Constructing A New Sexual Ethic

What does a purity culture refugee teach her kids about sex?

Photo by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash

Spending the month immersed in the world of purity culture has been surprisingly cathartic, at least for me. Every time I hear other people’s purity culture stories I’m reminded that I’m not alone and I wasn’t crazy for absorbing these messages of shame and perfectionism around sex.

As I wrap up this month, I’d like to take a moment to call out the messages of purity culture and talk about how I’m changing my thoughts around ethical sexuality. This is something I’d love to hear from readers on, please feel free to share in the comments how you navigate sexual ethics in the year of our Lord 2023.

*Content warning, mention of rape and sexual assault. You can scroll past the first list if that’s not something you want to read about today.

Messages from Purity Culture that I’m Tossing in a Dumpster & Lighting on Fire:

• men are “visual creatures” who cannot be held responsible for their behavior when they see a woman wearing (insert LITERALLY ANY article of clothing here)

• girls and women are responsible for not “tempting” men and boys

• experiencing sexual attraction to someone other than your spouse is a sin

• masturbation is a sin

• sex outside of marriage is a sin

• gay or lesbian sex is a sin

• staying a virgin until marriage guarantees you’ll have an amazing sex life

• girls/women don’t experience much, if any, sexual desire. Feeling “turned on” means you are insufficiently feminine

• committing rape or sexual assault is the same level of “sin” as consensual premarital sex

• “good” girls/women don’t get raped. If a girl or woman is raped or assaulted, she probably provoked her attacker, especially if he is a Christian

• boys/men don’t get raped or sexually assaulted

• there are only two completely distinct genders

• it’s a sin to not comply with your culture’s gender norms

• it’s “God’s plan” for women to be submissive to men

• wives owe their husbands sex. If they don’t have sex often enough, their husband are justified in cheating on them

• committing sexual abuse is just another sin which needs forgiveness, not accountability

• it’s more important to protect the reputation of the church than to hold abusers accountable

Phew! Hang on a sec while I go shower off all those nasty messages.

Okay, I’m back. The question is now, where do we go from here? This feels borderline urgent for me to figure out as my oldest child is likely starting puberty any second now. What do I want to teach him about his body and sex?

This month’s purity culture deep-dive is not the first time I’ve changed my sexual ethics—I was a theater teen with many gay friends and later a newlywed who turned to Dan Savage after feeling bamboozled by Focus on the Family. But this month’s research has helped me synthesize a new sexual ethic, based not on notions of “purity” and disgust psychology, but keeping Jesus’ version of the golden rule as the center: “love your neighbor as you love yourself.” The way I read it, there are two parts: loving yourself and loving others. Here’s how I’ve broken that down in regard to sex:

Heretic Hereafter’s New-ish Sexual Ethics

• From Sarah Lacour’s interview: experiencing sexual attraction and sexual feelings is totally normal. Some people think about sex a lot and some people hardly at all. That’s normal, too.

• it’s okay to explore your body and to figure out what you like and don’t like.

• everyone is responsible for their own behavior—no ifs, ands, or buts.

• Enthusiastic consent is the bare minimum. To me, ethical sex involves showing “concern” and care for each other (as Nadia Bolz-Weber writes in Shameless.) It also requires an understanding of the power dynamics in the relationship. I like Dan Savage’s “campsite rule” for lovers with unequal power dynamics.

• Since everyone is responsible for their own behavior and we ought to show care and concern for each other, “temptation” is never an excuse for violating someone’s consent. People who commit abuse ought to face accountability.

• Sexual orientation is a spectrum. So’s gender. No gender/orientation is superior to another.

• Having sex is like getting a puppy—a lot of fun and also a big responsibility. Before you become sexually active, you need to be mature enough to take good emotional and physical care of yourself and your partner. If you’re too embarrassed to talk about, buy, or use condoms/birth control, you are not mature enough to have sex.

• Keep your promises. If you tell your partner you will be exclusive/monogamous, don’t violate their trust.

• It might take a long time for you to figure out what kind of sex you want. It’s okay to not have everything figured out.

• porn is not real life. If you watch porn (and a lot of people do), try to watch porn that’s ethically made, and don’t overdo it. The internet can dull us to real-life interactions we’re wired for.

• check in with yourself often: am I doing x, y, or z because I want to? Do I feel good about what I’m doing outside of the moment? Or are my motives murkier? Am I responding to peer pressure, or using sex to avoid dealing with something else? If so, it might be time to make a change.

Now I’m picturing my son melting into the floor as I read him my sexuality manifesto! No, I’m not going to do that to him—I’ll make his father do it. (Kidding!) No, as Linda Kay Klein reminded me in her interview, it’s better to have 1,000 small conversations than one big one. My goal for my kids is what I wish I’d grown up with: lots of information, moral guidance as requested, an emphasis on them developing their own ethical framework, and no shame.

In the meantime, I’m going to work on training my brain away from list #1 and towards list #2.

Journal/Discussion Questions:

• Make a list of sexual messages you’d like to unlearn. What does it feel like to reread that list?

• What’s on your list of rules/guidelines for ethical sex? Feel free to share in the comments.

• Name one activity more fun than talking about sexual ethics with your mother, I dare you!