I don't know if I hate purity culture. I do know there is a lot to hate about it. But yet...I'm kind of somewhere in the middle on this.
As teenagers grow into their own awareness of sexuality, I believe this is something that is intensely personal and unique to each individual. What is most important of all is that one comes to a sound understanding of what sex means to them. I feel like there are two extremes at work in society, one in which sexuality of any presentation is shamed, suppressed, pushed down as deeply as possible in some absurd hope that it will just go away. Don't do it until you're married, anxious adults angrily snap in the direction of growing teens, just don't. Period, the end. This isn't healthy. However, I don't know if I believe that attitudes that are to the opposite extreme are healthy either, ones in which sexual experiences are dismissed as no big deal, something akin to a recreational activity.
The emergence of conceiving of oneself as a sexual being oftentimes does begin to occur in one's adolescence. It is a natural consequence of all of the hormones beginning to turn child bodies into adult ones. And the terms and conditions of what this will come to mean for each person isn't something that can be dictated by external parties. I think there are few things adults are more terrified by than the emergent sexuality of adolescents. And surely, there is much to be feared. Unwanted pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases, how to understand and exercise consent properly...inexperience in this area would surely yield a greater vulnerability for all of these things.
A person's sexual orientation and their gender identity and expression are elements that are intensely personal. They cannot and should not be dictated by an external source. The sexual expression of young people becoming adults falls into this category, as well.
I believe that adolescents need guidance in this area more so than they need condemnation or permission. Guidance is a stance of scaffolded support in which young people are better able to thoughtfully consider who they are becoming, how they want to express what this is, and ultimately, who they are in the contexts of themselves as sexual beings.
When I was a young teenager, I had no guidance. And as a result, I made choices that weren't right for me because I had no compass to even know what "right" even was. And the fact that I was in the throes of untreated frontal lobe damage manifesting heavily in a lack of impulse control and a higher propensity to act out sexually didn't help.
If I would have had any scaffolded support as I figured this emerging part of myself out, I would have known that I was the type of person who should have waited until marriage.
Again: not everyone is the same. I will never be up on a soap box insisting that because this is so for me, it is so for everyone. But this was authentically who I was. For me, sex was something very deep and profound. For me, engaging in a sexual act with someone made me feel bound to them as if we were married, as if we had become one flesh. This was just how I was wired. This was what was true for me. I am the type of person who would have been better off only having one sexual partner in my whole life, due to the way that my spirit bound itself to whomever it was that I'd made love.
I was young, indeed. I was 14. I got my first real boyfriend, who was 16. And for the first time ever, I fell in love. And in that moment, beginning to explore my sexuality a little with him made sense. However, when the time came that he wanted to go all the way, I hesitated. In that moment, I knew and I professed, I am supposed to wait until marriage.
Instead of respecting this stance, the boy chose to manipulate me: you know I'm going to marry you one day, he promised. It may seem silly, but I was neurodivergent, took everything everyone said at face value, and had little ability to understand when someone was taking advantage of me versus when they were being genuine.
I yielded. I lost my virginity.
And there aren't words to describe my devastation when, shortly thereafter, he broke up with me. I had developed certain spiritual beliefs that were important to me; even then, I was identifying as Christeopagan--I was in a covenant with God as a vessel of the Mother goddess, like a circle whole and complete. I was only supposed to give my virginity to the person who would be my partner for life, who would then become part of that circle with me. Even the name from which Bliss was derived meant "Consecrated to God." And since I'd given my virginity to someone who'd promised to marry me but decided to leave me instead, then all I could picture was the fact that the circle now had a huge chunk ripped out.
It had all gone wrong, so very wrong.
When my mother inadvertently found out I'd had sex with him, she was infuriated. She told me I was now damaged goods, and no man would ever love me again. That wasn't good news, didn't help my state of mind. I was already struggling with a deep violation of my own authentic truth; having broken glass ground into the wound was the last thing I needed. There were no other older women in my life who were any more supportive. All of them reiterated much of the same: you've done the undoable. You're tarnished, ruined, unclean now.
This had the effect on me that you can probably imagine. I really internalized these beliefs. And, as such, since I was already ruined, what did it matter who I slept with? I started going out and almost indiscriminately doing it with everyone. It was still the wrong thing for me to do, being who I was. And each and every casual encounter I engaged in was, for me, in my context, tantamount to an act of self-harm.
It wouldn't be until my early 30's during the process of working part of the 5th Step in Alcoholics Anonymous, in which you are tasked to make an inventory of your sexual conduct and use it to construct a "safe and sound" new sex ideal, that it all came into context for me. It took me that long to figure out what was right for me, and use that knowledge as a foundation to work from in my future sexual relationships.
All of this being said, it would be very convenient to blaze up a scathing indictment of purity culture at this moment. But it isn't purity culture itself that I feel is to blame. I think the real blame falls on the posturing of adults toward maturing adolescents who are coming into their own, sexually.
Case in point: I am a mother. I have two daughters, 9 and 11, and my 11 year old is beginning to go through puberty. It's surreal for me to consider how she will be 12 this year, only two years younger than the age at which I made the decision to become sexually active.
As a parent, I have and I will continue to raise her based on the spiritual beliefs that we embrace as a family, and within this context, what sexual intimacy is supposed to mean. I have shared with her, and I will continue to share, what my perspective on sexuality was; how my lack of understanding of it contributed to me making choices that weren't in the interest of what was highest and best for me; and how, as a result, I suffered a lot more than was necessary had I been self-aware enough to make choices that were best for me.
But as my daughter begins to cross over into adolescence, a time even basic child development explains is a time in which children begin to break away from identifying directly with their parents and shift into identifying with their peer group, this is when I will begin as a mother to start taking small steps back.
I will provide her with guidance and support and scaffolding through this time, but at the end of the day, whatever my daughter decides is authentic to herself belongs to her. In a few years, if she comes to me and confides that she no longer wants to be my daughter but rather, my son, I will support her in this. If she decides that she chooses to have sexual relationships with those other than cisgender men, I will support her in this. If she decides that she wants to remain cisgender, take a purity pledge, and vow to wait until marriage, I will support her in this.
And if the day comes in which she makes a choice that ends up being a mistake, in the same way that I did, I will be there to help her heal back into whatever wholeness means to her.
In truth, I think that in general, it is ideal for anyone to at least try to make it until their early twenties before they begin to really explore this aspect of themselves. I say this because the time between when puberty begins and you're all packed up and ready to go away to college is a time in which your focus should be on figuring out everything you can about who you are, what you believe. Maybe it can happen and be no big deal. But what if, like me, you discover that it is a big deal and you just don't know it until it's already too late? It's not a risk worth taking.
I think it is also ideal for young people to have an open mind, listen to what all the different perspectives have to say. Find out what resonates. Maybe purity culture is something that is a perfect fit. Maybe it isn't. Maybe your sexual expression is something that doesn't yield an intense bond; maybe it will prove to be something that you can engage in with impunity. If that is so, then be safe. Consider what it is you've been raised to believe. Search your soul and really figure out what parts resonate and what parts don't. Take your time.
I still remember the late spring afternoon one of my 8th grade students bounced up to me at lunchtime, leaned forward, and in a hushed voice said, "Moms! I had sex!" She said it like she was very proud of herself, and at the same time, very uncertain. She trusted me enough to know I wouldn't judge her, but at the same time, she seemed to be testing the waters to see if she'd receive condemnation or approval.
I remember just taking that in for a moment, because it certainly isn't something I hear all that often from 8th graders, and I said, "Oh! You did? Are you feeling like that was an okay choice?"
She wavered a little, shrugged, grinned. "Yeah."
And I just nodded and said, "Okay. I'm glad to hear that. I hope you continue to feel that way. But if that feeling changes, that's okay, too. You need to make the best choices for yourself, and more importantly, make sure you've figured out what those are." And I told her I was glad she felt comfortable enough to share that with me, and if at any point she needed guidance and support, I was there.
All in all, I believe that we as grown ups need to strike a balance where adolescents in our lives are concerned. Guide, lead, and teach while also honoring their budding autonomy that's coming out for a reason: this is the beginning of their evolution into adults, and they need to be encouraged more and more in independent thought during this time while also being heavily scaffolded and supported.
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