How Purity Culture Warps Our Self Value: Survivor Ida

 

By Ida McGrail

Women are taught in many Christian circles that their worth comes from the mere fact that they are a virgin. It becomes a part of their identity. Stay pure, they say. True love waits. In youth group we wore the promise rings and signed the purity pledges. We read books like “I Kissed Dating Goodbye.”  We were admonished not to kiss our significant other; some of us could not even hold their hands.

From a very young age, girls were taught that their virginity was what defined them, and without it, we were just “damaged goods” or “a rose that had all its petals plucked.” These dangerous lies filled my head for years, culminating when I was sexually assaulted at the age of 12. It warped my view of myself, sending me down a road of depression and self harm for the next 13 years, until I was able to create and maintain a healthy view of myself, as I learned, finally, that it was not my fault. Coming to that conclusion, however, was a long road and a difficult one, as I battled depression and trauma symptoms that threatened my very sanity. 

I am not alone in this; many women have similar stories about how purity culture warped their view of themselves. How they date, who they choose to date, and the decisions they make, all center around purity. I mentioned earlier that some schools and churches are against even holding hands with your significant other. Imagine thinking that your own self worth has been ruined, all because you wanted to hold hands with your boyfriend. Because you wanted to give him a kiss. For many women, such as myself, we don’t have to imagine. We lived it. 

Purity culture not only warps a woman’s view of herself, but how men view women. I remember years ago being part of a Catholic message board. Someone came on talking about how they were looking for “other Catholic virgins” and that he, essentially, wanted to “conquer” his future wife. As in, make her bleed on the sheets on their wedding night. To him, if a woman did not have an intact hyman, she was essentially worthless, damaged goods. Even other members of the forum, who held onto the belief of the “marital debt” (i.e., that sex is expected and should never be denied) told him he was sick, and that he was treating women as if they are objects, as if the only worth they have is their virginity, and he will “take it by force.” There is something very, very sick about the idea of a man who, like a lion in heat, “hunts” virgins for himself in a sick conquest to take her so-called “innocence” away. 

Another place to look is the Bible itself. Paul wrote in his letters that the spouse’s body does not belong to them; it belongs to the other person in the relationship. Bodily autonomy is completely taken out of the equation. From this came the idea of the marital debt that is so preached on in many traditional Catholic circles. It is not difficult to see then how this can lead to marital rape, when a man expects his wife to provide him with sex on demand. 

It was all of this that led me to see myself as damaged after I was sexually assaulted at the age of 12. When you have this idea of purity culture jackhammered into your head at such a young age, it’s bound to have an effect on your thinking. I did all the right things, or at least, I did what I thought were the right things (never mind the fact that I was 12 and had no reason to be even thinking about marriage or sex). I  wore the true love waits rings. I signed a purity pledge at my youth group. So when the sexual abuse started, I felt less than. I felt as though I had no worth, no value, nothing to give or to offer. Again, this is because it was drilled into my head that my sexuality and virginity determined my value and worth. Without them...what was I, really? My world toppled over quickly. 

But in the midst of the destruction that the sexual assault caused, I began to slowly rebuild my life. I put emphasis on slowly because only just recently have I begun to see sex and relationships in a positive, healthy light. I now know that the sexual assault was not my fault; it didn’t take my dignity away from me, because no one has that power over me. It certainly did not make me damaged goods. I am a whole person, and I always will be. My virginity does not define me. My “purity” doesn’t define me. Ladies, it doesn’t define you either. 

As I continue my journey through deconstructing, I am learning more that the person I was made to believe was me, was actually a false self that had been constructed by traditional fundamentalist ideals.  I wasn’t shy and timid; I was bold and ambitious. I wasn’t made specifically for a romantic relationship; I was made to be whatever I wanted to be. It’s a new freedom that I happily embrace, although it meant coming out of what was once my comfort zone. But as they say, life begins out of your comfort zone. Now that I am there, I feel like I am truly living. My wish is that one day, all women who grew up in fundamentalist circles would embrace this freedom that is rightfully theirs.

This story was shared as part of the project called Out of Oceania: Survivors Share Their Stories, an originial series by this blog. To read more stories, click here. A previous version of this piece also appeared on the blog Deconstruct With Me by this author.

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