear sleeves thatwere shorter than halfway
(16:05):
between my elbow and myshoulders, because, again, that
would be tempting the men aroundme.
And so I was always hyper awareof everything I wore, because
if I wore something that othersdeemed to be immodest and a man
lusted after me because of it intheir mind, then I was, you
know, I was liable for his sin,I was going to be punished for
his sin.
(16:26):
And so going through life withthat twisted concept of
sexuality and modesty because,again, like there was no, there
was no teaching of modesty withimpurity, culture of of like
true biblical modesty, and thatalso is an extremely problematic
thing, like not being taughtwhat true modesty is Without the
(16:50):
Bible.
You look up any quote onmodesty.
There is only one quote thatyou can find that actually talks
about the outward appearance ofsomeone and that is the quote
where they say they talk aboutnot wearing a man's garment and
a man not wearing a woman'sgarment, and that is the only
(17:12):
that is the only quote that Icould ever find talking about
the outward appearance of thewoman.
And beyond, beyond not adorningourselves with the costly
jewelry or gold or pearls or thecostly apparel or something
(17:34):
like that, they always talkedabout a woman who fears the Lord
is to be praised, or abeautiful woman is one with
discretion.
In one Samuel 16, seven, theytalk about the Lord not looking
upon his appearance or theheight of his stature, but the
(17:56):
Lord looking upon the state ofthe man's heart.
They they talk about the womanadorning herself with good works
and self control and godlinessand things like that.
They the only verse, the onlyverse that I could find where it
(18:17):
talks about a woman wearing aspecific type of garment is in
Deuteronomy 22.5, where it saysa woman shall not wear a man's
garment.
No shell, a man put on awoman's cloak, for whoever does
these things is in a combinationto the Lord, your God, and that
is actually generally acceptedto be talking about
transvestites and which, intoday's culture, we'll be
(18:39):
talking about transsexuals.
That is the only verse thatdeals with women putting on a
man's clothes, which, you know,in modesty culture they're
generally talking about womenwearing jeans, women wearing
pants and things like that.
And so, yeah, this whole ideaof modesty being an outward,
(19:09):
being entirely about youroutward appearance has been like
and you being responsible for aman's sin because of it is just
so, so twisted and so damagingand just so hard to grow up with
, because from a very young ageI'm talking like eight or nine
years old this was what wastaught to me, and so you know,
(19:31):
from from as far back as I canremember, like I was always
hyper aware of how I walked andhow I dressed and even how I
spoke to men because, like, eveneven being overly friendly, you
could be accused of beingflirtatious, which would be then
construed to be tempting themen.
And so it was just.
(19:53):
It was difficult to to come fromfrom that to where I am now,
where I'm just like you know,modesty isn't all about what you
put on the outside.
A lot of the most immodestgirls I knew growing up.
You know they had sleeves totheir, you know their, their
(20:14):
wrists and skirts down to theirankles.
Modesty has nothing to do withyour outside appearance and it
has everything to do with thevirtues that you have inside.
Now, the virtues you haveinside, you know, if they're
practiced properly, will beexhibited by your outward
appearance and by how you carryyourself, how you treat others,
(20:36):
and you know how you worship Godand how you, how you speak to
children and how you regulateyour emotions and like.
All of that is that is theoutward appearance of modesty.
That is what modesty is and,like I mentioned earlier, it is.
That is what is talked about inthe Bible.
A beautiful woman is one withdiscretion.
(20:59):
The Lord looks upon our hearts.
You know things like that, likedo not let your adorning be
external.
Like they said, do not let youradorning be external.
We adorn our souls with, withpurity we we adorn our souls
with chasteness and things likethat.
And here's a verse I actuallyreally love is 1 Timothy 2,
(21:22):
verse 8 through 10.
I desire, then, that in everyplace, the men should pray,
lifting holy hands, withoutanger or quarreling.
Likewise, also, that womenshould adorn themselves in
respectable apparel, withmodesty and self-control, not
with braided hair and gold orpearls or costly attire, but
with what is proper for womenwho profess godliness, with good
(21:45):
works.
And so even then it's sayingthat modesty is self-control and
is godliness and is good works.
It is not braided hair, gold,pearls and costly attire.
So it has nothing to do withour outer appearance.
Our outward appearance is aresult of what is inside, and so
(22:05):
purity culture focusing soheavily on, you know, the
outward appearance of modesty asbeing the remedy to the sexual
revolution of the 1960s was just, it was insane.
It was insane because that'snot going to fix it, as we can
see, because evangelicalChristians and traditionalist
(22:25):
Catholics, they will deny thistill they're blue in the face.
But it doesn't take a whole lotof research to see that this is
a problem.
But you know, sexual sin is ahuge thing.
It's very much covered up andswept under the rug, but sexual
sin is huge in these circles.
It's huge because a modestybeing pushed, as you know, an
(22:49):
outward appearance and as theremedy to sexual sin, has
hypersexualized women to such apoint that that's all we're seen
as.
That's all we're seen as.
We're seen as the gatekeepersto a man's sexual morality.
And you know, if a man sexuallysins, then we didn't gatekeep
(23:09):
properly and it's our fault.
So, yeah, it's, it's, it's veryharmful and and and there's a
lot of like shame and guilt thatwomen have to deal with on a
daily basis as a result of this.
And you know another anotherthing that has been a result of
purity culture is and this is,you know, goes back to its
(23:34):
origins in a Victorian,victorian era is the fact that,
you know, we talk about women intempting men, we talk about us
being responsible for a man'ssexual sin and All that stuff,
but we don't actually talk aboutsex.
We never talk about it and, asa result of never talking about
(23:57):
it, like there is a huge lack ofactual sex education within
traditionalist circles, andthat's a problem because so we
already have this unrealisticexpectation of purity, we
already have this hypersexualization of women, and then
(24:17):
you throw on top of that thislack of sex education.
Kids are curious, kids aregonna, they're gonna want to
find out what's happening totheir bodies, why it's happening
, and they're gonna go lookingin places that aren't the best
you know internet.
They're gonna talk to theirfriends, they're gonna, they're
gonna read books they've checkedoff in the library or whatever,
(24:39):
and they're going to, as aresult of all of this, are going
to have a very twisted idea ofwhat sexuality Really is, which
is also going to feed back intothe problem of this hyper
sexualization of girls and womenand this, this unrealistic,
realistic expectation of sex andpurity within, within
(25:02):
fundamentalist andtraditionalist circles.
So this is something that itneeds to be talked about more.
It needs to be worked on likethis is not, this is not a small
problem and it's not going awayAnytime soon unless people
actually start discussing it.
(25:22):
And I'm talking about, I'mtalking about people within
Christianity and withinCatholicism.
Like this has to be talkedabout.
This needs to be discussed.
People need to start being moreopen with their children.
They need to start actuallylooking into what the Bible says
about modesty.
They need to start actuallypracticing true purity and true
(25:42):
modesty within themselves andwithin their families, not just,
you know, forcing unrealisticstandards of dress and modesty
on their children.
This needs to be done like.
People need to actually startliving a true Christian lives.
This is because periodic cultureis not what it's turned into,
is not, is not true Christian,truly Christian.
It is not in any way, shape orform.
(26:03):
Women should not be forced tobe the gatekeepers of a man's
Sexual purity.
It is not our job to make surethat you maintain self-control.
That's not my job.
My job is is my soul.
My job is my sexual purity.
Your job is yours.
(26:24):
And the fact that purityculture Basically forces women
to gatekeep men's sexual purityis just sick and it needs to
stop.
I hope you enjoyed this episodeon Purity culture and its
origins and just a briefintroduction into my experience
(26:44):
with purity culture.
This is basically the start ofa short series I will be doing
on Purity culture and I'll beinterviewing different people
throughout the course of thenext month or two, who have had
experience with purity culture,its impacts on their lives and
what their thoughts are and howthey're trying to break the
(27:04):
cycles of purity culture withintheir families and how they're
introducing like sex educationto their kids, and so on and so
forth.
Like I said before, this issomething that is a huge problem
.
It's a generational problem andit needs to stop, and it starts
with how we introduce Sexualityto our kids and how we are
teaching true purity and modestyto our children.
(27:28):
So I hope you enjoyed thisepisode and I will see you guys
all next week.
Thank you for tuning in to thisepisode of all our little messes
.
Please let us know how much youenjoyed it below and add any
questions you have about thisepisode.
(27:48):
Also, don't forget to follow uson patreon for amazing
exclusive perks, including earlyaccess to podcast episodes and
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You could check us out onFacebook and Instagram for daily
(28:09):
updates and insights thatmirror podcast topics.
Thank you for listening andwe'll see you next week.
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