14 ICSA TODAY
Patriarchy
Patriarchy is an important aspect of purity culture. Although
boys are also indoctrinated with the belief that they need
to keep themselves pure until marriage, there is an inherent
double standard in Judeo-Christianity that girls and women
bear the brunt of. For instance, there is no biblically mandated
test for a male’s virginity, such as there is for females. In the
Bible, girls are tested for their virginity by being sent to their
wedding-night chambers with a white sheet. If there is no
blood on the sheet after the groom is done having sex with her,
the girl is then dragged to the front of her father’s house and
stoned to death for not being a virgin.2
Today, there are still cultures that punish girls and women for
not bleeding on their wedding-night sheets. From Judaism to
Hinduism, Mormonism to Islam, most girls are expected to be
virgins when they marry. The consequences for one not being
a virgin bride can range from social shunning to strangulation.
Because of this, some women, from Utah to Pakistan, will buy
an artificial hymen to insert in herself on her wedding night.
The packet of fake blood will burst with intercourse, mimicking
the alleged proof of her virginity and sparing her shame, and in
some instances, saving her life.3
Today in evangelical America, we have things such as purity
balls, at which girls in white dresses make vows of celibacy
to God and to their fathers, who in turn vow to protect their
daughters’ chastity until they give them away in marriage.4
In the Midwest, fundamentalist parents plan matchmaking
retreats where they can arrange marriages for their teenagers.
The girls are reported to be between the ages of 13 and 20,
so they can be fruitful and multiply, and parents of a chosen
groom might pay the girl’s parents a bride price.5 Some call this
sex trafficking, and child marriage is currently banned in only
two of our 50 US states.6
I never went to a purity ball but when my dad gave Luke
permission to marry me, it absolutely felt like an arranged
marriage. I was betrothed to a man not of my choosing, but of
his, our parents’, and God’s. I use the word betrothed because
that’s what it felt like. That’s the word the Bible uses to describe
the giving away of a girl from one man to another. Women in
the Bible don’t marry for love. They are simply traded, like cattle.
A girl in the Bible does not get engaged. There is no proposal.
She is never asked. She is betrothed.
Breaking Away
It was my mom who gave me the courage to end my betrothal
to Luke. She hadn’t heard from God that I was supposed to
marry Luke, but the reason I didn’t trust her right away was
because my mom had stopped going to church by the time I
was 17. This meant she was a backslider, and I couldn’t trust that
she wasn’t being used by Satan to lure me off the path of God’s
very clear will. Even so, my mom’s words gave voice to my own
inner truth. My inner truth was screaming at me that I shouldn’t
marry Luke, that I shouldn’t marry a man I didn’t love. My inner
truth told me that men hid their desires behind God all the
time, and this could be one of those times. My inner truth told
me God might not even be real.
Two months passed. I wavered back and forth until, one day,
I finally called Luke. I felt sick with fear as we made plans to
meet in a public park, and I was so scared when I saw him that
I would never be able to remember what I said. My mind went
completely blank, the way I would later learn the minds of
trauma victims sometimes did. In that moment, I wasn’t only
ending my betrothal to Luke. I was overtly going against God’s
will for the first time—and not just his will for my life, but his
will for Luke’s life. I knew what happened to those who went
against God’s will. God let Satan destroy them, because when
they disobeyed God, they stepped outside the umbrella of his
protection.
What I do recall from that day is that I was shaking. I remember
hearing myself at one point, telling Luke never to call me, never
to text me, and never to contact me in any way again, ever. I
was terrified to hear the words coming out of my mouth. It was
the voice of my inner truth.
The Repercussions
I wish I could tell you that I always spoke from my inner truth
after that day. I wish I could tell you that, after ending my
betrothal, I went on to have a healthy love life as a young adult.
But that wouldn’t be sharing my truth with you now.
Programming
A few years after ending my betrothal, I lost my faith altogether.
With the loss of my faith came the freedom to finally have sex.
After so many years of keeping myself pure and saving myself
for one man and one man only, I was free to sleep with anyone
I wanted. I tried. But the teachings of purity culture were deeply
ingrained in me. I began having anxiety attacks after sex. These
anxiety attacks left me crying and hyperventilating in my bed
as I desperately tried to remind myself that there was no devil
to fear, and that I had nothing wrong to be ashamed of. But two
decades of programming is hard to undo.
Purity culture had programmed me, the way it has programmed
so many others, to fuse shame and fear with sex. I learned that,
just because our minds accept that something is no longer
true, our neurological wiring is not able to simply undo itself.
My wires of fear, shame, and sex were closely wound together.
I remember hearing myself … telling
Luke never to call me, never to text
me, and never to contact me in any
way again…. I was terrified to hear
the words coming out of my mouth.
It was the voice of my inner truth.
Patriarchy
Patriarchy is an important aspect of purity culture. Although
boys are also indoctrinated with the belief that they need
to keep themselves pure until marriage, there is an inherent
double standard in Judeo-Christianity that girls and women
bear the brunt of. For instance, there is no biblically mandated
test for a male’s virginity, such as there is for females. In the
Bible, girls are tested for their virginity by being sent to their
wedding-night chambers with a white sheet. If there is no
blood on the sheet after the groom is done having sex with her,
the girl is then dragged to the front of her father’s house and
stoned to death for not being a virgin.2
Today, there are still cultures that punish girls and women for
not bleeding on their wedding-night sheets. From Judaism to
Hinduism, Mormonism to Islam, most girls are expected to be
virgins when they marry. The consequences for one not being
a virgin bride can range from social shunning to strangulation.
Because of this, some women, from Utah to Pakistan, will buy
an artificial hymen to insert in herself on her wedding night.
The packet of fake blood will burst with intercourse, mimicking
the alleged proof of her virginity and sparing her shame, and in
some instances, saving her life.3
Today in evangelical America, we have things such as purity
balls, at which girls in white dresses make vows of celibacy
to God and to their fathers, who in turn vow to protect their
daughters’ chastity until they give them away in marriage.4
In the Midwest, fundamentalist parents plan matchmaking
retreats where they can arrange marriages for their teenagers.
The girls are reported to be between the ages of 13 and 20,
so they can be fruitful and multiply, and parents of a chosen
groom might pay the girl’s parents a bride price.5 Some call this
sex trafficking, and child marriage is currently banned in only
two of our 50 US states.6
I never went to a purity ball but when my dad gave Luke
permission to marry me, it absolutely felt like an arranged
marriage. I was betrothed to a man not of my choosing, but of
his, our parents’, and God’s. I use the word betrothed because
that’s what it felt like. That’s the word the Bible uses to describe
the giving away of a girl from one man to another. Women in
the Bible don’t marry for love. They are simply traded, like cattle.
A girl in the Bible does not get engaged. There is no proposal.
She is never asked. She is betrothed.
Breaking Away
It was my mom who gave me the courage to end my betrothal
to Luke. She hadn’t heard from God that I was supposed to
marry Luke, but the reason I didn’t trust her right away was
because my mom had stopped going to church by the time I
was 17. This meant she was a backslider, and I couldn’t trust that
she wasn’t being used by Satan to lure me off the path of God’s
very clear will. Even so, my mom’s words gave voice to my own
inner truth. My inner truth was screaming at me that I shouldn’t
marry Luke, that I shouldn’t marry a man I didn’t love. My inner
truth told me that men hid their desires behind God all the
time, and this could be one of those times. My inner truth told
me God might not even be real.
Two months passed. I wavered back and forth until, one day,
I finally called Luke. I felt sick with fear as we made plans to
meet in a public park, and I was so scared when I saw him that
I would never be able to remember what I said. My mind went
completely blank, the way I would later learn the minds of
trauma victims sometimes did. In that moment, I wasn’t only
ending my betrothal to Luke. I was overtly going against God’s
will for the first time—and not just his will for my life, but his
will for Luke’s life. I knew what happened to those who went
against God’s will. God let Satan destroy them, because when
they disobeyed God, they stepped outside the umbrella of his
protection.
What I do recall from that day is that I was shaking. I remember
hearing myself at one point, telling Luke never to call me, never
to text me, and never to contact me in any way again, ever. I
was terrified to hear the words coming out of my mouth. It was
the voice of my inner truth.
The Repercussions
I wish I could tell you that I always spoke from my inner truth
after that day. I wish I could tell you that, after ending my
betrothal, I went on to have a healthy love life as a young adult.
But that wouldn’t be sharing my truth with you now.
Programming
A few years after ending my betrothal, I lost my faith altogether.
With the loss of my faith came the freedom to finally have sex.
After so many years of keeping myself pure and saving myself
for one man and one man only, I was free to sleep with anyone
I wanted. I tried. But the teachings of purity culture were deeply
ingrained in me. I began having anxiety attacks after sex. These
anxiety attacks left me crying and hyperventilating in my bed
as I desperately tried to remind myself that there was no devil
to fear, and that I had nothing wrong to be ashamed of. But two
decades of programming is hard to undo.
Purity culture had programmed me, the way it has programmed
so many others, to fuse shame and fear with sex. I learned that,
just because our minds accept that something is no longer
true, our neurological wiring is not able to simply undo itself.
My wires of fear, shame, and sex were closely wound together.
I remember hearing myself … telling
Luke never to call me, never to text
me, and never to contact me in any
way again…. I was terrified to hear
the words coming out of my mouth.
It was the voice of my inner truth.
