Sex Positivity As Fundamentalism

Why it's not enough to just reject purity culture--we must also reject the rigid black-and-white mindset behind it.

For the past few years, I’ve been grappling with something that’s been on my mind: how common it is for those who have experienced deconstruction to adopt new beliefs, but still retain the black and white worldview from their previous lives in toxic or high control faith.

For many of us, this shows up in how we discuss sexual ethics and the damaging legacy of purity culture.

It’s a topic I’ve thought about deeply, and yet I’ve hesitated to write about it. But lately, I’ve come to realize that the conversation needs to happen, and I can’t keep putting it off. So here we are.

Is There One Right View On Pre-Marital Sex?

When people think about leaving purity culture and reframing views on sexuality, there's a tendency to assume that there’s one right place to land after deconstructing harmful beliefs on sexuality.

The idea seems to be that once you've broken free from the restrictive, fear-based, rules about sex, there’s a new set of rules waiting for you—rules that might look more progressive, more open-minded, or even more permissive, but rules all the same.

I’ll never forget a conversation I had with a woman I once knew. She said something that left my jaw on the floor—she said that she would tell her daughter that she had to have sex before ever considering marriage with someone to ensure sexual compatibility and that this person’s approach to sex was healthy and respectful.

On the surface, this sounds like a good argument. Particularly for those among us who have experienced sexually abusive marriages that began in environments that embraced purity culture. By rejecting the rules for sexual expectations found in purity culture, and replacing them with a new list of expectations, it absolutely can feel like a safe approach.

However, looks can be deceiving.

This argument, compelling as it was to this woman, was that to protect her child from a potentially bad marriage, her job as a parent was to rob her daughter of the ability to come to her own convictions about sex and marriage by teaching her that she must have sex prior to marriage. This approach can only serve to remove her child’s bodily autonomy to choose when she could have sex and with whom.

To this woman, experiencing sex outside of marriage is the only way to ensure her child wouldn’t be dominated by religious or societal expectations. It’s a perfectly understandable perspective. But it is also a deeply problematic one. The irony was lost on her that she had merely replaced one culture’s expectations for her daughter’s sexuality with her own.

For those of us who grew up within purity culture, we were taught to wait, largely, out of concern for our safety. Our parents, teachers, church leaders, etc… wanted to protect us from unplanned pregnancies, STDs, and what our culture believed to be sin. Some adults in that world even believed in so-called soul ties (many still do!), and from the perspective of their lived experiences and beliefs, they were protecting the purity of our souls as well as our bodies.

The beliefs may have differed, but the starting and end points looked quite similar. Protection and control.

Control, by any other name, is still control

It doesn’t matter whether you tell someone they can’t have sex before marriage or that they have to have sex before marriage—both of those statements are problematic. They’re both still trying to control someone’s bodily agency. And whether you’re bound by the rules of purity culture or by the idea that sexual exploration is a “must” to be free, you’re still robbing people of their ability to make those decisions for themselves.

Not only that, but this mindset creates a new kind of dogmatic purity test: good, safe, and healthy people must believe _____ about sex prior to marriage. If someone has done the work to examine their beliefs and still land in a place where they personally believe that sex, for them, is best saved for marriage, that person will be seen as part of the problem. Worse, they’re likely be labeled as endorsing a kind of purity culture light.

When we leave behind the oppressive dogmas of purity culture, the goal should not be to replace one set of rules with another. Instead, we need to focus on fostering a culture of curiosity and learning.

What Can We Teach The Next Generation?

We can teach kids what a healthy sexual relationship looks like. We can teach them what safe sex is and how they can acquire protection or reach out for help if they need it.

Regardless of whether or not the next generation grows up to adopt beliefs about saving sex for marriage, they will need to know these things. Understanding safe sexuality will help to empower them to make good and healthy choices for their bodies and their relationships. Creating an environment where kids are free to ask questions and discuss sex and relationships also helps to ensure that, if they should ever need help, they will feel more comfortable reaching out.

We can teach kids our own personal beliefs about sexuality and how we arrived at our conclusions. We can teach them how to think critically and ask good questions so that they can do the work to arrive at their own convictions.

In addition to all of this, we also need to foster a culture of autonomy—a space where people are encouraged to listen to their own bodies, desires, and boundaries, without feeling like they have to conform to some prescribed path. Autonomy, in this context, means the freedom to explore, to question, to change your mind, and, most importantly, to make decisions about your sexuality without shame or judgment.

Deconstruction Isn’t About Exchanging One Set of Rules For Another

As I think back to the woman I spoke with, I realize that her intention wasn’t terrible or bad. She thought she was doing something great by encouraging her daughter to have sex before marriage. But in reality, she was simply swapping one cage for another. Her idea of “freedom” was just another kind of control, and it left no room for personal exploration or for a person to decide for themselves when—or if—they want to engage in sex. It ignored the reality that sexual autonomy is about choice, not about doing things because you’re told you have to.

At the end of the day, what we need is a space where people can explore their sexuality without fear of shame, guilt, or pressure—whether that’s choosing to remain celibate, waiting for marriage, or whether it’s choosing to pursue a sexual relationship with a trusted someone prior to marriage. The point isn’t to replace one form of policing with another, but to encourage one another to pursue what is good, healthy, and in keeping with personally held ethics. How that plays out is going to look very different from one person to another.

In the end, deconstruction isn’t about finding a new set of rules. It’s about claiming the space and the freedom to make decisions about our bodies based on our own beliefs, desires, and needs—without interference from outside forces, whether they be religious, societal, or even the well-meaning but misguided advice from people who still want to tell you what’s best for you.

One last thought: those of us deconstructing from fundamentalist worldviews where black-and-white thinking was encouraged, particularly around sexuality, are particularly vulnerable to being triggered in conversations about sexual ethics.

Hearing that someone has a personally held belief to save sex for marriage can bring up old feelings of shame linked to our purity culture trauma (which are very real and valid). This is where we need to be mindful that when someone else’s personal sexual ethics differ from our own in ways that make us feel uncomfortable, it is upon us to get curious about that and to manage our own feelings rather than try to create a new system of rules or project shame on others for holding different values.

Some people believe sex to be a sacred act meant only for marriage. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this belief.

Some people believe they have freedom to have sexual relationships, in a consensual and ethical manner, prior to marriage. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this belief either.

It’s when we decide that our sexual values are the only ones with merit, and we attempt to force these beliefs on others through fear or shame-based methods that we have crossed a very big line and are, in fact, the ones causing harm.

We have to be mindful, as we deconstruct, that we aren’t switching one form of fundamentalism for another, even if it’s dressed up in progressive clothing.

So, as we continue to deconstruct and evolve, let’s not forget that true sexual liberation is about autonomy. And autonomy means no one gets to tell you what to do with your body—not purity culture, not progressive ideologies, and certainly not anyone else’s opinions on what your sexual journey should look like.

It’s your body, your life, and your choice.