Sexual Morality

Under Lock and Key

So I know I’ve already had one post about this topic this week, but thanks to an email I received the other day, I’m back to it again. After reading the email, I resisted the urge to rip my hair out at the roots. Instead, here is part of the text, with my comments interspersed:

I have a friend named Paul who told me about the wedding of his daughter. He said that part of the wedding ceremony was the passing on of a single gold key on a necklace. When his daughter was a young girl, just entering puberty, Paul gave her a gold key on a chain. He also bought one for himself. He told her that he wanted her to wear the gold key around her neck to represent her commitment to sexual purity. That she would remain a virgin until marriage, guarding herself from any form of sexual expression or experience that would dishonor God and be harmful to herself. And then He would wear one around his neck as well to reflect his commitment to guard and protect her as her father.

Does anyone else find this kind of…creepy? I am all for parents protecting their children. But I do not—NOT—want my daughter to pledge her virginity to her father. If she chooses to pledge her purity to anyone, it ought to be God. And while I applaud parents who care about their children, I don’t think this is the way to do show it. Parents should have open communication with their kids, not superficial pledges based in patriarchal customs. Not to mention how weird it makes me feel that a father would have this conversation with his prepubescent daughter.

And protect her he did! They had a rule that before a boy could take her out on a date, he had to meet Paul and ask his permission, which weeded out more than its fair share of suitors. Those young men willing to meet him were engaged in a conversation that would involve Paul talking to the boy about the key. He would tell them how precious his daughter was to him, how prized she was in his eyes and in God’s. And then he would ask the boy point blank: can I trust you with my daughter?

Again, yay for the parent meeting potential dates. It’s a good idea to know who your kid spends time with. Not so yay for the creepy stalker behavior and talking to people you (or your kid) may not know very well about her virginity.

At her wedding, here’s what happened. She gave him her key back, representing that she had fulfilled her pledge to remain a virgin until marriage. Because she had. And then, as part of the ceremony, she publicly thanked him for how he had raised her, because now she was giving the most precious gift she could give to her husband. Then Paul took the key off of his own neck, and gave it to her husband, saying that now the mantle of protection and integrity was his responsibility.

Aaargh! Aaargh! Aaargh! “Her most precious gift”????? I really, really hope that young woman had something to bring to her marriage besides her lack of sexual experience. Because if that’s the best she can give her husband, that marriage is doomed. And if her husband would have rejected her because of her past, then he has issues, too. Ugh. Don’t even get me started on the passing of the key representing how her husband now “owns” her and is responsible for not only protecting her (whatever that’s supposed to mean) but for her integrity. Last I checked, my integrity rests on my shoulders.

It also occurs to me that the creepy factor has not disappeared at the wedding. Why, oh why, does this father have anything whatsoever to do with his adult daughter’s state of virginity? I would hazard a guess that the bride is still fairly young (I honestly can’t see a thirty-five-year-old woman not demanding that key back ages ago). But I’m sure (well, I’m hoping, anyway) that she’s over eighteen, probably somewhat older. So what the heck is Dear Old Dad still doing protecting her purity? I don’t believe that it’s his business anymore.

Of course, I should note that I think this particular story is an urban legend, Christian-style. I know that people actually do this sort of thing, but this specific story just sounds like the sort of drivel that gets shared in spammy emails, but isn’t factual. It’s meant to have the same effect as all urban legends: To teach us some moral lesson. I want to believe that this purity pledge culture means well. I really do. Except that it all just comes across as closer to “your cow for my daughter” than helping young people navigate their relationships. This is a side effect of some of the other things I’ve talked about this week—idolizing virginity, the male gaze, and double standards for men and women. Is this the message we want to send to our children?

The problem with things like the purity rings or the “sex key” is that they stand as an external measure of someone’s worth. That daughter only has value as long as she keeps her key on and her legs together. I know parents want to look out for their kids and want them to make good decisions. But in this case, should that daughter lose her virginity before she’s married, she loses much more than that. She loses at least some of her worth before her father. If you think I’m exaggerating, try again. I’ve seen it happen.

What’s sad about that is that it isn’t an accurate representation of the way God deals with us. We never lose worth in God’s eyes. I may not like some things my kids do. But I will never, ever extract a promise to “be good” regarding any behavior. And should either of my children have sex before marriage, I will consider it a) their choice, not mine, and b) not my business, as it’s between them and their partner (and God).

I see no support in the Bible for this purity culture crap. I have nothing at all against waiting for sex until marriage. I support it. I commend it. But pledging to one’s parent to remain a virgin isn’t in Scripture. I see no evidence that this is how we should treat our daughters. (Or our sons, for that matter. I can’t envision myself exchanging purity rings with mine.) Instead, we should be helping our children—both boys and girls—make healthy, wise, moral decisions in their lives. We should be empowering them to trust God and make their commitments to God, not to us. And that’s something you actually can find in the Bible.

Double Standards and Wedding Cake

Sexual Morality, Sexuality and Gender, Women

I wrote yesterday about the way sexual purity has been idolized, particularly for women. I want to follow that up, because there is still something bothering me.

Many years ago, long before I was married, my friends and I discovered something interesting. One of the young women I knew back then had ended up broken-hearted after a relationship ended. He didn’t just cause her pain by leaving her. He ripped out her heart, stomped on it, and left it a bloody pulp. He utterly crushed her by making her feel dirty and damaged. He had found out that she wasn’t a virgin and told her he couldn’t be with someone who wasn’t pure. But even worse, he confessed later that he himself was sexually experienced.

Talk about a double standard.

I decided that this would make interesting “research.” I wondered if this was a common perspective among males. Did they all want the same thing? I questioned both my male and female friends on the subject and found some not-so-surprising results. Nearly every guy I asked said they would either not want to marry a woman if she weren’t a virgin or would have serious reservations. This included involuntary sexual activity. There were only two exceptions. One said he couldn’t justify being judgmental because he had already had sex. The other was gay.

On the flip side, the majority of women said they didn’t really care. They figured that what was in the past was behind them, and as long as he wasn’t pressuring them, it wasn’t a problem. Only those who had the most fundamentalist worldview preferred the idea of marrying a man with no prior sexual activity. Now, this is only anecdotal, and my sample was limited to my own friends and acquaintances. It was fascinating nonetheless, and I have a feeling it wouldn’t be much different among other Christian populations.

In yesterday’s post, I reviewed some common metaphors used in abstinence-based education. They were all about damage: The wedding cake, demolished flower, chewed candy, spit-filled cup. Obviously, the aim is to demonstrate how a girl or woman has been forever ruined by her sexual history.

Wait…but the guy wouldn’t be “ruined”?! So, he could be forgiven of his indiscretion, and he could move on, but she would have to live with the shame and guilt forever. There is definitely something wrong with that. Female virginity is still seen as a prize, and men who don’t get to claim it should be sorely disappointed. But male virginity isn’t important, at least in the long-term.

One thing I’ve turned up is that there is a difference in what we consider the Big Sex Evil when it comes to men and women. Men are often shamed for their “lust.” You can see the evidence for this with a simple Google search. There are literally thousands of web sites devoted to discussing, preventing, and treating lust (usually described in terms of porn and solo sex). If men give in to their desires, it’s almost considered inevitable, given the fact that “all” men have issues with lust. (Apparently, women don’t; we don’t have much a sex drive.)

Those aforementioned sermon illustrations, however, are obviously aimed at women (picking the petals off a flower and saying its beauty has been destroyed, anyone?). I don’t personally know any men who are ashamed that they had sex before marriage, even Christian men. I know far too many women who still, years later, beat themselves up over not waiting until walking down the aisle. Included in this are the women who feel the need to excuse or explain the fact that their children are older than their marriages, despite the fact that it’s really not anyone else’s business. I haven’t seen any men try to field that particular question.

One key difference between lust-shame and virginity-shame is that men aren’t considered damaged goods if they got off to Playboy. They’re not all used up. Again, men get to move on. There may be ongoing shame, but only if they continue to interact with porn. But once a woman’s virginity is gone, it’s gone.

I don’t think the answer is to make it more shameful for men to have premarital sex or for women to look at porn. The answer is to stop using it as a weapon. While I’m all for having morals and values when it comes to sex, I’m not much of a fan of using purity standards (of any kind) as a battle-ax. I believe somewhere out there is a better way for us to think about and deal with sexual morality.

The Purity Idol

Sexual Morality, Sexuality and Gender

I want to begin by making it very clear that I am not advocating for sin, nor am I suggesting anyone revise their opinion about what is or isn’t sin. Here, I am going to focus on how we’ve turned purity into an idol.

I recently read a comment on another blog post where someone was describing a youth group activity about virginity. The students were shown a wedding-style cake. The girls were sent from the room, but the boys remained. The boys were instructed to dive in and enjoy the cake. When the girls returned, the experience was compared to what it’s like if a guy “takes” a girl’s virginity before she’s married. She becomes like that cake, utterly destroyed. She is “damaged goods.”

It’s not the only lesson illustration of its kind. Other common teaching tools for “purity” education include partially chewed candy or gum, previously licked lollipops, roses with the petals torn off, cups of spit. You can see some of them in this video:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoIeXgCfwNI&w=560&h=315]

(You can see more videos on abstinence-only sex education from Amplify Your Voice here.)

We have definitely made an idol of virginity, particularly for women. We even deliver retroactive guilt—people are shamed for having had sex before marriage even when they weren’t Christians at the time. I can recall the popularity of virginity renewal pledges and all the talk about how we could become spiritually pure again if we had committed such a grave crime against God.

What would happen if we placed the same kind of emphasis on shaming people for non-sexual sins? What if we stopped elevating virginity to the top tier as proof of Christian faith and self-control? Would it actually lead to less sinful behavior, or would it just increase shame and guilt in other areas of our lives? How about instead, we stop treating people as if a single event (loss of virginity, in this case) defines the rest of their lives.

Lead Me On

Sexual Morality, Sexuality and Gender, Women

Our sexual ethics need to begin with respect, and that respect needs to begin with viewing others as living, breathing beings, not objects.

I’ve posted about this before (and you can read it here and here), but I think this is a subject worth revisiting: How men treat women based on standards of modesty. I’m taking another shot at it because a) I can; and b) I apparently didn’t make myself clear the first two times.

Message for boys and men: I do not care how she is dressed, you have NO EXCUSE WHATSOEVER for not treating a girl or woman with respect. The old, “If you’re going to dress like that, expect men to treat you a certain way” doesn’t cut it. (And yes, this is what is being taught in many churches as “sex and relationships.” Trust me, I’ve been there and back.)

I don’t care whether she is a “working girl” or just working in your office. It makes no difference. You may feel that she is dressed inappropriately, “leading,” or just downright slutty, but your opinion doesn’t matter. If you decide that the way she’s dressed is an invitation to grope her, tell her dirty jokes, or suggest things you might do together in bed, you are in dangerous waters, my friend. Whatever she is doing “wrong” (which may boil down to your own sorry excuses anyway), you had better leave her alone.

For one thing, that’s called sexual harassment and it’s—get this—against the law when it is ongoing or severe, creating a hostile environment.

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s move on to the concept of being dressed “like that.” What does that mean? I’ve asked this before, and I’ve never gotten a straight answer. I can see how wearing fishnets and a leather miniskirt might be provocative, of course. But I’ve heard all sorts of ideas about what is or is not acceptably modest on girls and women. Heck, I’ve been accused of being immodest myself, which ought to make anyone who knows me laugh themselves silly.

So someone, please, tell me what I should have my daughter avoid when she reaches her teen years. What clothes do I need to ixnay in the store? Where’s the line between pretty and trashy? I always thought this was obvious, but I’m hearing differently from some of the boys and men that I know. And the funny thing is, since my husband and I share an opinion about what we think is okay, then he is clearly not to be trusted either. So whose advice do I need?

Well, guess what? I’m putting my foot down. I’m saying right here and now that I will allow my daughter to dress the way I believe is appropriate. And if any boy harasses her, she has my permission to punch him in the teeth. (Those of you who know my daughter personally will have no trouble imagining her doing this. I’ve always maintained that she’s going to be the one to screen her brother’s potential dates, not the other way around. In fact, I think I’m going to send her as a chaperone.)

Beyond that, I’m going to demand that we stop telling our sons that it’s wrong to ogle girls, but that if they dress like sluts, then we understand that they couldn’t help themselves. You know what? Shut up about that already. We get it. Some girls and women don’t know how to be modest. Fine. We’ll work on that. And yeah, we get it that your eyes and your penis (yes, I said it, so sue me) are directly connected. (You keep reminding us of this, how could we forget?) However, there are no other circumstances where we tell people it’s okay to sin if you were “provoked” into it. It’s damn well NOT okay and we all know it, even if it has to do with sex. Stop blaming women for being whores and start teaching boys how to act like gentlemen.

Toward a Better Sexual Ethic

Sexual Morality, Sexuality and Gender

As Christians, we need to develop a healthier sexual ethic. Twenty-first century Americans are surrounded by so many mixed messages and conflicting attitudes that even within the church it can be difficult to make sense of it all.

Every day, we are bombarded with sexuality. It’s on television, in the movies, on the Internet, on the radio, and in books and magazines. It’s used to sell everything from cars to food and drink. Clothing styles reflect our attitudes toward sex. Sex and sex talk are everywhere.

This is not the cause of a problem, it’s the reflection of one. Despite the ubiquitousness of sexuality, we are still a nation of people with extremely unhealthy attitudes toward intimacy. I don’t just mean the morality of sex, although I think that’s exactly what a lot of Christians would like to claim.

In both the public health sector and private religious circles, there are competing and equally damaging notions of love, sex, and intimate relationships. Public health education would have us believe that sex is great, but it’s inherently sort of dirty and leads to negative consequences—namely unwanted pregnancy and diseases. Religious conservatives of all stripes claim that sex is wonderful and fulfilling, but only in a man-woman marriage context. Anything else is dirty in a different way—it’s shameful. Meanwhile, media celebrates sex as having no more significance than what color socks you wear. These are all negative, disappointing, and unhealthy ideas.

None of it is working. We haven’t stopped people from having indiscriminate sex by scaring them about diseases and pregnancy. We haven’t helped people to make wise choices by shaming them about their experience. And we haven’t developed positive attitudes toward sex by making it visible. Instead, each of those things has served only to elevate sex to the point of becoming an idol. And yes, even the church has contributed to that.

In the church, we’ve turned sexual sin into the Big Bad. There is nothing more terrible than sex outside the confines of a marriage between one man and one woman. It doesn’t matter that the Bible has a lot more to say about how we treat the poor, for example, or the ways in which our words can hurt others. Stepping over a homeless beggar is far less important than whether or not two consenting adults slept together last night.

The proof of this is in how we use retroactive guilt. I have friends who still, even after many years, feel ashamed that they didn’t wait for sex until they were married. It’s more than just beating themselves up for past sins. These were people who had sex before they were Christians. That means that the shame laid on them happened after they came into the church. I sincerely doubt that they feel the same sense of shame and embarrassment over lies they told, people they snubbed, or their failure to give to charity.

We also use shame on our children, in hopes that they will stay away from premarital sex. Let me tell you, this works on some kids. I can tell you from personal experience just how well it works. As a youth, I was absolutely terrified of sex. In fact, I was afraid of any kind of intimacy, because all of it could lead to sex. I turned down dating some great guys because I was scared. Confusion about what was appropriate kept me from being able to recognize the very real difference between love and lust. On top of all of that, I was told that I couldn’t trust my own family to give me guidance. My parents weren’t Christians, my oldest sister was very sexually experienced, and my other sister is a lesbian. Apparently, not one of them qualified as someone I could count on to help me sort out all these feelings. After fifteen years of marriage, I am finally able to peel back the layers of shame and guilt, even though I entered married life as a virgin. We’re not doing our kids any favors by piling it on in hopes they will stay pure.

In my experience as a school nurse and my training as a health educator, I learned that the one difference between ordinary sex education and good sex education is family support. I firmly believe this to be true in church as well. We need more than just reminding people over and over that sex is only for marriage. We need to be able to bring families together to really talk about these issues. We need open communication where sex is not some silent, secret, shameful act, so dirty and so private that only a ring and a wedding make it clean.

I hope to spend the next several posts talking about sexual ethics and how we can move beyond a shame-based view of human intimacy. Stick with me, and feel free to give your input. We may not reach the same conclusions, but that’s okay. My desire is not for consensus but for dialogue. We have to do something to begin healing the brokenness that our nation’s sexuality has become.

Under Lock and Key

Double Standards and Wedding Cake

The Purity Idol

Lead Me On

Toward a Better Sexual Ethic

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