Unraveling Catholic Purity Culture, Part 5: Male Desire as Metric

When mutuality goes out the window

Welcome, new subscribers! I’m very moved how many of you have chosen both free and paid subscriptions over the past couple of months. This newsletter is growing rapidly, which is also increasing my sense of responsibility in offering you thorough and thoughtful pieces.

For those who are catching up, this series is on the “purity culture” movement that dominated evangelicalism in the past few decades, and made its way into Catholicism as well. I find it crucial to the future of chastity and sexual education in the Church to revisit the lies that purity culture told us, even coming from those who are trustworthy and have good intentions. I’ve put this series behind a paywall because I offer criticisms that I don’t want easily accessible on the internet, where they can be easily misconstrued, and also because this series is a result of a lot of study and research on my part in preparation for a potential book. For those who want to dive into the conversation, I look forward to hearing your thoughts!

A common metaphor for how purity culture encouraged us to approach sexuality is that of a “light switch:” that sexuality is something we were supposed to have “switched off” until marriage, when we can then “switch” both desire and activity “on.” I know many people who have experienced this feeling viscerally—that not just sex, but the reality of being a sexual being is reserved for marriage. The pressure of the “light switch” is also capitulated by the imperative that how blissful your marital sexual experience will be is dependent on how well you were switched “off” before marriage. Those who have struggled or fallen sexually before marriage, in turn, are relegated to a second-tier of marital happiness, permanently damaged by their pasts. In fact, over half (61%) of women responding to my survey either previously or currently held this belief.

The “light switch” mentality is not only incredibly damaging, but it’s also been hard for me to determine why I find it so problematic. I think I finally realized why: it is almost entirely centered on the experience of men.