The Fundamentals of Sex

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We don’t hear much about purity culture anymore. It had its media moment in the 1990s. But purity culture is still integral to the sexually conservative. Purity culture views sex as immoral and sinful outside of heterosexual marriage.

Meanwhile, data from the National Survey of Family Growth, an ongoing study of American behavior, show that by age 30, more than 90 percent of Americans engage in premarital sex. “Almost all Americans have sex before marrying.” The actual proportion is probably higher than 90 percent. Many people won't admit to stigmatized behavior, and for young evangelicals, sex outside heterosexual marriage is highly stigmatized.

Evangelical young people hear one message about sex, but do something else. A recent study shows that this causes cognitive dissonance and shame that may torpedo sexual satisfaction.

Researchers at the University of Texas, Austin, surveyed the sexual attitudes and emotions of 85 students. Fundamentalist Christianity is popular in Texas. Many study participants identified as Evangelicals. At home and at church, they had first-hand experience of purity culture. Compared with other students, those raised with purity imperatives expressed significantly more sexual shame (p = 0.0008). Those feelings interfered with their sexual function (p = 0.001) and satisfaction (p = 0.001).

Purity culture draws its directives from the Christian Bible, especially from these two passages:

“Each man should have sexual relations with his own wife, and each woman with her own husband.” (1 Corinthians 7)

“Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.” (Hebrews 3:14)

Expanding on these verses, purity culture........

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