May 31, 2021
I’ve written before how men are also victimized by the damaging teachings of purity culture. I first examined this in my article 3 Ways Purity Culture Harms Men.
Now, here are three MORE ways Purity Culture harms men.
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It Stunts Sexual Maturation
Simply going through the biological processes of puberty and developing the capability to have intercourse is not the same thing as going through sexual maturation. Far from it.
Sexual maturation is a long process that’s usually bumpy and often results in plenty of mistakes. It’s about learning the boundaries of sex, what it’s good for, when it’s right and wrong, and taking full responsibility for the consequences that come from having sex with a consenting partner.
Since the Church hates any kind of sex that it doesn’t condone, it refuses to provide any sort of reasonable sex education for their young men. Instead, they only demand that men repress their sexual nature and “pray it away.”
As a result, men are forced to develop sexual maturity on their own. They’ll seek to develop this on their own regardless of what the Church says because repression and praying away their sexuality does not work. Sex energy will come out one way or another; it needs to flow.
But sex is often too big of a topic for most young men to navigate solely on their own without any guidance. If left to their own devices, it’s simply too easy for young mens’ sexuality to be informed by unhealthy sources, such as porn or “advice” from other guys who are only a few years older than them and are still immature themselves.
The Church’s adamant refusal to handle sex and sexuality head-on with a stance of maturity, knowledge, and confidence leaves generation after generation of young men who simply have no guidance on how to mature sexually and, as a result, develop a host of issues that harm themselves and others throughout the course of their lives—compulsions, shame, and a misconstrued notion of what healthy sex actually is.
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Only Traditional, Legal, Monogamous Marriage Between a Man and a Woman is Allowed
One of the greatest dangers of Christianity—and one of the biggest reasons why Church culture doesn’t work—is its demand for uniformity and conformity. Everyone who identifies as a Christian and is a member of the Church needs to adhere to the rules and regulations of God, the pastor, and the religion as a whole.
Since the Church refuses to address sexuality in any kind of realistic way, it enforces exactly one model of relationship as the only model that’s approved by God—and that model is the traditional, legal, monogamous marriage between a man and a woman.
If you ask me, I think it’s becoming clearer every year that passes that this model just doesn’t work for many people. I’d go so far as to argue that this model doesn’t work for most people, whether they’re ready to admit it to themselves or not.
Since traditional, legal, monogamous marriage between a man and a woman is the only model that’s allowed by the Church, it results in other problems such as men getting married way too soon to a woman who is not an ideal long-term partner for them. They do this without ever spending a single second questioning this singular relationship structure. They never get the opportunity to honestly explore whether they might prefer a same-sex relationship, a non-monogamous one, or to even consider that perhaps they don’t actually want to get married at all.
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Purity Culture Teaches Men They Aren’t Complete Alone
Every now and then—perhaps every eighteen months or so—my church would give a sermon for the sake of the older, single men in the congregation. This sermon would affirm their singleness, remind them they were valuable to God because they “had all this free time to spread the gospel” and remind them that Paul said it was good to be single.
Yet on the other hand, it’s impossible to deny that Church culture strongly favors married couples. Church culture perpetuates the view that God creates people side-by-side and has intended for them to eventually meet each other, get married, have babies, and remain together forever. Not only that, the older single men in the congregation are looked at with a certain suspicion.
These realities of Church culture push a very damaging message: that men are incomplete on their own. And this is one Church teaching that I strongly, strongly disagree with.
If you’ve read my book, then you may remember that I advise men to do the exact opposite of what the Church teaches—become reasonably complete, mature, and grown on their own first before taking on the responsibility of a spouse or a long-term partner.
Entering into a relationship with the mindset of “this woman will complete me” just puts far too much pressure on the relationship and your partner that just isn’t necessary. It implies that a relationship will fix one or several of your problems when quite possibly the worst solution to many problems you might have in life is to get into a new relationship. It also reeks of desperation. You’ll do your future partner a huge favor by rounding out yourself first before inviting her into your life for the long haul.
Do any of these things sound familiar about your time in Purity Culture? Maybe your experience was something I didn’t mention here. Let me know in the comments!