5 Ways Purity Culture is Damaging to Men

I was raised in fundamentalist evangelical Christianity at the height of the Purity Movement in the 90’s and early 2000’s.

In my religious community, tons of emphasis was placed on “saving yourself for marriage” and “staying pure” for your future spouse.

At the time, I didn’t know the term for all this was “Purity Culture,” but as I’ve gone through the process of deconstructing faith, this term is always front and center in my post-deconstructionist vocabulary.

While many purity culture conversations in the deconstruction community tend to focus on its negative impact on women, we can’t deny the ways purity culture is also harmful to men.

So, in today’s article, we’re going to be focussing specifically on purity culture and men.

{Keep in mind, while I’ll be highlighting the negative effects of purity culture on men, women will likely resonate with many of these points as well.}

Purity Culture is a social and religious construct that emerged predominantly within Evangelical Christian circles in the late 20th century.

In my work with survivors of religious trauma, purity culture is also a major component of other high control religions as well.

The core principle of purity culture revolves around the idea of maintaining sexual purity until marriage.

This movement emphasizes the importance of chastity, often linking someone’s worth and moral virtue to their sexual behavior.

The concept of purity culture extends beyond abstinence and incorporates a broader set of guidelines and expectations around modesty and gender roles .

For instance, it often prescribes conservative dress codes, particularly for women, to avoid inciting ‘impure’ thoughts in men.

Additionally, it often reinforces traditional gender norms, emphasizing the role of men as protectors and women as gatekeepers of purity.

Some really excellent books have been published in recent years that talk about the negative effects of purity culture, but their focus is mostly on the impact on women.

There are also some wonderful sex educators with flourishing social media accounts regularly posting content on the topic of purity culture.

However, their content also tends to lean towards the impact on women as well as members of the LGBTQ+ community.

What I’ve unfortunately discovered is that there’s very little currently published {or even talked about} in regards to the negative impact of purity culture on men .

This article will hopefully begin to address that gap.

** {Each of the following sections leads off with a quote that was pulled directly from Reddit answering the question: “ Men, what was your experience with purity culture ?”

“ For me, I always felt pressure to stay “pure” and that I would be disappointing both god and my future wife if I slipped up.  I worried that my wife would never fully satisfy me because I would always be comparing her to past partners and it would be harder to stay faithful.”

The emotional impact of purity culture on men often shows up in two ways.

First, purity culture can create significant emotional distress for men.

This is because the constant pressure to uphold a certain standard of “purity” can lead to feelings of guilt, shame, and failure if or when they fall short.

Second, purity culture limits men’s emotional expression by teaching them to suppress their emotions, especially those considered “feminine” like sadness or vulnerability.

This can then lead to difficulty connecting with others vulnerably and expressing themselves authentically.

Either one of these factors can then affect men’s self-esteem and sense of worthiness, leading to long-term emotional struggles and difficulties in relationships.

“I have always had a great deal of anxiety around dating from growing up in purity culture.  It was stressful to think that I was supposed to “lead my future wife” in her walk with God, and I never felt like I was a good enough person for that level of responsibility.  If I messed up, it could have deep spiritual consequences for whoever I dated.” 

The idea that men should always be strong and dominant is deeply ingrained in purity culture.

This mentality is a form of toxic masculinity and is harmful to men because it creates pressure to conform to narrowly defined standards of “masculine” behavior.

As a consequence, men who don’t fit this narrow definition of masculinity are often marginalized or even ostracized, which further perpetuates a culture of conformity and intolerance.

Additionally, by equating masculinity with dominance and control, toxic masculinity fuels gender inequality, contributing to a culture that devalues or dismisses the experiences and contributions of those who do not conform to these expectations.

“I didn’t date in high school because I had been taught that, unless you basically could already comfortably see yourself marrying this person, then you shouldn’t date.  It made me set ridiculously high standards for who I would consider dating (which obviously very few people could meet).”

There are a couple ways purity culture harms men relationally.

First, purity culture creates unrealistic expectations for marriage and often paints marriage as the ultimate goal and solution for all sexual desires.

This then puts pressure on men to get married as a way to manage “sexual urges,” ultimately leading to disappointment and dissatisfaction if heightened expectations around marriage fall short.

It’s additionally problematic if they discover that their sexual interests lie outside of heteronormativity upon consummating the marriage.

Second, purity culture can impair men’s ability to form platonic, non-sexual relationships with women because purity culture frequently assigns sexual undertones to all male-female interactions.

Because interacting with women was always coupled with the stress of trying to “avoid lust,” it makes it difficult for men to get to know women without associated stress.

“My biggest mistake and disappointment in life has come from not establishing a functional sexual relationship, and vetting sexual compatibility, before making a lifelong commitment. It’s led to a lot of personal heartbreak.”

Enforced abstinence through purity culture can lead to a lack of understanding of one’s own sexuality and sexual desires.

This can result in difficulty with intimacy and sexual dysfunction within relationships due to chronic sexual repression.

By constantly avoiding sexual thoughts and urges, men may end up having difficulties in the area of sexual functioning when they are finally “allowed” to be sexual in their marriage.

Further, purity culture may create identity confusion.

When people aren’t given the opportunity to explore their sexuality before marriage, they may not realize until afterwards they aren’t actually heterosexual.

“It was our job not to kill women’s self esteem by looking at porn and to keep ourselves pure (lusting after women was considered like cheating on our future spouse).  Masturbating was discouraged and ‘accountability partners’ were all too common.”

All of the above categories I just went over are deeply painful and problematic for many men.

But there’s one other super-harmful way men are often harmed by purity culture that I’m going to turn my attention to: the use of “experiential avoidance.”

Experiential Avoidance is a concept in psychology that refers to the avoidance of thoughts, feelings, and sensations that we consider to be unpleasant.

In the context of purity culture, men are often instructed to avoid thoughts or actions that might be seen as sinful or impure.

Some common examples of experiential avoidance are:

• “Bouncing their eyes” so that they don’t look at women who are dressed “immodestly.”
• Trying not to think about sex or sexual thoughts.
• Avoiding all sexual urges and activity, including masturbation.
  

Experiential avoidance in the context of purity culture tends to generate a “composite” experience related to the other four ways men are harmed by purity culture that we already covered.

This is because purity culture can lead to feelings of guilt, shame, and anxiety, as men fear that they are committing a sin or betraying their moral values by entertaining sexual thoughts or desires.

{Of note, this could potentially lead to a condition known as scrupulosity, an obsessive-compulsive disorder marked by an excessive concern with one’s own sins and religious duties.}

Furthermore, experiential avoidance can hinder the development of a healthy sexual identity and understanding of sexual preferences and desires.

When men are conditioned to evade and repress sexual thoughts, they may lack the experiences necessary to cultivate a mature, nuanced understanding of their own sexuality.

This can not only affect their relationships and marital life later on, but it can also lead to internalized negativity towards sex as a whole.

This negativity can manifest as sexual dysfunction, anxiety surrounding sex, or an unhealthy perspective of sexual relationships.

Purity culture harms all people.

The lens through which I’m talking about this topic is that of a straight, cisgender woman.

I have been harmed by purity culture in many of the ways that are talked about in the media and by religious trauma experts.

But as you can see from the information in this article, cisgender, heterosexual (cishet) men are deeply harmed as well.

I’ll say it again -> ALL people are harmed by purity culture: straight women, members of the LGBTQ+ community AND cishet men.

My hope is that as we all work to heal our individual wounds, we can also draw together to heal the collective wounds of purity culture.