Deep-seated purity culture has wormed its way into everyday issues beyond just religion.
Modern purity culture can be traced back to the 1990s as a response to increased awareness about sexually transmitted infections including the AIDS epidemic. Leaders in Christian churches and organizations placed an emphasis on abstinence, inspiring things like purity pledges and modest dress.
The impacts of the purity movement are far-reaching, affecting the way we view a litany of issues besides just STI prevention.
Many hot-topic issues are argued in terms of morality or purity even if they’re framed differently.
Missouri’s House of Representatives recently adopted a dress code for legislators that’s reminiscent of middle school or high school policies. The change in the rules package added a requirement for women legislators to cover their shoulders with a blazer or cardigan during House sessions. While the new rule was proposed by Representative Ann Kelley in the name of equality, there was no change in the dress code for men on the House floor.
Policing women’s and girls’ wardrobes, whether they’re trying to serve the people of their state or receive a high school education, is not a matter of decorum or distraction. Using that kind of language to describe restrictive dress codes takes attention away from the real cause: the sexualization of people’s bodies.
Wearing clothing that shows one’s shoulders is not objectively offensive or sexual. In fact, is this emphasis on modesty, rooted in evangelicalism, that has altered perceptions to make people believe otherwise.
The strict enforcement of women’s dress is one of the more obvious manifestations of purity culture that can be seen day-to-day.
Queer and trans issues are framed in terms of modesty, as well. The debate about LGBTQ rights, specifically having to do with gay marriage or sodomy laws, is often blown off by asking what business the government has in someone’s bedroom.
When modesty is treated like a synonym for morality, talking about things that happen “in the bedroom” becomes unacceptable.
This reduces LGBTQ lives to purely sexual acts, erasing all of the experiences and weight that queerness carries as an identity. It’s an easy way to dehumanize the issue, especially when paired with sexual repression.
When gay rights are framed like this, it becomes easier to rationalize anti-LGBTQ policies and defend homophobic or transphobic stances.
The history of the gay rights movement is based in liberation and pride. The first Pride parade had no dress code for a reason: to fight for the acceptance of LGBTQ people, no matter how they present.
Shoving queer issues into a bedroom, even if not back into the closet, is a step back in securing equal rights.
Discussions around abortion also follow a similar pattern.
Since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, many advocates for reproductive rights have worked to bring attention to abortion as a life-saving procedure. Idaho’s state code provides exceptions for abortion criminality if the mother’s life could be saved or if the pregnancy was a result of sexual assault.
These are undoubtedly important cases to consider in the fight for abortion access. However, providing exceptions in this way undermines legal rights to reproductive healthcare for other reasons.
Allowing abortion in only those instances defined by the state causes other people to lose out on bodily autonomy.
The discussion surrounding abortion access has focused so heavily on “what if?” situations that it’s become politically harmful to adopt a no-exceptions abortion ban. But this type of discussion has also made it politically acceptable to ban abortion for any other reason.
Abortion as an option for sexually active people to use if they don’t want to have a child should be the norm. Instead, the argument for bodily autonomy has been construed as extreme.
Part of this can be attributed to the fact that sex and sexuality are not widely acceptable to talk about even though they’re part of everyday life.
Dress codes, LGBTQ rights, abortion access and more are all influenced by pervasive purity culture.
To have more compassion, we have to be more honest. Sweeping sexuality under the rug when it has a clear impact on the topic at hand creates distance, not mutual respect.
Purity culture makes us bring judgment upon ourselves and those around us.
Sanitizing our language as we consider real, individual, human issues means we become blind to nuances that are necessary to understand each other.
Katie Hettinga can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @katie_hettinga