Purity Culture Quotes

“No one can be authentically human while he prevents others from beings so. Attempting to be more human, individually, leads to having more, egotistical, a form of dehumanization.”
― Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

“Both parties can consent to one-sided sex, but that should not be the bar set for a healthy relationship.

Just because it's not rape doesn't mean it isn't dehumanizing.”
― Zachary Wagner, Non-Toxic Masculinity: Recovering Healthy Male Sexuality

“Why is the superficial, legalistic approach of purity culture often so ineffective in curbing toxic masculinity in Christian men? Because it deals in a truncated, false gospel. Rules and regulations for sexual behavior don't make men new. Rather, the renewal of our minds and bodies by the Holy Spirit is the solution to the broken masculinity that plagues our culture and churches.”
― Zachary Wagner, Non-Toxic Masculinity: Recovering Healthy Male Sexuality

“A woman who 'acts like a man' - who is bold and assertive, and refuses to defer to male authority - is threatening to a system that makes women responsible for men's feelings.”
― Dianna Anderson, Damaged Goods: New Perspectives on Christian Purity

“The purity message nestles neatly into the larger “us” versus “them” messaging I was raised with in the church. Those on the “positive” side of the binary are said to have access to God, Heaven, the community, and a happy life as one of “us.” Those on the “negative” side of the binary are said to be isolated from God, alone, and headed for Hell, a place of suffering reserved explicitly for “them.” Though one’s place on that binary is technically supposed to be determined by one’s belief system, let’s face it—you can’t see into another person’s heart and know whether she really believes these things or has just memorized a bunch of talking points. So if you want to assess who’s really a Christian and who’s not—and lots of people do—you need a proxy, some externally measurable quality that is deemed representative of the person’s internal commitment...

...Growing up, I heard a lot of talk about how evangelical Christians were better people than secular or other religious people (funnily enough, I now hear the exact same self-congratulatory messages from secular liberal people). But the truth was, I couldn’t always tell the difference between a Christian and a non-Christian. I saw both lie, both steal, both love, and both unselfishly give to others. But one tangible thing we could point to as evangelicals was that we didn’t have sex before marriage. There was that. There was always that. (10-11)

“Don’t just be pure in body; you need to be pure in spirit . . .” Everything was just so intertwined with each other. It almost seemed like if you weren’t being physically impure, you were being spiritually and emotionally impure. Being “pure” became this really heavy, heavy weight to bear all the time. It almost made me go crazy questioning, “Well, is this impure? . . . Is this wrong? . . . Is this okay? . . . Is this going on?” (Holly) (12)”
― Linda Kay Klein, Pure: Inside the Evangelical Movement That Shamed a Generation of Young Women and How I Broke Free

“I'm sure you're thinking, "Is she honestly trying to claim she was indoctrinated into the patriarchy due to JC (son of God) and JC (Chasez) being in cahoots to love-bomb us via Scripture and/or song, causing us to believe these unrealistic highly respectful wholesome men need to save us, thus grooming us to be deferential and 'save' ourselves for them?" Yes, yes, I am. I'm not sure it's working, but these are the things I think about in my spare time. Is this conspiracy more or less believable than blue balls? I digress.”
― Kate Kennedy, One in a Millennial: On Friendship, Feelings, Fangirls, and Fitting In

“Why is the superficial, legalistic approach of purity culture often so ineffective in curbing toxic masculinity in Christian men? Because it deals in a truncated, false gospel. Rules and regulations for sexual behavior don't make men new. Rather, the renewal of our minds and bodies by the Holy Spirit is the solution to the broken masculinity that plagues our culture and churches.”
― Zachary Wagner, Non-Toxic Masculinity

“Both parties can consent to one-sided sex, but that should not be the bar set for a healthy relationship.

Just because it's not rape doesn't mean it isn't dehumanizing.”
― Zachary Wagner, Non-Toxic Masculinity

“Sometimes our interpretations of the Bible say more about us than they do about the Bible itself.”
― Linda Kay Klein