Youth group was an incredibly gendered time in the mid 2000s. It was the age of Joshua Harris’ I Kissed Dating Goodbye, and the idolisation of friends who saved their first kiss for their wedding day. It was also the age of gender-segregated talks on purity.
Once a year, at youth group, the girls would be shuffled into a room to learn about modesty and how to love your brother in Christ.
“Don’t do anything with a man that you wouldn’t go with your brother” we were told. “Unless you’re married!”.
These talks were also designed to reinstate the importance of saving sex until marriage.
I was told things like, ‘You can’t un-chew a piece of gum’ and ‘Once you scrunch up a piece of paper, even if you fold it flat you can still see the crinkles’.
I knew there were people in the congregation, people my age, who had experienced non-consensual sex, but in my self-absorbed teendom, I didn’t give much thought to how these messages may have been interpreted. I just focused on how I could love my brothers in the Godliest way possible, so that they would fall in love with me in the husband-and-wife way.
I knew one of the boys found perfume attractive, so I wouldn’t wear it. Another loved braids, so I didn’t do my hair that way. I had to make sure my shoulders were covered, and a t-shirt was worn over my swimsuit lest I tempt my brothers into sin. The most attractive thing I could do was to be the most unattractive, while they ran around the pool shirtless, their bodies unfamiliar and glorious.
While the girls were learning about modesty, boys would be shuffled into another room, to talk about the harms of porn and masturbation. Some churches said masturbation was wrong, others told young boys to ‘masturbate to a grey, lifeless form’ if they had to do it, so they didn’t lust after an identifiable person’s body.
When I left the church and started writing about how the church’s teachings on purity impacted my relationship with my body and my relationship with men, a well-meaning youth leader from my teens reached out. She wanted to assure me that’s not how they taught modesty anymore, that it wasn’t so gendered. ‘We didn’t know back then’, she stressed.
‘I’m still suffering from the unintended consequences from back then!’ I wanted to scream. Instead I wrote something like ‘I’m glad to hear’ and let the conversation lie.
I appreciate that, for the most part, Australian churches do things differently now. That they speak about the harms of porn with everyone, because everyone can access it, and gender is not the common denominator when it comes to who gets off on it and who doesn’t. That they don’t lord virginity over young women like it’s the only thing they have of value for their future husbands. That the burden of responsibility for a man’s lust does not lie with women.
Good on you, church. Good job. As much as you hate ‘keeping up with the times’ and are afraid of buckling to a ‘more secular way of doing things’, you did it.
But what about those of us no longer in your congregation and, in fact, those who still are, who grew up with this teaching? What about those who are still impacted by decades of purity culture? Changing the way you teach now, does not erase the way you taught back then if there is so acknowledgement of it.
I want an apology.
I want each minister to call out the harmful ways their institution has impacted women, specifically young women, and offer support. I want them to say, ‘We used to teach THIS, and we recognise this can have adverse effects because it means THIS. We don’t teach it like that anymore because of it and we are sorry for the damage done… We have several Christian and non-religiously affiliated therapists connected to our church, so please see X after the service to get connected.’
And so on and so forth.
For those no longer in the church, these statements can be made public, too. Dare I see the church make a public apology without a petition warranting it.
Of course, there are many other things the church must apologise for (especially, say, the LGBTQI+ and POC community). Purity teaching isn’t the only way women have been harmed in religious institutions – take one look at sexual assault and domestic violence statistics and the way these survivors are silenced in churches – but I think this is an easy first step.
Also published on Medium.
