In each section below, you’ll hear from people who responded to my survey. I have ascribed everyone in this essay a fake name (I didn’t ask for names in my survey) to help delineate each individual response from the one before or after it.
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“I never knew you were such a slut.”
In college, four of my very best friends were goofy straight guys who I adored. We were all on the executive board of our school’s SGA together, so we spent tons of time in each other’s company, procrastinating schoolwork and generally acting stupid. I wish I could say that we were at least drinking while we sat up until 2 AM - nope. We were mostly making up sketch comedy that never got performed, going to Waffle House, or writing papers that were due the next morning. It’s as lame (and as innocent, and fun, honestly) as it sounds.
My senior year, I started dating a guy (we’ll call him Steven) who most people would agree was a bit of a wrong fit. Without going into too much detail because (unlike the women you’ll hear from later in this piece) I’m not anonymous, I’ll say that texts like the one I quoted above were not uncommon occurrences. Steven hated that I had male friends, especially ones I really loved, especially straight ones - though I’d venture a guess that any male in my life, gay or straight, would’ve posed a problem. He regularly lashed out via text and eventually drove me to the point that I stopped seeing my friends altogether - stopped going to socials and date parties - during my senior year of college. He crashed my graduation after staying up all night and arrived looking haggard and sinister, loomed around every corner, even demanded that I refuse to pose for photos with my male professors, because doing so would’ve been disrespectful to him.
These were the most savory of his unsavory behaviors, and the only ones I’m comfortable discussing in such a public way. My family and friends knew that it wasn’t the best relationship, but had no idea about the depth of darkness behind the scenes, mostly because I was pretty adept at hiding it from them. Eventually, I joined Teach For America and found myself falling into my same patterns - keeping my male peers within TFA at arm’s length, icing them out with no real explanation, fielding furious phone calls and never feeling comfortable leaving my phone out of reach, in case (disaster of disasters) I missed a phone call or took more than 3 minutes to respond to his texts. The prospect of starting a new chapter in my life still tethered to someone whose presence I’d never be able to really explain spooked me just enough that mid-way through training in TFA, I called and broke up with him by phone, and never looked back. We had dated for just over a year, and it was a year I’d never get back.
This series is not about me, but I wanted to include that anecdote for a couple of reasons. First, because it’s honest, and I would feel a little disingenuous allowing the brave people who told me their stories to talk without sharing that I was once also part of the club of women who’ve been pushed around (whether literally or figuratively) by a romantic partner.
Secondly, because I think we often picture women who are involved in abusive relationships as frail and weak, as though they’re simply not smart enough to pull the trigger and leave for good. I hope at this point in our relationship, you know that I am outspoken, loud, and borderline obnoxious - I don’t think “weak” or “frail” would normally be used to describe me - and yet, I spent a year of my life being treated very badly.
Having been in an abusive relationship, I can say that the view looking out from within it is quite different than standing on the outside looking in. I never believed that I was worthless, or slutty, or any of the other things he called me, but I was certain that with enough time, I could change his heart and make him into a kinder person. My belief in the dynamic nature of people fueled by decades of church attendance certainly kept me in the relationship for lots longer than I should’ve been in it. With years of a healthy marriage and the gift of retrospect, I see now that changing him was never possible - at least, not possible for me to take on, and not at that time in his life. But it sure seemed like it could happen at the time.
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“For women: if you grew up in church, were you taught that you should have sex with your husband whenever he asked for it or demanded it, whether you were in the mood or not?”
Of 155 people who answered that survey question, 60 answered (38%), “Yes.”
A major theme that arose in talking to women about their experience within purity culture was making the jump from non-sexual to hyper-sexual once there was a ring involved. For years, many women were taught that anything associated with sex - the act itself, foreplay, dressing too provocatively, even being too conversationally assertive and “forward” - was unacceptable and even sinful. However, within the confines of marriage, the game changed - but their knowledge of the playbook remained the same.
As with anything we’ve discussed here, there are many facets: I heard from many women who waited to have sex until marriage and now enjoy beautifully fulfilling sex lives with their spouses, free of shame or hang-ups.
But this particular group struggled to make the leap from viewing sex as shameful before marriage, to finding freedom in it within marriage. For some, it felt awkward and clumsy, and they walked away from the first experience confused and embarrassed that they weren’t able to satisfy or fulfill themselves or their partners:
“Sex is the biggest pain point in my marriage. Even though the first time I had sex with my husband was consensual, and I wanted it, I dealt with a ton of shame afterward. Even though, intellectually I knew I was in a committed, supportive, loving relationship, and it was with the guy I was going to marry. I had it programmed in my mind that it should be an immediate thing, since we were engaged. I should just know what to do, it should be super comfortable, and super actualized - and that’s obviously not true. My parents didn’t talk about it very much, I never learned a ton about mechanics, so I didn’t have enough frank conversations about how to actually have sex. I was taught, ‘If you draw a line and the line is NO SEX, stay as far away from the line as possible.’ So when I did it, I was like, ‘Oh, God. I can see that this is good, but also, there’s so much of the in-between stuff that I feel like I missed because I avoided it my whole life.’ - Grace
For a particularly unfortunate few respondents, there was no sexual diplomacy; they were treated as living blow-up dolls for their husbands, who’d been taught that their sexual desires should be fulfilled at every opportunity.
In a pre-marriage world, having a lack of knowledge about details, sexual positions, what you personally enjoy, how to please a partner - all of those things are lauded as wholesome qualities. Post-marriage, for these women, they were suddenly expected to have all the answers. Virgin to vixen, just like that.
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It would be a mistake to assume that boys don’t experience any shame around sex. The fact of the matter is that boys and girls experience messages of shame around their sexuality - the difference isn’t the messages they receive, but how it plays out.
I got to have a fascinating phone conversation with a friend of mine, Andrew (not his real name), where he started discussing how his desire to appear good and worthy to his parents when he was growing up caused him to treat women as disposable:
“I would make a bad choice [sexually with a girl], then realize it was bad sometimes, then be like, ‘Fuck. What do I do to make sure no one knows about this?’ Which would at times mean that the girl in school who was more sexually active, who might’ve been labeled ‘slutty,’ or something like that - I would flirt with them (in private), and enjoy it. And then at school, I’d treat them like a pariah. Which probably felt really...shitty for those women. But at the time, I didn’t really have the capability to reckon with those two sides (of myself).”
One of the big complications of complementarianism is that it emphasizes traditional gender roles. It promotes the traditional definition of masculinity (which, on its own and free of value judgment, isn’t particularly problematic), then, in the same breath, condemns the sexual desires that come along with that definition - and that, for many young men, come early and naturally. In other words, we teach our young men: “Be leaders in your families, be honorable, be attracted to women, be male,” and then, “Don’t have sex, don’t think about sex, don’t masturbate.”
Here’s Andrew again:
“The mid-2000’s was the age of the pimp. If you get girls, then you’re good. I wanted to have the status that was surrounding that image of a man. But then, at church...we were taught that sex was bad, boys are blue, girls are pink, you should never make purple. I was taught that the things that I wanted were dirty and bad. I would invite girls over, make out with them, and then get them out the door before my parents got home.”
When your whole relationship to sexuality is based in shame, but the sexual urges and images (to say nothing of access to those images in the age of instant Internet porn) are constant and unrelenting, as they often are for boys from elementary to high school, then a sort of mental concession takes place: “I obviously can’t do anything about what I’m feeling, and the church is teaching me that sexual purity is not only attainable, but mandatory. Since I can’t seem to attain it, that must mean I’m a bad person. Oh well. I guess I’ll just lean into the shame. I give up.”
For many young adults, especially young Christians, the idea of being “good” is the driver of so much behavior. I relate to that deeply -- the worst thing I could imagine growing up was to shame my family with some behavior or choice of mine. But I also relate so much to this next quote from Andrew:
“I have always had a proclivity for being afraid of getting in trouble. When I got older, I realized you can’t get into trouble if people don’t know about it.’”
That struck such a chord for me as I listened to him talk. If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, did it really happen? If a sexual act between two young Christians takes place behind closed doors and no one knows, did it really happen?
Of course it did. The real question is: what happens to the young people’s opinions of themselves when they’re split in two? What happens when the public and private sides become two completely different people?
“In youth group growing up, we were expected to be perfect, pure, non-sexual virgin martyrs, and we treated men like they were lustful, horny animals all the time - who have no control and are not capable of being thoughtful about women. It’s unfair to both of us. Most of the conversation is centered around women in [unpacking the damages of] purity culture, and I think like, 70% of it should be, but it also sucks for guys.” - Emily
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After you’ve started hiding your choices, it’s easier to hide more and more of them. Hiding sexual choices, though, especially without proper education and information, can lead to a lot of intimidating and unexpected bumps in the road.
For example: if you’re a young woman in high school, and your parents don’t know you’re having sex because it flies in the face of your faith, how do you access to birth control? What happens if you get pregnant? Almost 50% of my 241 survey respondents answered that they had irrational fears of getting pregnant growing up because it would've made apparent something that was otherwise a secret. Here are a few examples of their answers when asked if they harbored this fear:
“Yes!!! I took pregnancy tests when not sexually active. Makes no sense.” - Belle
“I was sort of the opposite example. Since sex was sinful, I shouldn't be having it. Since I shouldn't be having sex, there was no reason for me to buy birth control. When I became sexually active, I was more terrified of being "caught" buying birth control than anything else, so I routinely practiced unsafe sex. Terrifying in hindsight." - Diana
“Yes. I remember doing research to ensure that I couldn’t get pregnant from oral sex. I wanted to make sure that those pesky sperm couldn’t somehow swim from my mouth to my digestive system and into my reproductive system!” - Candace
Secrecy can put young people, particularly young women, in precarious situations, especially if they’ve been taught that their modesty and their own desires should set the sexual boundaries within relationships:
“I really liked a guy and wanted him to kiss me. He didn't kiss me until he was in the middle of sexually assaulting me. I wanted to be kissed. But I was taught at church that if I was aroused, the guy was aroused even more. If I wanted to be kissed, and since I was taught that men have no control when they get aroused, then it was my fault I was assaulted. Sex (or lack of) has been the reason why I did not date much and if I did, why relationships were so difficult. It is not that I am against sex. I really want to have a wonderful sexual relationship with someone. A relationship filled with love, passion and imagination. I just have so many thoughts and emotions ‘in the moment’ that can be challenging to work through.” - Kristen
“I married my middle school boyfriend, and we both experienced a lot of shame for our sexuality throughout our teenage and young adult years. We experimented with sex on and off beginning around age 14. It was a constant cycle of sex - guilt - repent - repeat. Even after marriage and leaving the church entirely, I still have twitches associated with sex. I sometimes get overly anxious, if I think a neighbor can hear us having sex. I had a panic attack the last time we stayed at his parents house and tried to have an intimate moment. I still feel shame when shopping for new clothing sometimes. For several years of adulthood, it felt like I was recovering from a trauma.” - Anne
As a counter to that, I feel it’s important to include that several women wrote in to describe how vivacious and - direct quote here - “bangin’” (you go, girl!) their sex lives were after remaining abstinent and exploring sex openly with their husbands:
“Everything is on the table now, including us literally having sex on a table sometimes. It’s wonderful to have trust and commitment and confidence before stepping into a physical relationship. All of that is built before sex, so you know that the sex is just icing on the cake.” - Kathryn
“It's weird. I *thought* I was uninhibited and enjoying sex in the early years of my marriage, but I'm beginning to realize that I was still pretty caged up for a long time. I get a bit more free every year now, and enjoy sex in my 40s way more than in my 20s/30s.” - Teresa
The differences in these anecdotes tell the story of what it means to celebrate and educate youth about sex vs. what it means to create a culture of shame around it. What kind of success stories would there be, I wonder, if we could transparently discuss sex (including things young people might identify as their own sexual mis-steps) in our churches without creating fear or stigma?
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One woman who took the survey found an old notebook she’d kept during her youth group’s study of I Kissed Dating Goodbye, a book that rose to popularity in the late 90’s and early 00’s. IKDG promotes courtship and group dates over one-on-one dating, condemns homosexuality, and suggests that young people should keep themselves pure for their eventual spouse. (It should be noted that Joshua Harris, the author, recently went on the record retracting much of what he wrote, after divorcing his wife and revealing that he is no longer a Christian.)
In her notes from the study guide on chapter six, “The Direction of Purity,” she wrote:
“Make the purity of others a priority. Watch out for the opposite sex. Try not to make them impure. In fact, make it your mission to steer them away from temptation.”
That sort of messaging - that the purity of men is the responsibility of women - is communicated a lot, whether tacitly or explicitly. The things we wear are often scrutinized, and our bodies are referred to as “stumbling blocks” of male sexuality. It doesn’t take too many more steps down that path to see how this line of logic could be used to justify all sorts of unhealthy male behavior, even the most reprehensible.
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Trigger warning: the following section contains details about sexual assault and rape.
I will admit freely that when I posed the question, “Have you ever been the victim of sexual violence?”, I was totally unprepared for the answers. For the first few days of the survey being live, each night, I’d wade through the newest answers, shaking my head in utter disbelief that this many people had experienced that kind of trauma. That’s evidence of my own ignorance to the pervasiveness of this issue.
Out of 240 respondents, over 30% answered, “Yes.” Many of those people had been sexually assaulted or raped by more than one person, so the number of actual incidents is higher than the number of people reporting.
34 individual people wrote in harrowing detail about the instances of their rape. In order to consolidate the responses I received, I exported them to an Excel spreadsheet. As I sit here writing this, I am literally scrolling through the dozens of accounts: molestation at the hands of family members; date rape in college; forced oral sex...I can practically hear the voices, almost as though these individuals are reading them aloud to me. I feel very humbled to have been told so many deeply personal and hard-to-talk-about things.
Thank you to everyone who shared.
The next question I asked in the survey, after whether the respondent had experience sexual violence, was whether their faith community knew about it and, if so, what the response was. There were mixed reports - some wrote that they shared with their clergy and were warmly and unwaveringly supported. Others have never shared with their faith communities - some have never told another living soul.
Here are two stories that paint two different pictures of the church’s response:
“I met the guy, let’s call him Dan. He was older and had already graduated college. I was a senior. Dan visited the school one night. I had had one drink before I showed up, and he got me a beer when I showed up. Around 30 minutes later I felt very drunk (still only having had 2 drinks) so I told Dan I was going back to my place. He insisted on going back with me and got a friend to drive us back. I thought Dan was just being nice and/or was interested in me. He came back to my room and I thought we’d make out or fool around a little and then he’d leave. However, I remember walking into my room and then nothing until waking up with him on top of me, inside me. I was paralyzed. I felt like I couldn’t do anything or say anything. I guess it was out of shock. I didn’t tell anyone for two years. When I told my parents they cried and comforted me but also got upset with me for not reporting him or trying to press charges. I know it is the right thing to do, but I honestly never want to see Dan again, and there’s a very low chance that I ever will. When I told my long time friends from college who are all Christians, they acted like they believed me but I don’t actually think they did. It took me a long time to tell people because I blamed myself for the longest time. I felt that since I let him in my room and liked him, it was my fault that he raped me. I was to blame. The only reason I confronted it two years later is because I started having flashbacks and nightmares of that night all the time. It was to the point that I couldn’t focus on anything or would start crying for no reason. I have worked through this, but I still don’t share my experience with many people out of fear that I won’t be believed.”
“When I was 20 years old, a friend that I had known for about a year raped me in his vehicle outside of a party I was attending. It was not extremely physically violent (aka he didn't hold a gun to my head), but it was VERY emotionally and mentally violent. Looking back, there were a lot of red flags about him and he had been grooming/stalking me for the entire year that we were friends. Because I was so naive about what healthy friendships/relationships looked like, I didn't notice until it was too late. Once I realized it, he was already fully committed and it turned into a power control issue. He stalked me by randomly showing up places I was or forcing me to go places with him. He was very verbally and emotionally abusive towards me, saying things like, ‘Are you sure you don't want to date me? You do realized that *insert the guy’s name I was dating at the time* cheats on you and doesn't really like you.’ Anyway, the night of the rape, he called me and asked if I would come out to his car because he wanted to apologize. I should've known better, but I didn't. Long story short, he lured me into his car and held me down and berated me until I submitted to him in order to just get myself out of there. When he was done, he said ‘You can go back to the stupid party now,’ and he drove off. I was left crying in the street outside. I immediately drove home and showered. He texted me the next day saying, ‘You liked it didn't you? I know you did even though you didn't show it.’ I deleted the text and blocked his number and I've never been in contact with him again. I told no one about my experience until I found out was pregnant and was basically forced to. But when I did, they responded with such grace and comfort towards me and my family.”
Including too many quotes in this section feels tawdry and unnecessarily cheapens the sanctity of what I feel these brave folks did in typing out their stories, so I won’t do that.
There’s no correlation between growing up in church and experiencing sexual assault. There were, though, a number of people who said something along the lines of, “I didn’t know what appropriate boundaries looked like because we never discussed them in my house or church.” This, of course, wouldn’t prevent anyone from experiencing assault; knowing where a boundary is doesn’t mean someone else is going to observe it. But it struck me as poignant that those boundaries need to be discussed early and often, and if we’re talking about sex in church, then we should be talking about healthy sex in church.
To round this section out in an unapologetically editorial paragraph: if this number of people were willing to write in to me anonymously, I can almost guarantee that you know someone (whether you know it or not) who’s been the victim of sexual assault or rape. Maybe you yourself have been. Whatever else you take away from this post, I hope you make it your mission to speak aloud in any church circle you can that anyone who’s been the victim of this sort of abuse is NOT AT FAULT, that they are deeply loved, and that you are available to support them and to help them seek additional help. It makes an enormous difference to have a judgment-free place to land.
Shouldn’t that be what the church is?
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As a new parent myself, I sympathize deeply and in a new way with what it must be like for parents and church leaders who don’t want their children having sex (for reasons religious or otherwise), but who also want to be honest enough to keep their children safe from harm. What a very challenging line that must be to walk.
And I sure don’t have the answer. But I asked a lot of people what they’d tell the adults in their lives to do differently if they could do it over again - and there’s lots to unpack. It’s pretty hopeful, I have to say. It turns out, we can change some things.
That’s next week.