How Purity Culture Messed Up Most of the Men I Know

The lies of purity culture aren’t just hurting women

My husband and I recently moved to a new city in a new country and found ourselves in a particularly peculiar environment: teacher housing.

This means we live in a compound with hundreds of people who work at the same school: many families, many couples, and a few single individuals. He has a crew of men he plays basketball with who are quickly becoming our friends — they are new this year as well, and we’ve had them over for drinks every weekend this month. Last night, over too much wine and tequila, I engaged two of the single men in a conversation about dating.

After our discussion ended, I realized that it’s possible they only view me as an acceptable and ‘safe’ woman to be friends with because I am married, and they are friends with my spouse. They praised me for my ‘progressive viewpoints’ and ‘openness and independence’, but made the classic mistake of blurting “but most women don’t think like you.”

This is a red flag. It indicated to me that these men grew up ingesting purity culture and patriarchy, and haven’t yet unlearned it. Other red flag statements I’ve heard since I arrived here include: “I don’t really have any female friends,” “If you sleep with someone you’re going to be labelled an asshole,” “Once you sleep with someone, you can’t be friends with them,” “All women want relationships and feel attached quickly,” and “I don’t get involved with anyone because I don’t want any drama.”

I woke up feeling committed to addressing these lies of purity culture and helping my new friends understand that there’s no such thing as most women.

Many articles have been written about the negative effects of purity culture on women, and I could write several more. However, in this essay I want to focus on how purity culture has negatively impacted the men I know, especially those who find themselves leaving the Church and deconstructing their faith.

Here are six lies that purity culture teaches:

1. Virginity is a real thing: it is something that should be protected and can be ‘lost.’

In reality, virginity is a social construct that can lead to torture and even death for women around the…