The Purity Myth by Jessica Valenti

Source of book: Borrowed from the library

Just some thoughts on this. I started this book a few years ago when my wife read it, but it was requested by another library patron, and thus had to go back before I could finish. A couple of online friends (cool people I met through my blog) expressed interest in reading and discussing it. 

Just at the outset, let me say a bit about the style and content, before getting into specifics. Jessica Valenti co-founded the Feministing website, and wrote for it for a number of years. The site is essentially a blog, and as the writer of one myself, I understand the significant differences in writing style that go along with it. These stylistic differences are apparent in the book, which more resembles a blog than a typical non-fiction book. This is not to say that it lacks citations: it is well researched as to the sources for quotations. But it isn’t intended to be a scholarly look at the subject so much as a cultural look. I think, therefore, that many who disagree with Valenti’s opinions will also be put off by the style. Valenti uses a breezy blog style, not formal English, so expect contractions, paragraphs not modeled on the MLA format, and overuse of parentheses. (Hey, a bit like my blog too!) So you may not find it to be what you expect. On the other hand, if you go in with different expectations, there is a lot of thought provoking stuff in the book.

Valenti’s premise is that in our culture here in America, women are assigned value based on their virginity and adherence to patriarchal gender roles. This allows women to be divided in the the “Madonna” sorts - the good girls - and the “sluts” - the bad girls. Step outside of expectations, and you are placed in the “slut” category.

Longtime readers of this blog will be familiar with my exploration of that theme in my Modesty Culture series. Since I wrote it, I have had a number of interesting conversations about it, and realized that Modesty Culture is just one facet of Purity Culture, which is about sex - and a lot more than just sex. The Purity Myth really explains a lot about how it fits together.

My wife and I have personally had plenty of unpleasant experiences with both Modesty and Purity Cultures, starting with my wife’s thoroughly unpleasant time in Jonathan Lindvall’s cultic home group. It has been obvious from the beginning that there were three interconnected - indeed inseparable - facets to this issue. Namely, the division of women based on their sexuality and adherence to gender roles, an obsession with controlling females, and a rigid view of gender roles and gender hierarchy. They are all connected, and you really don’t find one without the others. Thus, you find an obsession with female virginity, a need to control how women dress, and the belief that women shouldn’t work outside the home. All of these stem back to viewing women as sub-human, perpetual children who cannot be trusted to make their own decisions, and this in need of male control.

This is the uncomfortable truth about religious teachings on sexuality. You cannot separate beliefs about sex from beliefs about gender - because the teachings on sexuality are based on the views about gender. To give but one example, I was shocked when, in my law school days, I re-read the Old Testament in light of what I had learned about the history of the English Common Law, and realized that the OT says precious little to restrict what MEN do. As long as they didn’t mess with another man’s property, or have sex with an equal, I mean other male, most other behavior is acceptable or at least tolerated with little comment: prostitutes, plural wives, concubines, rape, sexual enslavement, you name it. In contrast, just like the culture in which it was written, female sexuality was brutally punished. (Honestly, the NT is only marginally better. It too draws heavily from misogynist cultural beliefs in many ways, even as it occasionally pushes back against them. In both cases, a lot of what I was taught about what the bible says turned out to not actually be in there…) This is why the religious discussion about sex - see more below - makes little sense in our time. Once you remove the sexual double standard - and the open misogyny - from the discussion, you are missing the key point: the rules derive from the misogyny.

On to some specifics. These are roughly in the order in which they appear in the book, and are taken largely from our discussion.

One thing that struck me when I first started this book years ago, and I thoroughly agree with now, is that in our culture (particularly religious culture), morality for women is defined in terms of sexuality. That is, a woman is considered to be “moral” if she is a virgin on her wedding night. Otherwise, she is considered immoral. As Valenti puts it:

I was the...burgeoning feminist who knew that something was wrong with a world that could peg me as a bad person for sleeping with a high school boyfriend while ignoring my good heart, sense of humor, and intelligence. Didn’t the intricacies of my character count for anything? The answer, unfortunately, was no, they didn’t.

…

When young women are taught about morality, there’s not often talk of compassion, kindness, courage, or integrity. There is, however, a lot of talk about hymens: if we have them, when we’ll lose them, and under what circumstances we’ll be rid of them.

While boys are taught that the things that make them men - good men - are universally accepted ethical ideal, women are led to believe that our moral compass lies somewhere between our legs.

This is otherwise known as the double standard. Men are judged on more universal character traits (unless they are Republican politicians, apparently…), while women are judged on their sexual status. This is far too true. I have seen it at work in two different arenas.

The first is my professional experience. I can tell you that there is nobody as self-righteous and full of entitlement as a woman who was a virgin on her wedding night, who has faithfully adhered to gender roles ever since. Nobody. These are the women who feel that their chastity and submissiveness has entitled them to a certain level of financial support from a man, and who are furious when that man lets them down. (Even if he lost his job through no fault of his own…) They did their part, why can’t he do his? These are, undoubtedly, the second ugliest divorces I have done. (The worst was the pastor who was raping and abusing his wife. Horrible case, in which a divorce was a happy ending in every possible way for her.) The problem here, naturally, is that the woman judges her own morality by virginity and meeting gender expectations. She is the counterpart to the man who judges his morality by his wealth and income - aka meeting male gender expectations.

The second is more personal. Within my extended family, there are a few women who base their morality on these things. Their virginal status in the past, their adherence to gender roles (stay at home mom, particularly), and their conservative clothing choices. This, while behaving abominably to others, in some cases including their own children. The problem isn’t just them, but the fact that others give them a pass on abusive behavior because, well, they must be good because of how they do sex and gender roles. As long as they dressed modestly, didn't work outside the home, manipulated rather than said what they meant, they could get away with mean, abusive behavior and still be considered "good girls."

Particularly good in this section of the book is the acknowledgement that raunch culture and purity culture are actually the same thing, just with slightly different manifestations. I myself noted in the aftermath of our cult experiences that it turns out that many of the men involved were outright creeps. Obsession with female sexuality and a need to control can be expressed as sexual repression of others - or in rapey porn fantasies. Often both.

One amusing bit in that chapter involves how one counts sexual partners. After all, what “counts”? Is one still a virgin after _____ [insert act here] is apparently a question often asked. The author mentions a female friend, who didn't count it as sex unless she had an orgasm. Valenti notes that this way of counting isn’t likely to be popular with certain men - they won’t end up counting for many of their partners.

I also found Valenti to be spot on about the role of race in purity culture. Here in the US, sex is all about race. Protecting white girls from brown men has been a justification for everything from Jim Crow to lynchings. But of course, it was actually the white slave owners raping the brown women. Thus, the myth that non-whites (particularly African Americans) are hypersexual and out of control. So race plays a definite role in purity culture - which idealizes young white women.

I cannot say how much I love the acknowledgement that the "ideal woman" of the Purity Movement is a little girl. Not an actual woman, but an undeveloped, subhuman. Someone who is passive and unassertive and, well, little girly. Valenti mentions a lot about American culture, but, as a father with daughters who love Anime, it isn't just an American problem. The juvenilization of femininity is pretty disturbing. I myself preferred a grown up woman (even if she was barely 21 when I married her...) I have read and continue to read a lot of Victorian literature. The idea of the "innocent" girlish female is all to common. I think my experience in reading has made it easier to detect where Victorian sexism is endemic to modern discussions of "purity." In my Modesty Culture series, I pointed out that sexualization of children and young women was central to both our culture and Modesty Culture, and it is nice to see someone else noticed too.

I agree with Valenti that the cure for both the oversexualization of girls and the obsession with female virginity  is the training of girls to find their identity in non-sexual things: intelligence, compassion, making the world a better place. Things males are expected to do.

The chapter on Purity Balls and the like, while something I was already familiar with from my experience, was creepy to read about again. You want to take a shower afterward. And, the whole idea of my daughters making a promise to ME about their sexuality is so beyond creepy I don't even want to think about it. Yuck, yuck, yuck!

The chapter on porn is interesting. This isn't my area of expertise, although I have professionally run across plenty of men with unrealistic ideas of women. I am not qualified to speak about whether this is due to internet porn, or if it is a longstanding problem not particularly connected to that. What I can say is that Valenti nails how Fundies talk about porn. They seem to either go for some ludicrous non-mainstream thing, or go ape-shit over...really mild stuff. This whole conflation of anything realistically sexual with porn is (in my view) self defeating. I recall from my own childhood people freaking out over classical art...nudes, yo. This ruins credibility over legitimate issues, such as misogyny that Valenti says is rampant in most mainstream porn.

I too hate the false dichotomy of either phallocentric smut or denying female sexuality.

I concur that Fundies really get their panties in a wad whenever female-controlled pleasure comes into view. Some Fundies do not appear to believe that "normal" females masturbate - which is denialism for sure. I think there is a general suspicion of the idea that women are actually sexual (at least good women - and white women too...right?) I see this too in the opposition to female-controlled birth control.

If I were to mention one significant paradigm change I experienced after I started dating my wife, it was that the Fundie teaching about female sexuality was bullshit on a stick, and that many (most?) women were highly sexual, and the canard of "women trade sex for love" was a male fantasy, not representative or reality.

Moving on to the next topic, I ran across something that was VERY typical of the Fundie teachings I know: the idea that girls won't want sex if they are getting affection from their fathers. I have heard this so many times, and it just feels so gross. I have three daughters (two of whom are decidedly post-puberty), and whatever else they need from me - and I have a good relationship with them! - they are most certainly NOT looking for a quasi-sexual something or another. A substitute for sex? Holy shit that is creepy as hell! And yet, I grew up in this mindset!

In the chapter on “Abstinence Education,” I was reminded of some research I did a few years back. I ran across actual curriculum - used in public schools! - and it was retrograde in a way that would have embarrassed my own parents. Good lord. A bunch of Victorian gender essentialism (“most women want to get married, have children, and let their husbands work”???) and heavy pushing of 1950s gender roles.

At this point, I do want to say really good things about my parents, who gave me generally accurate sex ed, and were always available for questions. I disagree with some of what they said, but I was not lied to like many fellow Fundies. There were a few things that I found out later didn’t apply as universally to all women as much as they did to my mom. Which, fair enough, her experience and feelings. Also, I was never given the "men can't help themselves" thing AT ALL. I always felt responsibility was on me as much as on women.

The chapter on abortion and birth control was interesting. Full disclosure. I am not a fan of abortion. But. But I really soured on the “pro-life” movement when big names filed amicus briefs in the Hobby Lobby case (Gothardites!) essentially opposing ALL female-controlled birth control. At that point, it became clear to me that this had nothing to do with actually ending abortion, and everything to do with punishing women for failing to attain “purity.” Which meant quiverfull and staying at home rather than working.

While I find this chapter to be a bit much in some ways - as I said, I am uncomfortable with abortion - it has turned out to be less alarmist than I would have thought before the last few years. She was ahead of the curve on this one. It is pretty scary. Particularly the bits about that proposed law criminalizing women who don’t promptly report miscarriages to the police. Imagine how that would work.

The chapter on rape was really good. One of the side effects of working in family law - and that means domestic violence cases too - is seeing the really ugly side of marital rape. (I mentioned that above. One quibble I have with Valenti on this issue is her tendency to see an increase in sexual assault. The better explanation is that in the last half century, sexual assaults have been prosecuted, which has led to more being reported. I am unaware of any reputable researcher who believes sexual assaults are on the rise. Rather, the consensus is that most were never reported - for the reasons Valenti outlines. Particularly non-white victims of white rapists. Just as one example, when my mom was an LVN before I was born, nurses tried to keep one hand free to swat away the groping from doctors. My wife would never put up with that - because she has other options my mom didn’t. On a related note, #metoo doesn’t reflect an increase in assaults. It reflects a change in culture, where nobody should have to fuck Harvey Weinstein to get a job.

Very interesting in this context for me personally is my law school experience. We had to study rape in our first year as part of Criminal Law. And got to read all the old cases arguing about how pure a woman had to be before it was “real” rape, and just how much “penetration” was necessary to be rape rather than assault. Sigh. It was pretty bad.

One more thing in this context. I have copied the thread of a conversation on a (now private) Facebook page devoted to Theonomic Reconstructionism that is both fascinating and horrifying. The discussion was on the OT laws regarding rape, and a few of the die hards (one of whom appeared to be a woman) were arguing that it wasn’t rape if you forced sex on a widow or divorcee. After all, the crime was not one of violence, but a property violation. Rape destroyed her economic value, and once that was gone, well, no crime… I’ll probably use it as a blog post someday.

The chapter on toxic masculinity was also good. The definition of masculinity as "not female" is seriously pernicious and widespread. It permeates the culture.

One of the most laughable things in this book is the seemingly ubiquitous quote from the various "purity" pushers: "Who will want me now that I've had sex?" Since the WWII generation, north of 80% - including females - have had sex before marriage. And I believe that it was pretty common during the 1920s too. (Or if you want to look back further to the Puritan era, a LOT of pregnant brides...) Seriously, last I checked, non-virgins have been getting married right and left for...well...since we ended arranged marriages. (And that's women. I strongly suspect male virgins have been as rare as unicorns since the dawn of the concept of marriage.) One has to wonder if the purity people get out much these days. For those under, say, age 80, most guys DON'T CARE. (And, in my professional experience, the ones who do tend to be controlling creeps.)

[Interesting case in point here: Josh Harris. As in, the author of I Kissed Dating Goodbye. As in, the demigod of the “courtship” movement. His wife had a sexual history. (I wouldn’t mention it if he hadn’t already gone public - in a freaking book - with the information.) And you know what? I bet that is the least important thing about her. To Josh’s credit, of all the Patriarchist figures, he is the only one I know who has actually admitted he was wrong, and is working to apologise to those he hurt.]

I laugh when I hear "Your virginity is the greatest gift you can give your husband." Really? Because if that is the best you have, I want a refund! But of course, my wife's virginity wasn't anywhere near the best of what she gave me. And gives me, every day. The whole idea only makes sense if you think of women as property. Buy new, not used.

Pretty hilarious too that there is all this moral panic. Millennials have first intercourse several years later, and will have fewer average partners than the Baby Boomers. And less teen pregnancy. Fewer STIs. So....this really is more about women not "knowing their place," isn't it? Things weren’t “better” in the good old days - but women sure are stepping outside their gender-role cages these days.

I really love the idea of female sexual self determination. And the idea that female pleasure matters. So many are terrified about a world where women have the same sexual self determination as men. Ha. I have lived that world for 17 years, and it is actually fantastic. At least with the right partner.

Lots more to say. This is one of the biggest flash points of our generation, as much of the world is transitioning to a view of women as equal - and equally entitled to decide what they do with their genitals (something men have had since the dawn of human history…) To a large degree, our Culture Wars™ are very much about whether we preserve the toxic injustices toward women from the past - or not.

One final quote here comes at the end of the book. It kind of sums up the message. For those of us who are feminists, and believe that women should indeed have political, economic, and social equality with men, it really rings true. Valenti gives brief stories of several younger women who are doing amazing things in the world, and finishes with this.

These are the kinds of women who make up America - diverse, engaged, smart, interesting, moral agents of change. Take a look at the work these young women and others are doing. Now tell me it matters whether they’re virgins or not (it doesn’t), or that their contributions to society have anything to do with their sexuality (they don’t). So let’s use these examples of amazing young women to remind ourselves why we’re fighting to end the purity myth - a myth that denies our value as whole human beings - and move forward with their work in mind. And let’s spread this message about all young women across the country: that we’re more than the sum of our sexual parts, that our ability to be moral and good people has to do with our kindness, compassion, and social engagement - not our bodies - and that we won’t accept any less for any longer.

***

This is not an argument for promiscuity. And certainly not an argument for using sex selfishly. Rather, Valenti argues - and I agree - that whether one has had sex, and with how many people is far less relevant than how one acts sexually. Is our sexual expression loving? Or does it express dominance over others, violence, or dehumanization? (Hello, Doug Wilson…) But if your sexual teachings are based on misogyny, you end up saying stuff like a woman seeking consensual sex is the same as a male rapist. (Hello, John Piper…) If a woman has had consensual sex with a few partners before she marries, that sure seems to be a low level fault at worst. In contrast, “grab ‘em by the pussy” is a serious indication of bad character. Not to mention a crime. Some of us are having a really hard time taking seriously the pearl clutching of a religious tradition that obsesses about the former, while giving a total pass to the latter. Just saying. Or a tradition that seems just fine with voting the Ku Klux Klan into office, while waging jihad against LGBTQ people. Remember that when you clutch your pearls over why young people reject church teachings on sexuality…