purity culture
{{Short description|1990s Christian movement}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=October 2023}}
Purity culture was a movement in the 1990s within Christianity which emphasized sexual abstinence before marriage.
Components
Purity culture places a strong emphasis on abstinence from sexual intercourse before marriage.{{cite news |last1=Haberman |first1=Clyde |author-link=Clyde Haberman |title=How an Abstinence Pledge in the '90s Shamed a Generation of Evangelicals |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/06/us/abstinence-pledge-evangelicals.html |work=The New York Times |date=April 12, 2021 |access-date=February 8, 2023}} Dating is discouraged entirely to avoid pre-marital sex.
Women and girls are told to cover up and dress modestly to avoid arousing sexual urges in men and boys. Purity culture also emphasizes traditional gender roles.
Masturbation is discouraged more strongly for women than for men.
= Abstinence pledges =
{{Main|Abstinence pledge}}
{{Expand section|date=January 2024}}
= Purity balls =
{{Main|Purity ball}}
A purity ball is a formal dance event. The events are attended by fathers and their teenage daughters in order to promote virginity until marriage. Typically, daughters who attend a purity ball make a virginity pledge to remain sexually abstinent until marriage. Fathers who attend a purity ball make a promise to protect their young daughters' "purity of mind, body, and soul." Proponents of these events believe that they encourage close and deeply affectionate relationships between fathers and daughters, thereby avoiding the premarital sexual activity that allegedly results when young women seek love through relationships with young men.{{cite magazine |last=Baumgardner |first=Jennifer |title=Would You Pledge Your Virginity to Your Father? |magazine=Glamour |date=31 December 2006 |url=https://www.glamour.com/story/purity-balls |access-date=19 January 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120415110254/http://www.glamour.com/sex-love-life/2007/01/purity-balls |archive-date=2012-04-15 |url-status=live}} Critics of the balls argue that they encourage and engrave dysfunctional expectations in the minds of the young women, making them vulnerable to believing their only value is as property, and teaching them that they must subjugate their own mental, physical, and emotional well-being to the needs of potentially or actually abusive partners.{{Cite news |last1=Oppenheimer |first1=Mark |date=July 21, 2012 |title='Purity Balls' Get Attention, but Might Not be All They Claim |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/21/us/purity-balls-local-tradition-or-national-trend.html |newspaper=The New York Times}}
= Purity rings =
{{Main|Purity ring}}
Since the 1990s Christian organizations, especially Catholic and evangelical Christian groups, promoting virginity pledges and virginity before marriage, like True Love Waits and Silver Ring Thing, used the purity ring as a symbol of commitment to purity culture.{{cite news |last1=Bario |first1=David |title=Virginity pledge comes with a ring—and tarnish |url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2005-03-20-0503200443-story.html |work=Chicago Tribune |access-date=February 28, 2021 |language=en |date=March 20, 2005}}{{cite book |last1=Fitzgerald |first1=Kathleen J. |last2=Grossman |first2=Kandice L. |title=Sociology of Sexualities |publisher=SAGE Publications |year=2017 |isbn=978-1-5063-0400-7 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VJBZDgAAQBAJ&pg=PA166 |page=166}}{{cite news |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48509-2005Mar18.html |last=Connolly |first=Ceci |title=Teen Pledges Barely Cut STD Rates, Study Says |newspaper=The Washington Post |date=2005-03-19 |page=A3 |access-date=2011-12-11}}{{cite news |author=Stephanie Rosenbloom |date=2005-12-08 |title=A Ring That Says No, Not Yet |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/08/fashion/thursdaystyles/08purity.html |work=The New York Times |access-date=2014-05-01}}
History
Purity culture had been a facet of Christian writing for a while but purity culture as a youth movement took hold in the 1990s.{{Cite magazine |last=Alea |first=Karen |date=September 20, 2022 |title=Women's Bodies Are Bearing the Brunt of Purity Culture |url=https://jezebel.com/purity-culture-womens-health-issues-post-roe-1849557608 |magazine=Jezebel |access-date=February 8, 2023}} A whole industry selling books, rings, and other products emerged around the movement.
The first purity ball was held in 1998.{{Cite magazine |last=Gibbs |first=Nancy |date=July 17, 2008 |title=The Pursuit of Teen Purity |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1823930,00.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120318054756/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1823930,00.html |archive-date=2012-03-18 |url-status=dead |magazine=Time |access-date=March 15, 2012}}
Purity culture faded out of popularity after the end of the 2000s.{{Cite magazine |last1=Thwaites |first1=Chrissie |date=June 28, 2022 |title=The Impact of Christian Purity Culture Is Still Being Felt – Including in Britain |url=https://theconversation.com/the-impact-of-christian-purity-culture-is-still-being-felt-including-in-britain-182907 |magazine=The Conversation |access-date=February 8, 2023}}
Effects and legacy
Purity culture is largely an American phenomenon although exported abroad by American religious and government groups. It has also influenced groups like Girl Defined.